MÈRE Stories: Meg Burrell | Part 2
“When are you having a third?!”
April is National C-Section Awareness Month.
As a mom who wouldn’t be here without caesarean delivery, I’m so thankful for the medical intervention that got my children here safely—while protecting me too.
But also, as someone who prepped for a different kind of birth, then labored hard for 36 hours… ending up in an emergent c-section felt a lot like a failure. I hemorrhaged during my surgery and don’t have a great memory of the first moments with my daughter as the OR shifted from calm & chatty to intense & hectic as orders were shouted to push meds that would stop my hemorrhage. The first time I attempted feeding, I was also receiving a blood transfusion.
I never really considered that my birth was traumatic. I had a healthy baby. I walked away.
Unknowingly, I was just beginning what would be a 5+ year journey to get to the bottom of an underlying syndrome that contributed to both my pregnancy AND delivery experiences.
Hearing “Pregnancy is painful!” made me want to scream. I feel confident that pregnancy discomfort is routine or common, however—not being able to move or sit or lay down without significant pain simply is not normal.
I was told over and over and over that pain is a routine part of pregnancy and that [direct quote], “no one is pregnant forever!”. Lucky me, right?
This narrative, from providers that I deeply trusted, that ALL my symptoms were attributed to pregnancy was so harmful as I made a life altering decision about my fertility without having an actual diagnosis on the root cause of my chronic pain.
After feeling belittled & dismissed in communicating debilitating pain that worsened significantly as my first pregnancy progressed, I chose to switch OBGYN providers when I learned of my second pregnancy.
With my daughter, the pain kicked up in my 2nd trimester. It never fully resolved (as I was counseled it would).
With my son—it was almost immediate. This go around, I advocated early and felt a little more seen. The working diagnosis was generalized nerve pain and I was prescribed a drug that required monitoring by an MFM.
I felt like such a wimp. And I felt so guilty for needing a drug that was deemed “potentially dangerous” to my unborn son. Managing regular OB visits + MFM visits + a 1 year old at home all during high Covid times was…special.
As most c-sections moms will be aware, as you approach due date there are lots of conversations around how consecutive deliveries will go. Because of my first birth ending in an emergent exit, the complication of hemorrhage, and our son measuring WAY ahead, I wasn’t a good candidate to try for a VBAC.
I held that news a lot more open handedly knowing the increased risk, but—to this day—I feel a bit like I’ve missed out on a womanly rite of passage with a vaginal birth.
Was it the right call, sure. Am I still allowed to feel sad, also yes.
The part of my story I always skirt around comes next:
I was advised by the OB, who was my biggest advocate through my second pregnancy, that I should add a BTL (bilateral tubal ligation) to my planned c-section. She told me that my body likely couldn’t handle a 3rd pregnancy and that it would be best to proceed with having my tubes removed to ensure that didn’t occur.
That news was devastating.
I was 26.
Watching so many close friends have beautiful, complication-free pregnancies made me hopeful that maybe…if we figured out what was wrong with me…I could have one too. But I was so miserable and so overwhelmed and in so much pain, I made the call.
So, on the morning of September 15th, 2021—my son was born and my childbearing season ended. All in one OR.
In the months and years after my son was born, the chronic pain I experienced during pregnancy didn’t resolve. To my dismay, it kept getting worse. But, it was a pregnancy symptom???
Fast forward through a few misdiagnoses… and we’ve, finally, landed on a diagnosis of Elhers-Danos Syndrome. Post a full reconstruction of my left hip, I also finally have definitive answers to my 5+ years of chronic pain. You can read more about my journey to this realization & subsequent surgery HERE.
My hindsight realization is that I made a permanent decision about the possibility of growing our family thinking that I was just “bad” at being pregnant.
And to put it plainly, that sucks.
The truth is that I have a connective tissue syndrome that caused me to lose stability in my joints with the production of relaxin during pregancy—Not that my body just “couldn’t handle it”.
I have what if-ed myself 1000s of times in the last 3.5 years. What if I knew ahead of time? What if there was more I could have done to prepare? What if, after surgery, I could have had a less painful pregnancy??? What if, what if, what if.
So, the question up top: When am I having a third?
Well, I can’t.
Through a lot of therapy, I’ve come to terms with the feelings that I made really big decisions all out of order. That, with a deeper understanding of EDS, additional pregnancies would have still been difficult. That, although I feel like a lot of my autonomy was taken away by making uninformed decisions, the ultimate outcome is for the best. That our family of 4 is my biggest accomplishment & the most important job I ever have the privilege of showing up for.
That all of these sentences can be true and I can still hold space for sadness about my experience and grief for what I imagined pregnancy to be.
“Caesarean deliveries occur for all sorts of reasons, in my case—There’s a much bigger story that my pregnancies (& deliveries!) were the beginning of. There’s often trauma around perceptions of labor and the realities that become necessary through lived experiences. It’s a lot to hold. A lot to process. And regardless of health of mother or baby(ies) there is room to acknowledge complex feelings surrounding any pregnancy or birth experience.”
— Meg Burrell