‘My baby’s birth was capital T traumatic’: Madeleine West says she ‘felt her C-section’

After giving birth to her seventh child, Madeleine West explains how she ‘felt her C-section’ and experienced ‘an utter loss of control’.

Can we have a little chat about birth trauma? Might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but given everyone here either came from a womb or has one, it’s far from irrelevant.

And it’s the last thing expectant parents consider when the big day – birth day – arrives.

They wade into the trenches, ideal birth plan clutched to their chest, whale songs and Enya on Spotify, and a bag of barley sugars, incense and hope slung over one shoulder.

My most recent birth plan was pretty matter-of-fact. Baby number seven, this was by design a no-frills affair. I’m not jaded, but I’ve come to respect that birth rarely goes to plan.

Babies play by their own rules and our only job is getting them safely earthside.

But this time, everything slid sideways in the most unexpected fashion.

‘I’ve never felt pain on that scale.’ Madeleine West has opened up about giving birth to her seventh child, in an exclusive column for Stellar. Picture: Christopher Ferguson for Stellar

My baby’s birth was capital T traumatic. I still choke up talking about it. But talk we must, because when things go pear-shaped – like so many scarring events we experience in life – by pretending it didn’t happen, or downplaying it, we don’t do ourselves any favours.

Like many, I underwent a Caesarean section. Not because I’m “too posh to push”, rather because I have what my nan referred to as snake hips, and I’m too wise this late in the game to run any risks experimenting with alternatives.

Yet this time the routine epidural didn’t land right. As a consequence, I felt the procedure. Once a Caesar is underway, it’s too late to sit a patient up and start over. The only option was to be knocked out, and I refused. I had to be present for my baby’s first breath.

No-one is to blame. These things do happen. I made my choice.

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I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say I’ve never felt pain on that scale – which is saying something from someone who has been hit in the head by a bus.

Between passing out, gritting my teeth, and dropping the odd F-bomb, I did my best to make it appear tolerable to avoid sedation.

Immediately my body went into shock. Organs started to fail, and I swelled to Michelin Man proportions with extreme oedema.

But my mind proved hardest to wrangle. It replayed the sensations on an endless loop, and tries to still, striving to make sense of the incomprehensible.

I felt guilty. Had I somehow prompted this to happen? Did I exercise too much? Did I eat something wrong? Was it because I dared to proceed despite my “geriatric” age?

Pointless musings I know, but so was my mind screaming: “this isn’t supposed to happen!”

I delivered a healthy, gorgeous bub, but my little one’s arrival was tarnished by pain and an utter loss of control.

‘I do believe as women and mums-to-be we are sold a myth as to how birth should be.’ Picture: Christopher Ferguson for Stellar

I do believe as women and mums-to-be we are sold a myth as to how birth “should” be, thanks to the tsunami of maternity inspo clogging up our social media feeds and unrealistic, almost erotic representations of birth on our screens.

As a result, if we don’t achieve calm birth perfection, complete with unicorns and stardust beneath a full moon, we are left feeling we have somehow failed.

But sometimes birthing goes wrong. More often than not it will deviate from your plan, and some of us come out on the other side and promptly chuck the whale song soundtrack, the “calm birth” guide and any illusions about what constitutes a perfect birth in the bin.

What lingers is the shame. And that lasts longer than scars and cracked nipples.

If you achieved the perfect water birth, a seamless transition to breastfeeding, your bub sleeping through the night by six weeks old, and sliding back into your skinny jeans after three months – then go you! Amazing.

But if you didn’t, does than make your experience of birth or early motherhood any less valid?

All too often we mums feel it does. Hence we avoid the topic, confess our experience with eyes downcast, or pretend it was different to how it actually played out. Is it any wonder post-natal depression is such an issue?

I’m an old fart now and it’s not my first rodeo, but in my opinion birth trauma is not discussed nearly enough.

So many of us are carrying around scars both physical and psychological precisely because we never took the time to treat the wound.

When the prevailing advice from our nearest and dearest is “she’ll be right”, it’s hard to open up about how we really feel. Also, when sharing your story is met with overblown rhetoric like: “I was shearing the sheep when my waters broke, but I kept at it, went home to whip up a roast, slapped on some lippy and delivered in the bathtub.”

Urban legends never reassure anyone, they just add to the sense of failure.

Bringing babies into the world is not a competitive sport. No one does it best, we just do it, as we have since the dawn of mankind.

I hope more of us can learn to own our unique experience with pride. No matter what the outcome or how far it veered off our desired course, the act of giving birth is still one of the riskiest, most arduous, thrilling and indescribable undertakings the human body will ever endure. What a miracle to play our part in the timeless cycle of ushering in new life.

Why judge a journey by the means we got there, when all that matters is that we arrive?

Why am I speaking out? Because sharing my story hurts a little less every time I do.

I’ll never say, “I wouldn’t change a thing.” But when I step back and see the whole picture – a dramatic final act in an otherwise uneventful pregnancy – I choose instead to be grateful.

As my organs heal, the swelling subsides, and the physical pain fades, I remind myself what it brought me: my beautiful little one, sleeping peacefully in my arms as I type.

And that I wouldn’t miss for the world.

For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here. Find the latest issue of Stellar inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).

Originally published as ‘My baby’s birth was capital T traumatic’: Madeleine West says she ‘felt her C-section’