Back in my carefree childless days—we’re talking a couple decades ago, because I’m a Geriatric Millennial and an older first-time mom (a.k.a. an advanced maternal)—my girlfriends who had children were a little bit of a mystery to me.
Not unlike an international student studying abroad, when I was in their world, I didn’t quite speak the language. I didn’t understand their customs (day drinking “mom juice” in a Yeti tumbler at the park on a sunny afternoon) or their norms (in bed by 9 p.m.).
Their lives were different than mine. And while some things got lost in translation, we all forged ahead, maintaining the friendship.
It wasn’t until I got pregnant at 41 that I realized my girlfriends had been keeping things from me. Maybe it wasn’t a conspiracy of silence so much as a loving omission–the kind of protective instinct that keeps you from telling someone exactly how much a tattoo hurts until they’re already under the needle.
Now that my offspring is trotting off to pre-K, I think it’s time I reveal the truth.
There’s one thing in particular your girlfriends with kids never tell you before you become a parent yourself: the raw, unfiltered reality of birth stories. Because if they did, we might think twice about the whole endeavor. Today, I’m focusing on birth stories (stay tuned for my next post about the toddler years—there’s a reason moms seem to have selective amnesia about ages 1-3).
Birth Stories: The Secret Club
Every mom’s got one. Labor and delivery. Scheduled c-section. Emergency c-section. Labor that culminates in a c-section. Birthing plans chucked out the window.
These birth stories are beautiful and horrifying. They are dramatic and often funny. And they are, above all, vivid in their attention to detail.
Who can blame these women? Giving birth is one of, if not, the most extraordinary moments in life.
Because it can also be one of the most traumatic, your brain might not let you stop reliving every detail. The waiting becomes endless. The plans you made feel laughably naive. The emotions hit you like a freight train you never saw coming.
After giving birth via emergency c-section one week before the scheduled c-section because the little human wanted out and I went into labor, the strangest phenomenon happened. Every woman in my life—and I mean every one of them—opened up and told me their birth stories.
It was a secret club, and I had gained admission.
As I listened to them talk about what had happened to their bodies, I realized they wanted me to reciprocate. Their words enveloped me like a weighted blanket, helping me make sense of what had happened. But more than that, I understood why they’d stayed quiet before—they were protecting me from the knowledge that could have kept me paralyzed with fear instead of moving forward with joy.
And for those of us who were pregnant after 35, the birth stories struck a particular chord. High-risk pregnancies lead to high-risk births, and the older we get, the more we understand that not everything goes according to plan.
While each birth story is certainly unique and memorable, the hallmarks of a birth story generally all include four elements:
- Scene-setting
- The actual birth, cliff notes version
- How the medical establishment treated you
- One thing you relished after
One of my co-workers described her kiddo’s emergency c-section like a suspense-filled summer blockbuster action flick. Another girlfriend shared how she applied her leadership skills to convince the labor and delivery unit team to allow her the natural birth plan she wanted (think: full boss mom).
A mentor uses her birth story as a way to raise awareness about the Black maternal mortality rates (spoiler: the medical establishment did not treat her well and she almost died).
An aunt told me, in incredible detail, the song she was listening to and the direction the wind was blowing the night she went into labor.
Many women savor the memories of retelling how a partner/spouse/nurse smuggled a greasy cheeseburger into their hospital room, postpartum.
And everyone—and I mean, everyone—gushes about the mesh underwear. (Seriously. Whoever manufactures the postpartum mesh undies for new moms is really missing out by limiting their distribution to hospitals. These would sell like hot cakes.)
My Birth Story
The more birth stories I heard, the more practice I gained at sharing my own story.
Almost a week to the day before my scheduled c-section surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling a little indigestion. Not uncommon at this point in the pregnancy. I was a seasoned pro at navigating constipation, gas, and nausea, often all in the same 24-hour period.
We lived in a turn-of-the-century two story home, the bedrooms on the upper floor. Around 12:30 a.m. that morning, I tiptoed out of bed and down the stairs, unable to sleep because I either needed to massively poop or let one rip. Out of kindness to my partner, I headed downstairs to the sofa.
The Law & Order Stage
And in classic Elder Millennial fashion, I turned on the t.v. and started streaming Law & Order: SVU. Before there were true crime podcasts, there was Olivia Benson.
Yep. The night my child was born, I spent more hours rewatching episodes of SVU than I did actually giving birth.
A couple of hours into an SVU-marathon, I ran to the bathroom. I mean, ran. I almost couldn’t hold it.
Once I peed and returned to the interrogation (get him Detective Stabler), I felt the urge to go again. This wasn’t entirely unusual at this stage of pregnancy, where I felt like I was peeing constantly, but something felt … different.
So, this went on for another 30 minutes and several trips to the bathroom. After what felt like my seventh trip, I woke up my spouse and casually explained what was happening. I thought it was so weird that I had to pee so much.
To his credit, he woke up quickly and kept calm while grabbing my hospital bag and suggesting we head in to have them check things out.
When I Realized it was Real
Twenty minutes later, still thinking about how Benson and Stabler achieved such high success rates, only once I was strapped to a monitor, did I really feel the contractions. Another 17 minutes later—they moved fast—I was in the OR, being prepped for surgery.
The kiddo was breech. Had been the entire third trimester. My scheduled c-section became an emergency c-section, and suddenly all those carefully laid plans felt like someone else’s fantasy.
Though they cautioned me not to worry if the baby didn’t cry when they pulled him out, the second I heard his powerful lungs, angrily shouting his arrival to the world, I wept uncontrollably.
Then, I vomited.
Like for the next 20 hours.
The Recovery Reality
The combination of the anesthesia and the smell of blood (and my brain replaying the details) caused me to throw up constantly, for nearly a day. And the worst part was they kept moving me on a bed on wheels and they would only move me once the newborn was placed in my arms on my chest.
The recovery was rough. I had lost a lot of blood. There were transfusions. An IV collapsed.
The Nurse and the Undies
Once I was out of the woods and able to keep solid food down, I was visited by two lactation specialists, the good witch of the north and the wicked witch. I asked if I could only work with Glinda going forward.
And then, a mom and baby nurse helped me try to walk and use the bathroom. She was incredible. I mean. Upper body strength? Check. Supportive yet empowering tone? Check, check. Olympic champion gross-out tolerance threshold? Check, check, check. She had surely seen it all and was not phased.
So, it was only fitting that she gave me my first pair of the canonized postpartum mesh undies.
What This All Means
There are things you can only understand once you’ve been there. And once you have, you’ll find yourself whispering the truth to someone else. Probably while wearing mesh underwear.
Some moms never feel comfortable sharing their birth story, and that’s okay. I tend to share little details (who doesn’t love Olivia Benson?), rather than dwell on the scary moments.
And whatever you want to share (or not) is perfect.
But here’s what I want you to know: if you’re on the other side of this experience, reading birth stories like mine, you’re not alone in feeling overwhelmed, scared, or even a little traumatized. The sisterhood of motherhood exists precisely because we need each other to make sense of these experiences that can’t be fully explained until you live them.
Your friends kept quiet not because they wanted to deceive you, but because they wanted to protect the joy and anticipation that comes with expecting a baby. Now that you’re here, in the mesh underwear club, you get to decide what truths you share and when. The most important thing is knowing you’re part of something bigger: a network of women who understand exactly what you’ve been through.
Stay Tuned: Part Two on the Toddler Years
Come back for part two where we’ll talk about “the toddler years” and the stories that my mom friends never told me before I had kids.
Sneak preview: upon seeing what I was going through with my 18-month-old petri dish, one mom friend whose grown children were in high school and college casually told me, “Honestly, I must have blacked out during those years and forgotten them as soon as I was through it.”
Turns out, selective amnesia might be an evolutionary survival mechanism.