NOT A FAILURE
I gave birth 10 weeks early, via emergency c-section under general anaesthesia, in a fluorescent-lit OR, after spending weeks in hospital with a failing placenta and on several medications. My premature baby started her life with drugs, bright lights, loud noises, unfamiliar voices, trauma, illness, needles and receiving no body contact or breast milk.
I prepared and prayed for a healthy, natural and full-term pregnancy, a natural, drug- and stress-free waterbirth at home, nursing my newborn in my arms.
As I dealt with the pain of my c-section, I also had to deal with emotional pain. I have missed all my pregnancy and birth goals, and my baby was suffering.
I thought I had failed as a mother.
But as my baby was growing, my eyes opened up to new areas of being a mother, other than just being pregnant and giving birth. I realised that being a good mother can also mean loving your baby, breastfeeding, reading up about the needs of premature babies, or ensuring your baby is healthy, developing, protected and provided for. I realised that my success as a mother didn’t end with how well my pregnancy and birth went. I look at my baby, and I see all the possibilities the future holds with her – how she will have a conversation with me, hug and kiss me, laugh with me, how I will develop and guide her into the person she is meant to be and how through her we will leave a legacy. I see all these possibilities and realise that it all started with the pregnancy and birthing of a new life. How well or terrible that pregnancy or birth might have been suddenly matters so little in the face of the greatness that lies ahead. NADIA VAN DER MERWE
RICHARDS BAY, KWAZULU-NATAL