I met a woman in her 30s on a stroll, I joined them on their way home from the park. I asked, ”Tell me about a risk you’ve taken.”  ”The riskiest thing I’ve ever done was having a child,” she said, pointing to the stroller. Then she began to tell her birth story:

I was going to have my first child, and like many others, I had thoughts and expectations around my first birth. I should trust the indigenous woman in me and chose not to do research and avoided other people’s birth stories in order not to hear all the horror stories. Women has been having children for thousands of years, why wouldn’t I make it? My job was to play alongside my body and let it do the job for which it’s made. I had a romantic thought about a natural birth and a dream of a first meeting with my new family with the baby on my chest. I did not know that my dreams were going to turn into a nightmare.

It was approaching my term, and two days before the due date, I felt something was going on. I went to the hospital for my last check-up and I had high blood pressure confirmed. I was placed under observation, and when my blood pressure went down in the evening, they decided to get the birth started. I did not feel ready. They put in a balloon to start the birth – later they took my water. Everything was very painful. Thousand thoughts buzzed in my head that I should have been followed my gut feeling, because it turned out that the child wasn’t ready either. In the end, the people who’s in charge, entered the room – and with harsh, short words without any compassion, they uttered my greatest fear: ”There must be a caesarean section.”

Then I got a long syringe in my back. I way laying on a cold, hard bed paralyzed from the neck down, like Jesus on the cross, waiting for my destiny, the child. Outside my own body, as a bystander to my own birth. The dream of a hot child lying on my chest turned into a glimpse of my child in the corner of my eye, as the hospital staff carried my child out of the operating room. It was time for my surgery.

My husband was told to undress on his chest, then he got a tube top and they placed the baby into his chest since body contact is so important. He didn’t get a room, even though this was in the middle of the night. They put him in the cafeteria. In the flashing light of the fridge from Tine, he sat and waited for hours – scared and insecure, without getting any information about me or knowing how I was doing.

When I had finished the surgery and finally got reunited with my new family, everything was about boobs and breastfeeding. It was so brutal, they just dragged and pulled my body around. Isn’t it ironic: when you’re pregnant, you’re hailed and treated like a GODDESS. Whereas the moment you’ve given birth, you’re supposed to hide. Everything after childbirth is referred to as ugly – scars, stretch marks, and that it’s disgusting with public breastfeeding.

All the doctors, surgeons and the rest of the people ‘in charge’ were so ”clinical” in a situation that I had envisioned would be so beautiful. Instead, I’m left with a feeling that I haven’t given birth. The confirmation was final when I also did not receive a follow-up conversation, to which all birthing women are entitled. I’ve had surgery. Not a birth. I’m sad because I feel like I didn’t manage to give birth. That the woman inside me failed. That I became a victim of the bureaucracy in the way that the hospital pushed on, even if both me and the child were not ready, and that they just started the birth to save money and make room for someone else. I’m sad that I lost control of my own body, and had to leave the most important person in my life in someone else’s hands. Of course, it’s a loss in many ways. I feel bitterness when I see other people posting pictures on Facebook of them having the baby on their chest. It’s no good being outside the norm.

I didn’t know what to say. It was such a strong and heartbreaking story. We walked in silence for a while, then I asked her, ”Are you afraid of having more children?”

She stopped, thinking a little bit before replying: “I’d love to have another baby, but I’m afraid not to be allowed to give birth again”. Now we turned towards her house.

I want to be able to do a vaginal birth next time where I can be allowed to make choices. I’m going to do a lot of research, to open up my mind of what else it might be. And to get tough enough. A birth is a trauma for both the mother and child. They have a maternity psychologist at the health center. Maternity needs to get better so everyone gets their conversations and are followed up. I think it’s ironic. And complex. That my birth story ended up becoming one of those I didn’t want to hear my first time. But I still have hope. Next time I’m going to trust my body, but also on my head.