Disappointment Doesn’t Mean You Failed: Childbirth Trauma Healing
When the pregnancy and birth experience you hoped for maybe even dreamed about turns out completely different, it can be extremely disappointing. You’ve been waiting for this day, filled with anticipation, and when the day finally comes it looks nothing like what you thought.
It's kind of like waking up on Christmas morning ready to receive your gift and the entire day is nothing like you imagined. Or even worst, the day turns out to be scary, overwhelming, rushed, or out of control.
You may feel grateful you walked out with your gift and yet still feel disappointment, sadness, grief, or even rage in how it was received.
I want to tell you right now, that is 100% valid. No one walks into birth expecting for things to go wrong. Many of us walk into birth hoping everything will go smoothly without any interventions or medical complications. With that said, when our expectations deviate so much from the actual reality of what took place, this creates a greater intensity of disappointment.
Disappointment is one of those feelings that can range from mild discomfort to deep hurt.
And I’m here to remind you that feeling disappointment doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful.
You can love your baby and still be carrying grief, disappointment and anger by what happened.
That’s not weakness. That’s the nervous system responding to what hurt and wanting to make sense of it all.
When I think back on the birth of my sons, in both pregnancies I had pre-eclampsia. Which is high blood pressure during pregnancy or postpartum. But the second time around my pre-eclampsia was worst. My blood pressure got so high that I started to have headaches, and the top number got as high as 180/100. Which led to me needing to an induction, delivery at 36 weeks, lots of medication and magnesium drip. Unfortunately, my son had to go into the NICU for a period of time and the whole birth experience was nothing like how it was the first time around. I remember feeling out of control, unheard by my providers, and pressured into making decisions I wasn’t ready for. The overall feeling of giving birth the second time around was disappointing, heavy, and uneasy.
Perhaps you feel broken or like parts of yourself was lost that day in the hospital room, but I’m here to tell you that emotional healing from a childbirth experience is possible.
As a birth trauma therapist, I now support women through navigating this same feeling. Because healing disappointment isn’t about reliving every detail- it’s about no longer the disconnecting from the part of you that is holding this pain. Healing looks like connecting back to yourself.
At my practice, I support women in reprocessing their birth story in a way that brings emotional resolve so they can finally begin to enjoy their time with their family instead of feeling anxious or depressed. We do this through Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and Neuro-Affective Relational Model therapy. Both of these models are used to treat trauma.
Disappointment is not an emotion that you have to carry forever. As we sit with your birth story and reprocess what happened we can help you move through these emotions in a way that brings lasting change.
Here are a few questions I invite you to pause and personally reflect:
What were your expectations going into birth about yourself, your body, your baby, or your support team?
Where did those expectations come from (your doctor, midwife, family, social media)?
How do you feel when you think about how those expectations met reality?
As your explore these questions, you may notice other feelings surfacing along with the disappointment that is completely normal and even expected. As you hold space for the multiple layers of your experience, continue to give yourself lots of grace and compassion for the parts that hurt and the parts that still matter.
If you’re ready to fully move forward and process your birth story with a trained professional, I’d be honored to support you along the journey.
Learn more about my therapy services here: https://worthytolivetherapy.com/individual-therapy.
Stay connected for more resources on birth trauma, postpartum mental health, and motherhood:
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Until next time,
Brittany Moffitt, LCSW-C
