Birth is everywhere:
Birthdays. (Anybody’s, but particularly your children’s.)
Your friend’s pregnancy announcement.
That scene in the book you're reading.
A newspaper opinion piece on the rising number of caesareans.
Driving past the road sign to the maternity unit.
The pregnant woman you walk past in the street.
Conversational anecdotes.
Glowy hospital photos from friends with new babies.
Colleagues asking you if “you’ll have any more”.
Even Mamma Mia 2. (And pretty much every film ever made…)
There is no trigger warning for birth trauma. And yet, it is all-pervasive. There should be a trigger warning that reads: Birth Is Everywhere. It’s almost impossible to escape birth when you’re trying not to think about it.
Halfway through my birth trauma therapy I decided to have a purge. I walked around every room in my house, picked up any item that reminded me of my birth experience, walked outside and threw them straight into the black bin. The nightshirt I had worn in hospital; the washbag I had taken with me; the book I had been reading before I went into labour… they all went. And it felt good. It was time to move on, buy a new set of pyjamas and face my new future.
Maybe, just maybe, one day soon I’ll watch a birth scene on TV and not alert a trigger warning inside my head.
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