The Birth Story I Didn’t Want, But Lived Through Anyway

A story about guilt, exhaustion, surrender, and the grief of a plan that never got to exist.

I didn’t go into labor on my own.

I waited.

I reached my due date, but still — nothing.

And instead of feeling calm or supported, I was told:

“If you wait, it’s at your own risk. You could lose the baby.”

That’s how it started.

Not with contractions, but with fear.

With guilt.

With pressure.

Eventually, the fear won.

A day before my due date, I went in for an induction.

And then came 37 hours of starting and stopping labor.

Hope. Pause. Progress. Stall.

I kept trying.

I kept believing my body would do this.

But it just kept pulling back.

Through all of this, I was prodded, poked, and examined over and over again.

Cervical checks that made me cry.

Doctors who didn’t acknowledge my birth plan.

A sense that things were slipping — and no one was really listening.

I wanted a natural birth so badly.

I tried for it, unendingly.

But eventually, after nearly two days of exhaustion,

I begged for a C-section.

I knew I didn’t have it in me anymore — not just the strength to push, but the strength to keep hoping.

The surgery felt like the final surrender.

And then, just like that — my baby was here.

But I didn’t get to hold him.

I saw him for maybe two seconds.

No skin-to-skin.

No chest to chest.

He was sent to the nursery.

I was sent to recovery.

For five long hours, I waited.

Alone.

Disoriented.

Numb.

By the time I saw him again, he had already been given formula.

My plan to feed him first, to hold him close — gone.

And I beat myself up for all of it.

For “failing.”

For caving.

For not pushing harder — emotionally, physically.

For not demanding more.

But here’s what I know now:

This wasn’t a failure.

It was trauma.

It was medical pressure.

It was systems not built for softness.

It was a woman doing her best in the moment with what she had left.

I didn’t get the birth I wanted.

I barely got to be in the moment.

But I survived it.

I carried him.

I brought him here.

And even in all of that grief — I became a mother.

This is not a glowing, redemptive story.

It’s a painful one.

But it’s also mine.

And I’m still learning to hold it without shame.

If you didn’t get the birth you wanted — if you’ve ever felt grief for a version of motherhood that never got to begin — I see you.

— Arushi