This story is part of The Wall of Wombs, our 2024 exhibition sharing honest, deeply personal journeys of motherhood.
What you’re reading is a direct transcription of a spoken story — shared bravely, in the speaker’s own words.
Listen to this story and explore others at wallofwombs.com.
I’m 35 years old, and I’m five months postpartum at the moment. Going into motherhood, it’s been quite a rough ride, let’s just call it that.
What I thought motherhood was going to be like is totally different. I had planned this beautiful home birth with a midwife, a water birth, and wanted it to be as natural as possible, and it was completely not.
We went to 42 weeks plus 3 days, and we had all the natural inductions to bring on a spontaneous birth. But unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned. So, we had chosen to go into the hospital and get induced. It was quite traumatic for me, just because it was the last option really that I thought it would come to.
I was eight hours in, and basically, she was not moving. She was probably about three centimetres, and it had been eight hours of contractions and labour, which was pretty sporadic and so much pain. It basically, for me, felt like I was being electrocuted in the stomach each time.
And what I’ve been told is having a medically induced induction can be quite rapid and painful. So it was a bit of a shock. But thankfully, 11 hours later, we decided to have an emergency C-section. And for me, I thought it was not even an option in my mind. I had planned everything to be so natural, and unfortunately, it wasn’t.
My recovery from the C-section was quite hard. The pain is just constant and it’s like a dull pain, so getting in and out of bed was very difficult. I literally had to shuffle across the bed and use the wall to get up every morning.
I didn’t feel like myself again until four or five weeks when I could properly use the bathroom and make food. I was literally shuffling around each day. And on top of that, you have to try and breastfeed your bub and deal with all the emotions that you’re feeling.
I also managed to get mastitis and an abscess as well, which turned into an abscess. If no one knows what that is, it’s quite a bad infection that you can get from a blocked duct. So, I spent another week in the hospital just managing that, but I really wanted to continue the breastfeeding journey.
At the time, there was good, but there was definitely a lot more bad for me. When it was good though, it was so good because, you know, you get to connect with your baby anywhere, everywhere, at whatever time. Having that connection with her just made me feel a lot better and amazing. You’ll never feel that feeling anywhere. I was quite emotional when I had to give breastfeeding up, but it was traumatic in the sense that my pain threshold literally went out the window.
The excruciating pain that it created was unbearable. And even with the mastitis and then abscess in one of my breasts, I still continued to breastfeed, trying to keep pushing through for your bub. Sometimes, I think you have to realise that your mental health is probably way more important than what you can give.
So it just really made me feel defeated, I guess. But once I did make the decision to transfer her onto formula, it was like a big weight lifted off your shoulders. Looking back, I’m just grateful that I have a beautiful baby that’s growing and healthy and that I can still support and feed no matter if it’s through breastfeeding or formula.
I definitely think that mums put all these expectations on themselves which is something that if I redo again, just throw out all of those.
At the end of the day, you have a healthy, happy baby, that’s all that matters. So I guess what I’ve learned is you really need to surrender into motherhood and just do what works for you. You just have to embrace everything that comes to you.