When memory demands attention.

Today I have to warn you that my post isn't going to be one of the jolly ones.

It was my eldest's 7th birthday a few days ago and quite unexpectedly I started to really think about his birth. For some reason, after 7 years, my subconscious was demanding that I really look this memory in the eye. It isn't that happy memory it should be and for the last few days I've been quite emotional trying to accept this.

Nothing terrible happened. But after a horrible wait in hospital being monitored, a painful induction, long labour and an emergency cesarean the doctors finally pulled a tiny and silent little boy from me. I remember very clearly knowing that this silence should concern, even terrify me. But it didn't. I felt devoid of the emotion I knew I should be feeling. I know I did manage to ask if he was ok... Remembering this has filled me with shame, despite the fact I know it was down to a combination of hormones, anaesthetic drugs and exhaustion.
When my baby was finally brought over for me to see he was bundled into a blanket and placed in his fathers arms so that I could just about see the top of his head. I knew I should be desperate to see his little face for the first time, but instead I just lay where I was wanting to go to sleep. Again, this has made me feel horribly guilty.
After the birth in the early hours of the morning baby and I were wheeled into the ward. The next day I wasn't able to get out of bed unaided anyway and my then-husband didn't come to visit us until visiting hours were about to finish. I couldn't reach my baby easily and just lay there looking at him waiting for that rush of love. But I simply felt perplexed. It all felt unreal. It made me feel like a complete failure as a mother in those early days. I had a really low iron-count after the Cesarean and felt like I was floating most of the time besides my surprise at motherhood. Those feelings did of course fade away, but I have always felt guilty and ashamed of those first feelings, or lack of them.

I won't give you a description of ritual etc. What I will say is that anybody who felt like I did has my sympathy. For me it has helped these last few days to turn to the Goddess Rhiannon. Rhiannon's story of having her child stolen and accusations heaped upon her has always spoken to me louder than Her story of being pursued by Pwyll. What better Goddess to turn to than a Goddess that knows about self-accusation; who knows about feeling like a bad mother when in fact it wasn't her fault at all. For me that has been Rhiannon's message: I can stop hitting myself over the head and accept that I don't need to blame myself.
It's been a relief to bring these memories out into the light and look at them from a new perspective; to talk about them and stand up to that feeling of shame.
It took me 7 years to really accept these memories and not push them away. Odd as it sounds it was my pagan spirituality that helped a little bit. Some parenting issues aren't about our children, they're about ourselves.