Feeling Robbed

Birth is such a personal, powerful, and supposedly beautiful thing.

But I was robbed. I was robbed of it's intense joy and amazingness that accompanies your first birth.

Yes, I've given birth two more times since giving birth to Luke and yes I was happy when my babies were finally born, but it never ends in the culmination of joy.

For me it's --relief.

Relief.
I can breath now.
My baby didn't die.


Doesn't that seem so unfair. I wish so badly it wasn't this way.

A friend of mine recently posted on facebook a handful of beautiful birth photos showing the moments of joy after birth. The excitement. The happiness. The tears of joy.

I hear people talk about "that moment when you get to hold your baby for the first time" and it's accompanied with "changes your world"  "is the best moment ever" "is the most wonderful feeling."

And for those people who have experienced that joy, the wonderful moment, the happiest feeling --I am jealous. I am jealous of them and sad for myself for what was taken for me.

Birth.
Mine ended in pain. A bitter loss. An insurmountable task achieved. A relief.
Where is my victory and joy in that?

So with each subsequent birth perhaps the pain will fade. Perhaps the worry will fade. Perhaps the anxiety will fade.

Maybe, maybe one day I can be pregnant without fear and birth without skepticism. Maybe those things will continue to fade if I am privileged to bear more children.

Maybe.

What a gift it truly is to those women who get to hold their baby's in perfect, blissful, happiness.

They will never truly know.