TW: Recent Birth Trauma

I gave birth to my beautiful boy a week ago and while everything went exactly as I planned and wanted it to go (unmedicated, natural, kept myself moving/standing, delayed cord clamping, skin to skin) I am so traumatized from how much it hurt. I’ve done the exact same thing unmedicated before and even on pitocin contractions I was doing the thing. However this time around my son weighed more than my first born by nearly 2 whole pounds. My first born was 8 and 1 oz while my second was recently 9 and 13 oz. I didn’t ask for an episiotomy and kind of wish I did with what I’m experiencing now. I wanna cry every time I use the bathroom, it’s not painful and honestly im stitched and was tended to so well that it never ever hurt to use the bathroom… however because it hurt so much to birth my son and how badly I tore, I wanna cry every time I have to tend to myself down there. My stitches are lined to the areas I tore as shown in the picture.

it was all fine and dandy until it came time to push him out. He came out in “one and a half pushes” but when I think back on it.. all I can think about is how much it hurt. I tore so bad I tore up AND down. Like almost all the way up to my clit. Like my stitches end maybe like half a centimeter away from my clit and half a centimeter away from my butthole. The labor was progressive and good and everything was natural and unmedicated as planned but I was not expecting him to be so big. I wasn’t ready for how fast my transition was. I was in a nice progressive labor for over 11 hours. I progressed nicely from 1 am to 12pm and fully expected it to be that way for every centimeter. I was mentally equipped for the long haul! Lol however come 1:17 pm I went from a 7 to a 10 in 15 minutes. Five minutes shorter than my last birth. It was so sudden for me I was scrambling and freaked out that I wasn’t ready. I literally felt his head immediately engage and I started to involuntarily push as I was standing. Everyone was rushing around me when I was standing next to the bed and a big gush hit the floor and it was more amniotic fluid and pee. I said “I’m gonna poop.” And it didn’t even hit me that it was him coming until my nurse told me “okay let’s get you into a position you want, that’s baby ready to meet you!” I truly thought I felt a piece of poop coming out of my butthole lmao but I was so not ready. The weight of his body and head shocked my hips while standing and I was literally stuck in a contraction trying to get in a birthing position in bed. I asked for help in moving my legs because I literally screamed every time I moved my hips. So like labor and active labor I was able to breathe through and even the beginning of my transition was good for me. It’s when I finally hit 10 that sh** hit the fan for me and ugh I’m still having such a hard time processing all of it 😔 and I feel like I’m not giving myself adequate time to deal with it. I also feel this intense guilt because everytime I look at my baby I’m flooded with love and adoration while also having hardcore flashbacks to how much it really hurt and literally tore me up. My husband did me a favor in voice recording the delivery and I can’t get myself to listen to it… because I know in there, there’ll be the contraction and a half where I’m pushing him out and I’m screaming bloody murder because I could feel myself slowly tearing. All natural and I would absolutely do it again, but good god did it hurt. If you read it this far thank you for holding space for me. I just needed to get this off of my chest.