Cesarean Scar: Shannon

When I look at my scar, it says to me, "I know you didn't want me, but here I am, a reminder of dashed hopes and endless questions, a place of birth and love.  I am your paradox.  Someday, you will come to accept that I am a part of you."

When I touch my scar, it says to me, "I have healed, finally.  Your next baby will not use me to enter the world.  Massage me with love, release the tension, and I will direct your next baby's passage down, down, down and out."

I think the hardest part of all of this is that I do not belong anywhere.  The natural birth people turn their noses down at me (I have been yelled at by people who don't know my story); OBs and hospital types say I should have given in sooner and not been so proud.  I didn't plan it, I didn't want my birth to go that way, and I'm still not sure it had to.  I wish we could have afforded a home birth.  I wish I'd labored at home longer.  I wish I'd asked why they couldn't do something for a swollen cervix.  I wish... that more people understood.

Shannon's Birth Story