Birth Trauma Awareness Week

Yesterday kicked off Birth Trauma Awareness Week, and it’s a topic that has always felt complicated for me to write about.

Over the past three and a half years, I’ve been trying to find the balance between processing my postpartum trauma and not allowing it to define who I am. Healing isn’t about pretending it never happened, but it’s also not about letting it consume every part of your story.

After the birth of my first daughter, I don’t think my body allowed me to fully feel the weight of what had happened with my postpartum preeclampsia.

I wasn’t completely numb to it. I could see the fear in my mom’s eyes every time she looked at me after I came home from the hospital. I could hear it in my dad’s voice whenever he called to ask what my blood pressure had been that day. I could feel it in my husband’s actions as he quietly took on nearly every household responsibility, doing everything he could to minimize my stress as we stepped into parenthood together.

Looking back, it’s hard not to feel frustrated that this is how I entered motherhood.

Instead of feeling empowered, I felt broken.

Everyone treated me like I was a fragile piece of glass that could shatter at the slightest inconvenience. I don’t blame them, they had just watched something incredibly scary happen, but their concern often left me feeling incapable of caring for the tiny baby who depended on me for everything.

I don’t think I truly felt the weight of my birth trauma until I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant again just one year later.

I immediately shared the news with my husband and my best friend. Both of them responded with encouragement, reminding me that I could do this again.

A few days later, my parents came to visit for Thanksgiving. I had planned to tell my dad while we were at a Nashville Predators game together. I was nervous but excited.

Then I saw the look on his face.

It wasn’t excitement.

It was genuine fear.

I don’t remember his exact words, but I remember him saying it felt “so soon after everything that had happened” and that he “didn’t think he could watch me go through all of that again.”

My heart sank.

In that moment, I realized that my birth trauma hadn’t only affected me. It had affected the people who loved me most, too.

Throughout my second pregnancy, I held my breath at every OB appointment. At times, I even felt guilty for risking another pregnancy when I knew the statistics surrounding recurrent preeclampsia.

Thankfully, my pregnancy remained relatively healthy. But as delivery approached, the anxiety surrounding labor and the postpartum period became overwhelming. Together with my healthcare team, I made the decision to schedule a repeat C-section at 39 weeks based on my individual circumstances and prior experience.

Four days after giving birth, I found myself right back in the hospital.

This time, I was diagnosed with postpartum preeclampsia again, along with postpartum HELLP syndrome. The severe fluid overload also affected my gallbladder to the point that I needed a surgical consultation while I was hospitalized. We ultimately decided to wait and see if it would recover on its own.

(Spoiler alert: it didn’t. But that’s a story for another day.)

Oddly enough, my second hospitalization didn’t affect me in quite the same way as the first.

Maybe it was because I understood what was happening this time.

Maybe it was because I knew what questions to ask.

Maybe it was because I had asked my in-laws to stay in town so someone could care for my 20-month-old while I was hospitalized with a newborn.

Or maybe it was simply because survival mode looked different the second time around.

Then yesterday, while scrolling through a Facebook support group for women with preeclampsia, I came across a comment that stopped me in my tracks.

“I chopped my hair off. Trauma lives in your hair.”

For most of my adult life, I’d had long hair.

Within days of coming home from the hospital, while my mom was still in town helping with the girls, I booked a hair appointment.

I sat down in the chair and had one request:

“Chop it all off.”

Being a healthcare provider, I immediately became curious whether there was any psychological explanation behind this.

What I found was fascinating.

Changing your hair after trauma can represent reclaiming control over your body after an experience where you felt powerless. It can create a tangible “before and after” that symbolizes a new chapter. For some people, the physical act of cutting away inches of hair provides an emotional release for grief, anger, or fear. It can even feel like literally shedding the weight of what you’ve been carrying.

Of course, my haircut wasn’t my therapy.

I also sought the support I needed through counseling with a mental health professional and treatment with an SSRI. Those were essential parts of my healing.

But if I’m being completely honest, that haircut felt symbolic in a way that’s difficult to explain. It felt like the first time I looked in the mirror and saw someone who was no longer just surviving what had happened.

Birth trauma is deeply personal, and no two women experience or heal from it in exactly the same way.

There is no rulebook. There is no timeline. And healing is rarely linear.

If you’ve experienced a traumatic birth, I hope you’ll tell someone.

Talk to your OB provider. Share what you’re experiencing with your primary care provider. Consider meeting with a mental health professional who specializes in perinatal mental health. Lean on a trusted friend or family member who can simply sit with you without trying to fix it.

Birth Trauma Awareness Week isn’t just about acknowledging what happened.

It’s about reminding women that healing is possible, that support exists, and that your story deserves to be heard.

Most importantly, you never have to carry the weight of your birth trauma alone.

Three and a half years later, birth trauma is still part of my story, but it no longer gets to write the ending. It has shaped me, but it doesn’t define me. Instead, it’s become part of the reason I share my postpartum journey so openly, because if my story helps even one woman feel less alone, then something meaningful can come from one of the hardest chapters of my life.