After a traumatic birth, how do you decide on another baby?

nicademus20 · May 2022

Hello everyone,

I gave birth Jan 30, 2022, to my first baby, with an emergency c-section due to preeclampsia HELLP.
I'm 39 years old, and I've always wanted two children.
Very long story short: went to emergency room at the hospital with a horrible pain in my right side, was told what I have and "We have to induce you now" and after a few hours, wheeled into the surgery room, put under, and woke up hooked up to a magnesium sulfate drip and that put me to sleep where I'd only wake a few minutes and drift off again. I didn't see my LO for the first 24 hours of 48(or so) hours being on the drip.
My body wasn't ready and I struggled to prepare my breasts to breast feed, which didn't happen in the end.
The post-partum hit HARD and I was discharged after 5 days while my little guy (premie-4 weeks early- born at 4lbs. 9oz) stayed in the neo-natal unit for 2 weeks.

I'm blessed in many ways to have him, but I still desire another child.
Have any of you had a traumatic birth and then went on to have another baby as well?

I know not every pregnancy and birth will be the same, but I feel I'd be anxious the entire time and not enjoy pregnancy as I did with my little guy.
Please share your deciding factors on if you chose to have another. If you decided "cannot do it again", how do you really let that dream go?
I find myself walking on the fence..

lilswed · May 2022

Yes- it takes time- it took dealing with the trauma- and eventually the desire to hope for a new outcome out weighs the fear. Build a good support system, get the help you need - therapy, medication…

annemarie96 · November 2022

I know this is old, but I’ll add to it anyway for someone else who comes along.

**TW MC and NICU**

I had my second son at 27 weeks, and he was in the nicu for 4 months. It was extremely traumatic. So so hard. For a while I thought, for the first time in my life, that maybe we’d only have two kids. We’re young though, and didn’t want to make a “forever” decision. Now he’s two and I have finally been at the point where I felt excited to try for one more kid. I’m 8 weeks along now and since that premature labor was most likely due to severe stress which has all since stabilized, the only thing that’s really impacting this pregnancy is dealing with the anxiety and everything. We also have had quite a few early miscarriages.
It just took time, and for me that was a year and a half, and now I’m able to have pretty low levels of anxiety considering everything!

I am a Christian, and I just focus on thanking God every day for the chance to carry this baby and keep them safe and snuggly in there one more day.

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After a traumatic birth, how do you decide on another baby?

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