Birth Trauma Healing Facilitator Josie Lacy Roberts

Dear Beloved Friend,

I am here to serve you by facilitating your healing from a birth that was traumatic.

After a distressing and traumatic birth your life can feel upended. Unfortunately your experience is often not acknowledged for what it was, and the people around you might not understand or be able to help. To add to that challenge the postpartum period can be difficult, with chronic sleep deprivation and social isolation.

You are not alone and you have faced a very difficult time without enough support. I want to validate this.

While in my role as a nurse I witnessed many families withstand traumatic births. After leaving labor and delivery nursing I learned to be a conduit for Healing Frequencies. I can invite your physiology to come into alignment and receptivity to your Inner Light/Higher Self. This facilitates healing of your whole being.

I offer remote quantum Healing that accelerates healing by restoring the nervous system, offers opportunity for safe emotional release, and brings integration and alignment with your wholeness.

Experiences:

A beautiful and empowering birth, or a super challenging and traumatic one (or a mix of the two) can occur in any environment: at home, a birth center, a hospital or anywhere you are birthing. The following list is some of the things that can occur during a labor and birth that can be experienced as traumatic.

These situations listed below are not often spoken about. Some of these are more frequently experienced, some more rarely. I offer this list of scenarios and examples (drawn from my time working in the hospital) so you know you are not alone.

Of note, some traumatic births occur through no fault of anyone. Sometimes the system you are in and the caregivers in that system make it much better, mitigating the amount of trauma, and sometimes they make it worse.

This long list can be triggering - please read with caution, and only when you have support. Trust your intuition and just scroll past it if you are hesitant or don’t need to read it.

  • A birth that was traumatizing to you even if medically “uncomplicated”

  • A complicated birth that ended up having a good outcome: “healthy mom, healthy baby” but you are not okay afterwards

  • Experiencing pain you were not prepared for and did not have the support to manage- i.e. a long wait for an epidural

  • An epidural that was not working no matter what was done - you felt trapped with a lack of mobility while in pain

  • A birth where it was chaotic, full of fear, many things went wrong and it was like a nightmare

  • Intense terror, fear of losing your life and/or your baby’s life

  • Assisted delivery (vacuum, forceps or episiotomy)

  • Fear of your baby being injuring

  • Baby needed resuscitation at delivery

  • Obstetric emergencies - hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, hypertensive crisis, emergency cesarean, etc.

  • Having gone under general anesthesia and missing your baby’s birth and first moments

  • Birth trauma compounded by prior sexual abuse or assault (or other forms of abuse or trauma).

  • The birth, although not traumatic, was a triggering event and put you in a trauma response from past sexual assault trauma(s) or abuse

  • Lack of trauma-informed care by staff

  • Not having the people you needed in the birth room/having the wrong people

  • Conflict with your partner or family during labor

  • Not having enough labor support, feeling abandoned or neglected

  • Nurses or doctors saying something unkind or upsetting

  • The “ego” of members of hospital staff or your family “stealing the show”

  • Feeling humiliated or exposed with multiple staff in room

  • Feeling not heard, misunderstood, rushed, pressured

  • Feeling infantilitzed, patronized or gaslit by the staff

  • Things done to you without explanation, not being spoken “to” but being spoken “about” as if you are not there

  • Obstetric violence/assault

  • Things done without consent or over your objection

  • Consent obtained through coercion

  • Your agency, choices and autonomy dishonored

  • Feeling helpless to say no to procedures/decisions that your gut & heart didn’t want

  • Not enough time to obtain true informed consent or your family had to consent for you

  • Experiencing preterm delivery

  • NICU stay for baby and sustained worry for baby

  • Trauma from separation from your baby immediately after birth - either for a few minutes or much longer

  • Left alone in a room after birth when it feels unsafe - when you are groggy or bleeding excessively- feeling abandoned

  • Feeling regret/shame/guilt about what you felt or didn’t feel towards your baby, or about things you did or said regarding your baby after delivery

  • Emotions around breastfeeding and feeding decisions

  • Anxiety about feeding baby/baby’s wellbeing

  • Profound exhaustion from days of labor and/or surgery and lack of sleep caring for baby

  • Your own physical injuries from complicated vaginal or cesarean birth, either severe or permanent

  • Almost losing your life and having a stay in the ICU

  • Emergency hysterectomy - losing uterus and the loss of possibility of another pregnancy

  • Your baby being injured or disabled

  • Shock of discovery of birth defects or other health problems at delivery previously unknown

  • Tremendous tragedy of intrauterine death of your baby, stillbirth, or the passing away of your baby shortly after delivery.

  • After delivery generally feeling torn open physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically. Being “undone” and not knowing how to get back together again

  • Profound sense of loss of self and identity

  • Feeling alone in these feelings

  • PTSD from birth exacerbating postpartum anxiety, depression or rage

  • Regret about decisions made or not made

  • Grief over not having the birth you desired

  • Anger about medical decisions made during your birth

  • Emotions around being a birth parent or surrogate parent or not being the one to carry your baby

  • Infertility struggles, cycles of hope and grief

  • Miscarriages and abortions needing processing /honoring

  • Gynecological trauma around procedures for abortions, miscarriages, surgeries, office procedures such as an exam, biopsy, IUD insertions etc.

Why I am passionate about this work:

Before I write the following, I want to note I worked with many highly skilled, heart centered, well meaning people in hospitals. That being said:

Most hospital birth environments (not all) are still steeped in medical patriarchy. Although the smiling faces of the staff are mostly female, they inherited and uphold a patriarchal system that fundamentally lacks recognition of women’s birthing power. It can seem as if they are completely blind to it - as if they are on another radio frequency entirely - a pop music station so they can’t tune into and hear (or see) what is in front of them - a magnificent symphony. This lack of honor of primal Divine creative birthing life force infuses the policy and procedures that all staff must adhere to and uphold. I know this intimately as I worked in these environments.

Many women and families experience disempowerment and spiritual injury within this environment where the suppression, control, subversion, and misdirection of primal birthing energy often occurs. Steering women away from their instincts causes more susceptibility to trauma as they are disconnected from their inner resources.

A birth in the best of circumstances can still be fertile ground for trauma because of the intensity of the initiation. During labor and birth sometimes we can feel (and be) on the edge of life-death. The ancestral inheritance of fears, and the knowing there can be abrupt loss of life rises up. Unresolved trauma within us can rise up. It is a lot. Women, in most prenatal care are poorly prepared for childbirth. So it can easily be traumatizing and feel very unsafe if we are not inner resourced and have an intuitive strong grounded support team around us.

I myself lived for years in disempowered and dissociative states from many traumas. These traumas related to the subjugation of the feminine. Now, after years of personal healing I can sincerely say I feel gratitude for all my experiences. They enable me to have a knowing of the collective wounds of the feminine. My own healing has distilled and brought forth the healer within me.

When I began working in Labor and Delivery I was grieved to witness and participate in the spiritual injuries to women’s initiation of childbirth. Because of my past experiences I could clearly “see” and sense when birthing mothers or their partners were being denied agency, or were overwhelmed and going into dissociative trauma response, as I have myself bore this many times.

Often I would worry about families going home after experiences where I knew there would be significant aftermath. While they care for their infant would they receive care for themselves? Would they have the time, psychic space and tools to heal?

A few thoughts on trauma:

I offer the following words as a peer. I speak from my own personal experiences with complex trauma, observations of others undergoing trauma, and from what I have learned during my own ongoing healing. I offer it here in case it is helpful.

Trauma is a subjective experience. Observers looking at the situation from the outside do not know if it is traumatic or not. An uncomplicated vaginal birth might be traumatic for one mother, and another mother might feel very positive about her emergency cesarean birth.

When trauma responses are likely to happen: The nature of shock trauma is we usually do not have conscious awareness or control of when we go into the trauma response. It is more likely that trauma response occurs when events occur in a way that are:

—sudden

—overwhelming

—there is a lack of control

—our nervous system perceives danger and protects us (usually before our intellectual, forebrain is aware of it)

Experience of the other parent (or witnessing loved one): Something important to bring awareness to is that the other parent is often significantly impacted by witnessing their partner’s traumatic labor/birth, but because their trauma is “less than” the birthing mother’s trauma they feel they can’t say they need help too. This is especially true if there are expectations of them being in the role of protector/support person. The partner can feel profound helplessness and powerlessness when fearing for the safety of their partner and child but is unable to take action to help them. This can cause significant trauma.

Some common symptoms of post traumatic stress after childbirth:

  • feeling disconnected from yourself or others

  • difficulty bonding with your baby

  • feeling numb or emotionally overwhelmed

  • feeling intense sadness, grief, shame, guilt, anger/rage or other difficult feelings

  • feeling on edge: irritability & high anxiety, hyper-alert

  • feeling shut down and having difficulty performing daily care for yourself and your baby

  • Intrusive and/or racing thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks

  • sleep difficulties or insomnia

  • appetite changes

  • avoidance behaviors (distractions, working extra, drinking etc.)

  • inability to tell your birth story, or compulsion to tell your story many times

  • physical pain, nausea, dizziness that medically cannot be explained

  • feeling detached from your body

  • difficulty expressing your feelings or talking about your experience

    ****If you become aware you are a danger to yourself, your baby, or anyone else please seek emergency care immediately ****

The list above is not exhaustive, many mothers and fathers experience a wide range of responses. It might be more subtle than what is listed above, you may feel as if you are just “off,” but you can’t get a grasp on what exactly is the issue. Or you may see other new parents, seemingly content and grounded, while you feel unmoored. You might feel as if you are behind a glass, separate from the world and wondering what is wrong with you.

I will say, nothing is wrong with you, these are natural states of post traumatic stress. The trauma is “sitting” within your nervous system, waiting to be attended to but still active in your life.

Your nervous system might have been very efficient and sufficiently buried the trauma so well you can’t access it for years. Maybe it has been decades and now you are ready to tip toe up and look at the trauma that has been suppressed because it is surfacing in a new way. This is very normal with trauma. Whether it has been days or years I can help be a witness as your healing occurs.

The Healing Frequencies I work with reach areas of the nervous system affected by trauma. As life force that was kept in suppression is freed and reintegrated, harmony and wholeness can be restored. Symptoms will begin to lift. In our sessions, when you are ready (after receiving supportive healing) you will be invited to drop into your body and feel emotions that were not safe to feel previously. It is helpful to return to and honor what could not be processed and attended to at the time.

Your nervous system protected you from these emotions but they want to be returned to, as they still exist and are active within you. While in a safe container of Healing Frequencies they can be felt with support. This way the energy becomes alchemized and flow and freedom can be restored.

Whether you believe it or not you have everything you need within your heart center, your belly, and your soul. The path of your healing is within your bodily cells. I can help facilitate this while you either rest or participate as you are able, revisiting your story and emotions.

I am here to be a witness and a conduit of beautiful frequencies that are intimately aware of and understand all birthing issues, frequencies that can clear the snags in your nervous system, break up solidified emotional density and shower love on all the difficult and ugly bits.

I am sorry such a difficult time was twinned with the profoundly sacred moment of your baby’s birth. Whether you gave birth days ago or decades ago freedom is available. I look forward to meeting you at the doorway.

Blessings, all my love,

Josie