From Guilt to Grace: How to Reclaim Your Story After Birth Trauma

For a long time, I carried a quiet, heavy guilt about how my first birth unfolded. Like my body had somehow failed or I had done something wrong. No one prepared me for how deeply birth trauma could burrow into my sense of self. But over time, with a lot of hard work and reflection, I learned to soften those harsh inner voices, to accept what was out of my control, and to start reclaiming my story with compassion instead of blame. If you’ve ever felt this way, like you're grieving something invisible, or holding guilt that doesn’t belong to you, I hope this helps you in some way.

I'm going to get real vulnerable in today’s blog post and I want to put a trigger warning here regarding birth trauma. If you've experienced birth trauma yourself please feel free to reach out to myself, your loved ones, and/or a professional for help with processing your experience. Please know that you are not alone, and that it's okay NOT to be okay. Your feelings are valid and you deserve to be heard.

As you may know, Facebook recently announced that any unsaved live videos will be deleted within a month or so. As you likely don't know, I have used the Facebook live feature (with the settings set as private for only myself to view) as a journal or diary of sorts since my daughter was born. Watching them back in subsequent years has brought up so many emotions, both good and bad, and has truly helped me to process so many phases of my life.

I recently came across a video I had recorded when my daughter was just over a year old. I was crying, okay I'll be honest, I was a SOBBING MESS, talking about the guilt I had carried regarding my birth. I've shared previously that I experienced an unplanned, emergency cesarean resulting in a postpartum hemorrhage, multiple blood and iron transfusions, and hours spent alone in recovery. It was traumatic in so many ways, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of it all until further into my postpartum period, when it hit me like a freight train.

Firstly, it became clear to me just how terrifying that experience was. Once the smoke cleared, the adrenaline wore off, and I was able to reflect on everything I finally realized what my body, my baby, and my family had been through. I didn’t want to admit that it was a life threatening situation. Like so many other new parents, I was gaslighting myself into believing that I was okay, but I wasn’t okay. I didn’t expect to feel so responsible for the way things went, for the decisions made under pressure, for not somehow preventing what happened.

I had actually convinced myself that if I had been “stronger” and able to handle the pain and discomfort of labour, if I had avoided the epidural, that I wouldn’t have been labelled as “failure to progress”. I convinced myself that my body had failed me, that I should have recovered quicker so that I could be there for my baby after birth. That was the part that really got me, I kept saying that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me, and that I would never forgive myself for that. As if carrying her safely and bringing her earthside wasn’t enough. As if nourishing her from my body for that entire first year, and onwards until she was 3.5 years old, wasn’t enough. As if caring for her, being present with her, helping her to navigate the world on a daily basis, loving her more than anything else, wasn’t enough. It pained the me I am now, to hear the me back then, saying and believing these things even a year into postpartum.

Watching that video back, it was easy to see how devastated and defeated I was. I truly believed that if I had done something different that the outcome would have been different as well. And you know what? Maybe it would have been, but maybe it would have resulted in the same outcome no matter what I did. Our culture often puts too much pressure on birthing people to control an uncontrollable process.

I know now that so many birthing people experience this. We don’t talk about it enough, but guilt after birth trauma is more common than people realize. And it’s not because we did anything wrong, it’s because we weren’t supported in a way that helped us feel safe, heard, and empowered. Guilt often shows up in the place of powerlessness, when something unexpected or scary happens and we don’t have a way to make sense of it. But birth isn’t something we can control and the truth is, many of us did the best we could with the information, resources, and support we had at the time. Guilt doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to a system that didn’t hold us the way it should have.

For me, the shift didn’t happen all at once. It happened in small moments, a conversation with someone who truly listened, a journal entry where I let the tears fall without judgment, a quiet realization that I would never blame another birthing person the way I was blaming myself. That was the beginning of grace reminding me that I didn’t have to carry this. That trauma changes us, but it doesn’t define us. That it was time for me to forgive myself, to give myself some grace.

Reclaiming my story didn’t mean pretending the trauma didn’t happen, it meant acknowledging it honestly, giving it a name, and then choosing not to let it own me. I started speaking about my experience. At first, it was shaky and vulnerable but each time I gave my story a voice, it lost some of its power to hurt me. I stopped trying to make it seem any different than it was, and instead focused on the strength it took to live through it and overcome it. I let go of the fantasy of a “perfect birth” and started honouring the truth: I showed up with love, I made the best choices I could with what I had at the time, and I deserve compassion. Full stop.

If you’re reading this and you’re carrying that familiar weight, I want you to hear this clearly…
It is NOT your fault.
You are NOT weak.
You are NOT broken.
You are human. And you did the best you could in a situation that asked far too much of you. Give yourself the same grace you’d offer your closest friend. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to be angry. And you are also allowed to heal, to take up space in your own story again.

I’m not saying the guilt never tries to creep back in. It does. But now, I recognize it for what it is, a sign that I care deeply. Then I gently remind myself that I don’t owe guilt anything, but I do owe myself grace. Wherever you are in your journey, I want you to know, it’s possible to shift from guilt to grace. You don’t have to do it alone. You deserve support, softness, and space to process what’s been living inside you.

You are not alone. You are never alone. I see you. I am you. And we deserve GRACE.