Giving Birth a Second Time

Facing childbirth when you already have children isn't always easier: the experience lived through before strongly shapes the anticipation of the event, which, in general, tends to happen more quickly than the first time.

As Rossella recounts: «the birth of my first daughter had been rather exhausting: they'd had to induce labor because the pregnancy had gone past term and my fluid was low; getting her out, since she was big compared to my small frame, required an episiotomy. It was quite different from what I had imagined: a water labor, a birth on nature's own timing. The oxytocin used to induce more effective contractions made them intense and frequent right away, and even though I managed to give birth within a few hours, I felt utterly drained and deeply unwell, because it seemed to me I hadn't been able to manage it on my own. On top of that, I felt a certain resentment toward the obstetrician, who in my opinion was a bit too interventionist: even though I rationally understood the reasons behind what he did, I felt a strong sense of dissatisfaction, because he had deprived me of something I cared about deeply. None of this helped my relationship with my daughter, who from the very start seemed like a ravenous stranger, completely at whose mercy I felt myself to be. The feelings of love for my baby that I thought would come naturally to a mother were slow to arrive: I felt apathetic, without the positive feelings I had imagined, but above all tired, so, so tired, with no chance to rest because of my daughter's relentless demands.»

Without the kind of work on herself that Rossella did, this experience could have weighed on her and made her face her second experience of motherhood with greater anxiety. Instead, when she looks back on those moments now, it seems impossible to her that she was the one who lived through them, as if working through her feelings had made her forget the unfounded, sudden anxieties that had often deeply affected her mood in the past.

It's no coincidence that, in a state of greater serenity, her second labor also unfolded in a more physiological way, a few days before term, with no need for induction and no problems caused by an episiotomy.