It can be difficult to go through a mourning process while also trying to get to know and enjoy your new baby and the experience of motherhood. While you may feel some pressure from others to “get over it” so you can focus on your baby, it's important to allow yourself your feelings. Unresolved pain can actually make it more difficult to enjoy your baby and can lead to, or worsen, depression symptoms, so allow yourself to go through this process while keeping in mind that, little by little, things will get better. There are things you can do to help yourself heal.

Tell Your Birth Story

This is a very important step in healing because it helps you define your feelings and figure out where they're coming from. This might be difficult at first. You may want to seek out an understanding person, like a member of a cesarean support group, or a professional, like a therapist or doula, so that your first experiences of telling your birth story are met with sympathy or empathy instead of judgment or criticism. You may also want to write down your birth story, perhaps submitting it to an online forum for others to read, even anonymously.

If it's hard for you to write about your birth, start small: you don't have to write the whole story at once. Start with the parts that are easiest to write or think about and work from there. You may find that you want to tell your birth story again and again, focusing on different parts. This is normal and can be a healthy way of dealing with strong feelings surrounding your birth.

Let Yourself Feel Bad

One of the most important things you can do to aid emotional healing is to simply not resist or suppress the feelings that come up when you think about your birth experience, but allow yourself to experience them. Otherwise, they will come up again and again, manifesting themselves in different ways. You may find that meditation or long walks help you tune in to the feelings and thoughts you're experiencing and help you move past them in a more healthy way.

Find a Community

Tuning into a community of other women who've experienced birth-related emotional trauma can help you feel like your feelings are valid. Visit a mothering message board or check with a local hospital, birth center, or midwife's office to see if there is a support group in your area for c-section healing or birth trauma.

Keep a Journal

The act of getting your feelings and fears out of your head and down onto paper can be very freeing. Your journal doesn't have to be publishable or even have a beginning, middle, and end. It's for your eyes only, and can be nothing more than a random collection of doodles and scribbled words, if that's what works for you. Allow yourself to be as sad, angry, or even as mean as you want in the journal.