We have a tendency, at least in this culture, to celebrate the shit we had to go through if we like where we ended up. Or we’re happy with where we are if it was hard to arrive at. This seems to be slipping – pushback against “I had to pay off my student loans, so you should have to, too” as an example – but it’s still tempting to do when making sense of a personal journey.

Being a birthing parent has left me with my own little bundle of trauma. While I won’t go into details (if you want them, ask for the password to this entry), in short: being nonbinary while interacting with a medical system that insists on calling me “mama” in every interaction, delivering 2 months early via emergency c-section while alone because of covid restrictions, spending a month in the NICU, not bonding for the first LONG while, and then surviving Reed’s PPD was a Bad Time. I was exhausted. My career was set back significantly. My relationship with Reed was damaged. It was hard to not think about those things when trying to care for Locke.

Slowly, through Reed’s and my commitment to each other, an understanding leadership team at work, and my own tenacity for making things different even if I’m not always sure it will be better, things are back on track. Home life is excellent. Locke is in preschool and thriving. I’m being given interesting challenges at work again and rising to the occasion.

Now that things are predictably good on most axes of my life, I decided it was time to look into that trauma. I’ve been seeing a specialist in birthing parent trauma for ketamine-assisted therapy. It’s an effective setup and I’m making gains into understanding myself, the trauma, and how to meet moments and people as what they are rather than the baggage previously associated with them.

Doing the work has NOT been fun. I am sad and testy again. Reed and I are having long, heart-felt conversations about topics that had seemed resolved. I’m having to own up to which parts of the traumatic experiences could have been avoided if I, say, advocated harder for myself; and which are really circumstantial and not an area of growth for me. I am both finding my power and being made painfully aware of how little in this world I control.

While I love my life and my child and my family now, what we went through to get here was not ok and I don’t have to say it was ok or worth it. I do not regret where I have ended up, and also the journey to get here was untenable. I don’t think I’m a better person for it.