I Wish I’d Gone Hysterical

In June 1970, I was unprepared when my first child was born with a serious birth defect. Before I was told about the defect or allowed to see my baby, I was sedated – and not just in the delivery room but for several days afterward while I remained in the hospital.

I got it. No one wanted me going hysterical at the news or the sight of my baby with his bilateral cleft lip distorted his face. I obliged. I didn’t want to upset those taking care of me and my newborn. That was the first of many times when I perceived that my getting upset would make others uncomfortable. Later, hospital staff wanted to believe I was managing the shock and disappointment with aplomb, so with aid of the prescribed “happy pills,” I adopted a Pollyanna façade. Inside, I was in turmoil. I stuffed the difficult emotions and let’s face it, I was in no shape to deal constructively with my emotional distress in those early days. Based on several stories shared with me by mothers of all ages since we published Choosing Ourselves, this is still an experience many mothers are having with the medical system.

I look back now and am outraged – not quite hysterical — at the medical decision to stifle my initial emotional reaction in the delivery room. As unpleasant or inconvenient as it might have been for the hospital staff to endure a mother going hysterical in reaction to the birth of a compromised baby, was it not their professional responsibility to anticipate and have a plan should the new mother be upset and to support her? Surely, they had been in this situation before or at least been trained on the scenario. I am sorry now that I worried more about others’ discomfort than about the harm it was doing to me to stuff my emotions.

Believing that my shock and feelings of loss were not tolerable to others, let alone acknowledged by others, I blamed myself for being weak and for faulty thinking. Add to that, blaming myself for not feeling as happy as others wanted me to feel. It took years for me to undo the damage of those self-negating thoughts.

Looking back now, I wish I’d gone hysterical.