261 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 3 Another similarly recounted: I was in labor for 4 nights with my first. Four nights, we’re talking contractions 5 minutes or less apart for 4 days and all the trauma on my body. . . . I begged for a C-section towards the end, and they just kept telling me “No.” On the fourth night, I begged, and I begged, and begged. They said, “No, no, no.” No one listened to me. And then when his heart rate started dropping, they were like, “Okay, we have to do a C-section.’’ Powerlessness within participants’ postpartum recovery was also expressed. Similar to the statements above concerning powerlessness within the birth experience, participants described continued barriers to recovery, bonding with their baby, and building memories due to external constraints (e.g., physical recovery or sleep deprivation). One participant stated, “I kind of don’t remember any of his first couple of months because I had three surgeries after he was born, and I couldn’t take care of him by myself.” Another shared, “I was so sleep deprived . . . I don’t remember their first year of life.” Participants’ ability to fully embrace the experience with their newborn was seemingly governed by secondary factors. In addition, participants stated a lack of empowerment in their follow-up care and in making decisions regarding the care of their newborn. Two participants shared, “When I breastfed, I had no idea what I was doing. Nobody helped me,” and “I skipped my appointment because I just felt not heard. I didn’t want to go . . . I felt like it was pointless.” One participant shared, “They’re almost pushing formula . . . ‘No, you’re giving me an out. I really want to do this [breastfeed],’ like ‘Let me do this please.’ . . . They’re not hearing you at all.” Another participant expressed the weight of expectation of “having it together,” where seeking support is met with, “You got it, you’re such a super mom,” communicating a further sense of perceived abandonment. Powerlessness in postpartum recovery also emerged through participant disclosures concerning their position as a mother. One participant stated, “We don’t get the option to walk away,” communicating the longevity and sense of direct responsibility experienced as a new mother. Another participant shared, “I remember lifting her up and the midwife was like, ‘Now you have to burp her.’ And I’m like, ‘Every time I feed her, I have to burp her?’ and I just started crying.” Another participant described a similar moment realizing that having a child is “gonna take work. And that was just the beginning.” Experiencing powerlessness extended beyond overarching postpartum adjustment to subjective emotional aspects of recovery. Participants described a certain vulnerability to emotions that emerged, stating, “It hits you in the wildest of places. Like, I’m in Target.” And another shared, “I’d just be driving down the road in the car again . . . it’s so hard . . . babies are easy, but then it feels so hard, like in the moment.” Another participant shared her mechanism for navigating through intense emotions throughout postpartum recovery, stating, “I feel these feelings, I’ve had these thoughts run across my mind and I just shut them out” to cope in the moment. Help-Seeking A salient theme in the participants’ interviews relates to the disparity that they faced in effectuating requisite emotional and physiological needs. Participants identified postpartum needs such as sustaining physiological routines, emotional processing of postpartum experiences, and exploring postpartum selfhood and identity. Alternately, they also identified inconsistencies in their ability to meet these needs. Overall, the participants communicated support-seeking incongruities through their use of affective language relating fear and shame.
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