Healing Scar: the surprising empowerment of a c-section

I’ve always defined the word “scar” as the visible mark left by a wound or injury.  But the dictionary defines it as “the mark left by a healed wound or sore.”  Do you see the difference?  In my definition the emphasis is on the wound, but in the dictionary the emphasis is on the healed wound.

I’ve spent a lot of time pondering this definition and reflecting on scars lately.

We all have them, a scar of some sort or other.  We get them from broken bones, a fall off a bike, a burn mark…anything really.  Sometimes they leave a thin faint line, maybe a dot of gnarly tissue to remind us of our foolishness or carelessness.  Maybe that lumpy bump or discolored patch of skin conjures a memory of humor or a time of silliness gone awry.  Always, however, a memory is invoked and most often an emotion is attached to it.

I have many scars.

There’s the one I got from when a dog bit me on the same finger twice in one summer.  The two painful ones on my chest that were removed (kind of a reverse scar).  The one on my breast after a benign lump was removed.  The burn on my leg from when I foolishly knocked over a motorcycle.  Each one a memory, a pinpoint of time in my life, a map of where I have been.

But now I have a new one.  One that I am learning to accept.  One that I desperately need to see as beautiful because it brought forth beauty.

On Friday, February 13^th I gave birth to my third child, a daughter.  And she came by surprise c-section.

In the past when thinking about the possibility of needing a c-section (because we all have to at least think about it when we are pregnant, the possibility is always there) I talked myself into believing that if and when the time ever came I just couldn’t out of fear and doubt.  I told myself I was too weak to do something like that and after awhile bought into the lie: I am weak, I am unable and incapable, I am terrified!  And fear is crippling.

When the midwife told me that baby girl was indeed breech and my labor was progressing too quickly I was shocked.  But in that moment there was an instantaneous acceptance that this was out of my control and that the decision had been made for me.  She could not come the way I wanted her to, the hospital was not equipped to deliver her that way.

And so for her sake I pushed my fears and my doubts aside.

I sat there, legs dangling off the side of the OR bed, as the doctors administered the spinal, focused only on holding my midwife’s hands, forcing myself to not count the tears falling from my eyes.

I laid there repeating to myself over and over again like a chant, that I can trust these people, that they know what they are doing and are for me and not against me.  Pushing back the fear that I would indeed somehow feel the entire procedure.

I held my breath waiting…waiting to hear my baby cry.

And when I did, only then did I allow something akin to joy spread through my body.  Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was the medication coursing through my veins, but as I look back it wasn’t just joy…it was triumph.

Carly Simon once said, “A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars.”  It may not have been war, but for me I now bear a mark that speaks volumes more than just the words “cesarean section”.  This scar says brave, it says courageous, strong, fear defeater, doubt a** kicker!

I know now that this scar is so much more than just a wound to remember.  It is also proof that there can be beautiful healing as well.  For without it, I never would have known just how amazing and fearless I can really be.