Learning to Fail. Gracefully.

As I approach six weeks post-partum I feel just about ready to debrief. In this entry I'll be looking at the topic of learning to fail. Gracefully. Again this is a mind post, rather than body.  In terms of a training regime from a fitness sense, there's been none. But that's not to say there hasn't been any growth. I'd actually go so far as saying I've learnt and evolved more in these last 6 weeks than in any other period of my life. 

As we all know by now I am a stubborn, competitive, and a perfectionist. It's what made my journey in fitness so addictive and rewarding. It's also what made my pregnancy, birth and immediate post-partum period such a pain in the proverbial. 

Being fairly new to Australia and fairly 'marooned' without work for the final few months, without family or too many friends, I had a lot of time to myself during late pregnancy. It was a perfect time to swat-up, down-tools, zen, stretch and be the 'perfect' version of myself to have the 'perfect' birth experience that had me dancing on a wave of pleasure to the tubular bells. Following a fairly challenging pregnancy riddled with sickness, early scaling back of training, and pelvic girdle dysfunction - topics I explored in this blog to try to make sense of it all - I felt ready for some positivity. I continued to read, became informed and dedicated to topics of mindfulness, calm birthing, and committed to the mind-body approach and relaxation techniques. I also read about breastfeeding, sleep and newborns. Work hard, be prepared and it'll all pay off, right? Wrong. Lesson of control number one. In this period of life, you simply can't control things. No amount of study, preparation and intention will change the outcome. It may, but it's no guarantee. Anyone expecting a direct correlation of preparation and results when it comes to birth may be bitterly disappointed. 

Lesson of control number one: you simply can't control all things. 

I will disclose now that I had hoped and planned for a home birth. I truly believed in the body's ability to birth a baby naturally, to do what it was designed to do, and had the support of the midwives and my close family and friends to which I had disclosed these intentions. I longed to feel the natural onset and wave of contractions, to experience what I felt was the purest right of passage for a woman. I had completely embraced the notion that I was completely and utterly capable of doing this, with the right mindset, attitude and support. 

I experienced a very long pre-labour, which had me contracting between 3 and 10 minutes apart for several days and nights before real labour kicked in. The contractions were painful and close together, meaning little to no sleep for days, and I couldn't stomach any food in the final 24hrs at all. Even in pre-labour I had been moaning and groaning on all fours for most of that day and by the time my waters broke and the midwife arrived I had already been in the birthing pool for hours. I did momentarily felt that surge of feminine power I had longed to experience - a moment I had read about and put on an almighty pedestal - the awesome natural process of birthing one's own baby, hopeful, primal and strong... but sadly that feeling didn't stick around. The painful surges were way more intense than I had ever bared imagine. I was making noises I didn't even recognise and I was beginning to weep and beg for help. Over a lengthy period labouring at home I was devastated to learn that I hadn't dilated past 5cm. What was wrong? Why wasn't it working? What was I doing wrong? Sadly, and I think unavoidably, negativity started to creep in. C'mon Kat, negative flight or fight responses lead to tension.... but alas, no amount of training, belligerence, self-talk or purity of thought was going to get me through. It simply wasn't happening for me. After four days of pre-labour and seven hours of active labour, in a fog of sheer exhaustion, self-doubt and disappointment, at 10am on Thursday 4th July we called it, and began the process of packing my bag for the hospital. 

They say when all is said and done, when one is exposed in the rawness of pain and vulnerability, one's mask comes off. Kat the athlete, Kat the physio, Kat the daughter, partner and mother-to-be, the over-achiever, the day-dreamer... laid bare. Who was I when the mask comes off? Amidst the howling contractions in the car on the way to the hospital, the tears and screams in the busy foyer, being wheeled in a wheelchair in the lift to the birth centre and attempting to pacify myself with gas and air for a few feeble minutes I kept questioning, was I afraid? Was I not capable? Was I a failure? 

I began to shut down and let the medical model take over, I requested an epidural, gripped Tom's hands through the shaking contractions whilst they inserted a needle into my spine, lay on the bed and rested for the first time in days, accepting that my locus of control was pretty much relinquished. So dramatic, no? Had I been more flexible, perhaps studied less and wanted less, perhaps the drama would've been a little more on the down-tempo. I realised I had had such fixed ideals around my beliefs of what was right and wrong.  Lesson of control number two. Despite the circumstances being completely out of my control, I had labelled this journey as wrong, and that was making my experience completely miserable. Being miserable inevitably lead to an even heightened since of failure. I was fuelling my own fire, and what was worse is I knew it! 

Lesson number two: How you react to things out of your control is a choice.

To save you the arduous job of enduring further birth-story self-indulgence, the end was this: I never dilated past 5cm. Our little baby was getting distressed and stuck, and I was cream-crackered and an emotional wreck (clearly). After a fair bit more waiting followed by a speedy transfer into theatre, our beautiful baby boy was born by emergency c-section at 1801hrs on 4th July 2019. When he entered the world he did the most almighty shit. Which basically sums it up. 

The fact is, it didn't go to plan, I didn't relinquish control gracefully, and thereby my experience was altogether utterly miserable. I didn't fail gracefully. You could say calling it a failure is instantly negative, perhaps I've been listening too much to Elizabeth Day's How To Fail Podcast (which is absolutely brilliant by the way) but the fact is - failure is really anything that doesn't meet your expectations. How you respond to that failure is where the real golden egg sits. 

The post-partum journey has been a combination of my two lessons learnt at birth: one; you simply can't control all things, and two; you can control how you react. And lesson number three? Learn from your bloody lessons. 

Pregnancy, birth and post-partum is a complete and utter leveller. Those of us used to working hard and reaping the rewards of that dedication may find ourselves disappointed. As if birth wasn't hard,  I have really struggled with the unpredictability, the lack of control (sigh) in when our baby might eat or sleep, or when I might snatch some sleep myself. In addition to this our little man and I have had a real battle with breastfeeding, which has resulted in quite a painful and exhausting six weeks. Through sheer bloody-mindedness (which I don't necessarily recommend and clearly haven't learnt my lessons fully yet), I feel we are now making a breakthrough, but I won't take the credit for the work I've put in. That's because we can't always expect results from our hard work. Sometimes things just don't turn out how we expected, and that's the natural order. Yes of course there's a place for feeling proud of one's achievements, and I do hold self-care in high regard, but in light of the current topic I need to make peace with the fact that it might've easily not happened for us. I do often wonder what my response would've been having to adjust and accept the 'failure' feeling of moving onto formula. Being unable to breastfeed and move onto a bottle is something so many mothers have to accept, and frankly something we probably should've done weeks ago, had I applied some of these valuable lessons. But I guess personal evolution takes time. 

My partner Tom is an incredible example of how to apply these lessons on control and dealing with things that evade our expectations. He is a wonderful example of composure, calm and flexibility when caring for our darling little boy and his exhausted, over-emotional, stubborn partner. I watch him every day dealing gently with unpredictability, reacting and responding to The Now and avoiding labelling things as positive or negative. I hold him in very high regard. Thank you for all that you do for us, Tom, I'm truly grateful. 

We can, and should, have the very best intentions with any goal we set ourselves. We must always believe that we are capable of great things and we should work hard in our efforts to achieve them. But there are corners in life where we won't be able to reap the rewards, won't have our expectations met, and will feel moments of pain, disappointment and even failure. Fighting those moments won't prevent them from happening, but may distort your experience and how you value it. One thing is certain: there will be great successes, and great failures. It's whether we can learn to fail, gracefully, that makes those failures our greatest achievement.