After delivering a healthy baby boy, Rosalyn Bajraktari was diagnosed with a postpartum nerve injury. It took nearly 12 weeks for Rosalyn to regain feeling in her leg.
"You anticipate some recovery, some downtime and all the healing that accompanies [birthing a baby], but you don't really anticipate not being mobile," she says of her experience. With her husband overseas for work, Rosalyn's mom stepped in to do a lot of the hands-on work caring for her newborn son.
Postpartum nerve injuries can occur in up to 2 percent of all deliveries.[1] Sometimes, epidural anesthesia can hide the sensation that a nerve is getting stretched or compressed in a particular birthing position.[2] When nerve injuries do happen, they can take months to heal.
Postpartum complications can take a toll mentally, too. Rosalyn didn't consider her emotional health until her baby was almost 1 year old.
"I had put so much of my energy into really taking care of him and just being in survival mode," she says, "I had to look at myself and ask myself, are you okay? You really need to focus on yourself. You need to get yourself better for him."
Seeking support in the postpartum period
When Rosalyn and her husband Kenneth Beltran found out they were expecting, Kenneth was in the military. To support their growing family, he accepted a job overseas. The couple attended ultrasound appointments together to see the baby, but he had to leave for work when she reached 32 weeks and he couldn't attend the birth.
"I didn't know if I was going to be alone when my baby was born, and that was terrifying to me," Rosalyn says. When she did go into labor, something felt off to her. She flagged her care team, but her concerns were dismissed. It wasn’t until after delivery that they realized something was wrong.
"When I got out of the bed, I could not stand up," she says. "It felt like my brain was trying to communicate with my foot, but they weren't hearing each other.”
Luckily, her parents lived nearby, and her mother played a leading role in caring for Rosalyn and her son after delivery. But Rosalyn wishes her medical care team had done more for her during labor and afterwards through her recovery.
At her six-week postpartum checkup, Rosalyn was surprised by how little the staff asked about her healing process. She wasn't offered any physical therapy, and no one followed up to make sure she was okay, either physically or mentally.
"I was struggling with anxiety and even some obsessive thoughts," Rosalyn says. "I think it's more common than maybe people want to admit. Sometimes when you're in that fog, it's so hard to see through it."
Once her son turned 1, Rosalyn sought out a virtual therapist. "I'm so glad that I did that — I'm sorry that I waited to do that, though," she says. "I'm still very much a work in progress, but it gives me something to think about every day and it gives me someone to be accountable to."
Rosalyn says she would encourage anyone navigating postpartum or birth trauma to get help and support.
Creating a better experience is possible
Slowly but surely, Rosalyn worked through her trauma. At 18 months postpartum, she and Kenneth learned their second child was on the way. This time, she wanted to do things differently.
"I decided to plan out the induction, and it was a much faster labor and delivery," she says. "My husband was also there, so it was just a completely different experience."
Her advice to moms who've had a traumatic birth is to remember that you can have a different experience.
"Any hardship that you experienced doesn't necessarily mean that every consecutive pregnancy or delivery will be the exact same," she says.
In the end, Rosalyn learned to advocate for herself. In her second labor and delivery, she told all of the medical staff about what happened to her the first time, which she feels ensured that the same complications wouldn't happen a second time.
"If I could have told myself anything at the end of my pregnancy with my first son, it would be that you will be in a completely different place in the future," Rosalyn says. "You are the best mother for your child, and it's going to be okay."
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