Éalú Psychotherapy
Your Birth Story
This is a guided journal for reflecting on your birth experience, one module at a time, at whatever pace feels right for you.
How to Use This Course
This course is yours to move through at your own pace. There is no deadline, and no right order beyond starting at Module 1. Some people do one module a week. Some sit with a single module for much longer. Some start, pause, and come back later. All of that is fine.
A few things will help you get the most from it, and stay safe while you do:
- Use the grounding tool at the end of every module. It is part of the work, not an optional extra.
- You can write your responses, or open the voice recorder on your phone and speak them. Speaking is often easier when the material is heavy, and it is not a lesser option.
- Stop when you need to. Closing the laptop and coming back another day is good self-regulation, not failure.
- If something feels too big to hold on your own, that is important information. It may mean one-to-one support would serve you better, alongside or instead of this course. The support page tells you where to turn.
- This is a reflective and educational resource. It is not therapy, and working through it does not create a therapeutic relationship.
What to Expect, Module by Module
Here is the shape of the course, so nothing takes you by surprise:
- Module 1 settles you into the work and gives you your first regulation tool.
- Module 2 makes space for the version of your story you may never have told. It is the heaviest module, so it has extra pacing built in.
- Module 3 moves gently into the body and how it has held the experience.
- Module 4 looks at being witnessed and at what you needed and may not have been given. Many people find it the most moving.
- Module 5 looks at where your story goes from here and where to find further support.
- If you would like to begin with a tool already in hand, you can do the orienting practice from Module 1 before you start anything else. There is no harm in arriving grounded.
Support and Resources in Ireland
If you need help right now
- Emergency: call 112 or 999 if you or someone else is in immediate danger.
- Samaritans: freephone 116 123, any time, day or night.
- Pieta: freephone 1800 247 247, or text HELP to 51444, any time, for support with suicidal thoughts or self-harm.
- Your GP: a good first point of contact for ongoing support, and for a referral to specialist services.
Perinatal and birth-related support
- HSE Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services: support for mental health difficulties in pregnancy and after birth. Ask your GP, midwife or obstetrician about a referral.
- Nurture Health: a nationwide service offering counselling for pregnancy, birth, traumatic birth, loss and related issues. See nurturehealth.ie.
If you want your experience acknowledged, or want to give feedback
- AIMS Ireland: an independent, confidential service that supports people after difficult or traumatic maternity experiences, including help with a complaint letter if you choose to make one. See aimsireland.ie or email support@aimsireland.com.
- Patient Advocacy Service: a free, independent service that can support you to make a formal complaint about care in a public hospital, including a maternity hospital. See patientadvocacyservice.ie.
- HSE Your Service Your Say: the HSE's own feedback and complaints process, which your maternity hospital also operates.
Naming what happened, and asking for it to be acknowledged, is your right.
You do not need to be in crisis to deserve support.
Settling In
There are no right answers here. Write as much or as little as feels manageable.
You can use bullet points, fragments, whatever form works. You can also open the voice recorder on your phone and speak your response instead of writing. This is not a lesser option. For emotionally loaded material, speaking is often easier and more honest than typing.
When you think about your birth experience right now, what do you notice in your body? Not emotionally. Physically. Where do you feel it?
How have you described your birth experience to others? Is there a version of the story you always tell? What does that version leave out?
Is there a moment from your birth that comes back to you unasked? A sound, a sensation, an image? You don't have to describe it in detail. Just acknowledge it's there.
Your Story
This prompt invites you to put your birth story into words, and it is the most activating one in the course.
You do not need to write the very worst moment to do this work. If the hardest part feels like too much right now, stay at the edges of the story rather than its centre.
A fragment is enough. Working with the edges, rather than the centre, is what lets your nervous system process without being overwhelmed.
Choose a time when you have some capacity and support, keep your grounding tool to hand, and stop whenever you need to. You can return to the rest with a therapist when the time is right.
Write the version of your birth story you have never said out loud. The felt version. No minimising, no rushing past the hard parts. This is for you only.
Is there something you've felt about your birth experience that you've been afraid to admit, even to yourself? What is it?
Where does shame or self-blame show up when you think about your birth? Can you identify one specific thought that carries shame? What would you say to a friend who had that same thought?
What do you wish someone had said to you about your birth experience, and hasn't?
In the Body
If you are going to bring your birth experience to mind while working through this chapter, please bring to mind one small moment.
Not the most difficult moment. A moment from the beginning, or from a quieter point. This is not avoidance. It is how this kind of work is done safely.
Working with the edges of the experience, rather than the centre of it, is what allows your nervous system to process without being overwhelmed.
If you find yourself pulled toward the most difficult part of your birth, gently redirect. You can come back to that with a therapist when the time is right.
Where in your body do you notice your birth experience? You don't have to describe the memory, just the physical location and sensation. Tight chest. Heavy shoulders. Held breath. Whatever is there.
Are there specific triggers, sounds, smells, positions, places, that bring something from your birth experience back without warning? Name them if you can.
When you did the somatic awareness practice in this module, what did you notice? What surprised you, if anything?
What does your body need right now? Not should need, actually need. Rest, movement, warmth, space? Can you give it even a small amount of that today?
Being Witnessed
These questions are about what you needed during your birth, and whether anyone was able to see it.
Take them gently, and write only what feels okay.
What did you need during your birth that you didn't get? Be specific if you can: practical, relational, emotional.
Has anyone ever properly witnessed your birth experience, heard the real version without minimising, fixing, or moving on? If yes, what was that like? If no, what has that absence cost you?
Is there something about your birth experience that you have never said to anyone? What has stopped you?
Who in your life might be able to hold your story, even part of it? What would you need from them to feel safe sharing it?
If you imagine telling your birth story to someone who could truly witness it, what would you most want them to understand?
Where It Goes From Here
The final practice I want to offer you is optional. There's no requirement to do it, and no right way to do it if you do.
I'd like to invite you to write a letter to yourself on the day you gave birth. Not advice. Not reassurance. Just witness.
Tell her what you see. Tell her what you understand now that she couldn't have known then. Tell her what she was carrying. Tell her what she did to survive.
You don't have to be kind, or wise, or hopeful. You just have to be honest. And honest, for her, might be the kindest thing of all.
You can keep this letter. You can delete it. You can put it away and open it in a year. Whatever feels right.
A letter to yourself, on the day you gave birth.
This is the end of Your Birth Story.
Thank you for being here.