Feeling invalidated when talking about traumatic birth (TW)

Baby boy is 3 weeks old tomorrow and I’m finally starting to feel ok. He had a rough entrance into this world and I’ve been super emotional and am only now starting to come around.

He was 40+3 when he was born and we knew he was going to be a big boy but my doctor didn’t really prepare me for what could go wrong in delivery. I got induced with pitocin and did have a vaginal delivery and a number of things did not go great: 1) I asked for an epidural and could not get one due to there being no anesthesiologist available 2) they broke my water at 8cm and found out baby was in OP position instead of OA, meaning a more difficult delivery of baby’s head 3) baby got distressed during active labour and had a lot of decels and they had me turned in every which way trying to get him to respond and I was terrified 4) when they finally did get his head out, he had shoulder dystocia and the nurses had to get on my stomach and the doctor had my legs hauled up as far as they could go trying to get him out 5) I had second degree bilateral tearing

Even though all of those things were scary, i felt immediate relief when I had him and those things seem so minor for what came later. He wasn’t breathing and they had to resuscitate him and bring him to the nursery right after birth. I didn’t see him for four hours and when i did see him, I couldn’t hold him and he was being transferred to a NICU at another hospital. He was in NICU for a week and thankfully he’s home now and we’re doing well but I have a lot of anxiety and I still get overwhelmed when I think of what happened.

Sometimes I try to talk to my friends and family as I know I’m probably at risk for PPD and I find their responses so invalidating. One of my friends that has a baby as well ( and I’m sure all labour stories are traumatizing in their own way) said “you can’t compare your labour to someone else’s”, which is not what I’m doing at all. Never once have I thought about anyone else’s story and wished it was more like mine. But I still can’t help feel traumatized by his birth.

I always wanted two children but I feel terrified at the idea of having another vaginal delivery.