'When they were like, 'C-section,' because baby Riley was breach, I was like, Oh, do I have to be awake? It was the scariest,' said Trainor.
Giving birth could be a scary experience for many women. So it was for Meghan Trainor. She recently shared that months after she gave birth to her son, Riley, through C-section, she could still feel the pain and sometimes felt that she was still in the hospital, reports TODAY.
“I was like, ‘It’s so weird.' To my therapist and my doctors, I was like, ‘It’s like I’m back in the room,’” Trainor told Hoda Kotb on the TODAY show on April 24. “At nighttime, when the pain would kick in, I was like... 'I'm still on the table.'”
Pregnant Meghan Trainor Remembers Traumatizing Birth Of First Child That Left Her With PTSD Meghan Trainor gave birth to her and husband Daryl Sabara's first child, son Riley, in February 2021. pic.twitter.com/XmQ7kcgG86
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The singer was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, due to her birth experience. “They were like, ‘So we have to work through this. That’s a sign of PTSD,’” she said, recalling how professionals reacted when she shared how she was feeling. “I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’”
Speaking about her birth experience, Trainor said, “When they were like, 'C-section,' because baby Riley was breach, I was like, Oh, do I have to be awake? It was the scariest. I felt like I was jumping out of a plane. The whole time, I was just with my husband shaking. I was just like, surrender... Truly, you lose control, and it’s all right. We’ll get through this. And we did. We survived.”
She went on to say that many women suffer from PTSD silently, but for her, discussing PTSD has helped her to understand what she actually went through. “Once I talked about it and realized, like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t awesome,’ it helped break it down,” she said.
Trainor also opened up about feeling "so much shame" after Riley was born, as some nurses implied that he came out "sleepy," which may be because of the antidepressants she took during pregnancy. "My doctors, I called them and was like, 'You said nothing would happen!' And they said there's no science that backs that up, they're just pointing fingers," she continued.
"I just felt so much shame, I just had a crazy surgery and I'm on all these drugs and I feel miserable and to get pointed at to say it's your fault that your kid's asleep," Trainor added, according to PEOPLE.
However, Trainor believes that she had a perfect baby despite the tough situation. “I had a C-section that was wild, and it wasn’t like a fairy tale birth, but I got a fairy tale baby,” she said. “I got a dream baby, and I was like, even if you go through all that, you can still have a perfect baby.”
She had her first child, Riley, with her husband, Daryl Sabara, in February 2021. Trainor is now seven months pregnant with her second child.
During her first pregnancy, Trainor could not leave the house due to the pandemic and she called it a "very scary time." Thanks to her experience before and after birth, the singer wrote a book called, "Dear Future Mama." She has given tips about pregnancy and early motherhood in the book. “I just had so many questions, and I feel like I didn’t get answers, and I never want anyone else to feel like I did,” she said.
The "All About That Bass" singer revealed how motherhood changed her. "With the birth and C-section process, I was like, ‘Oh, if I can do this, I can do anything,’” she said. “And then afterward, having (Riley) there gave me the most motivation to be the best version of myself. So I started proving myself, like, ‘Oh, you have a goal? Let’s achieve it, let’s do it.’ And I changed my whole life.”
She also added that having a child does not mean that one loses their identity. “I heard a lot of people say once you have kids, your life ends, and it’s theirs,” she said. “And I was like, no, dude. My life just started because I’m going to be the best version of me I can be for this kid.”