Traumatic Births

[AmyQ]

Reading through a lot of the birth stories it seems more of us than not have a fairly traumatic birth. While mine was a natural delivery with just an episiotomy I am struggling to come to terms with what happened during the labour. I keep coming back to feeling guilty and terrified.

Guilty because I hadn't eaten much or slept the day before - mostly due to slow labour and anxiety about having an induction. And terrified from realising after 15 hours that I barely had the strength to move let alone birth my baby, and thena few hours later having his heart rate drop and be taken to hospital by ambulance with the lights and sirens going and thinking that him or I were going to die. Of course it was never that dire and half an hour later in hospital I pushed him out.

I know that the tiredness and not eating are not entirely my fault and with hindsight I could easily have had the calm homebirth I wanted. I just keep coming back to those feelings.

I am completely over the moon with Evan, and I know it is not PND or PTSD, and the experience would not put me off having another baby but I almost feel stuck.

Is anyone else feeling like this and if so how did you move on, or at least come to terms with what happened?

Thanks ladies xxx

 

[Mrs N]

Time is a great healer, I had a terrible birth and would never consider another at the time but now I'm not worried, but that is 16 months on!
Xxx

 

[Babybushie28]

I haven't posted my birth story for this reason and I cried about my birth for a
good few weeks after. I had an emergency c section and was given pethidine which was what i did not want- buy of course I had no choice.

I was so "out of it" I felt like I was having an out of body experience throughout it and few days after. I couldn't hold my baby properly when he was born because my arms were numb and I couldn't register that he was my baby. The first few days I was so matter of
Fact with caring for him as I didn't believe he was really mine. Even people visiting and gushing over him looking like me couldn't break me out of my trance.

When it did kick in that he was mine around day 4 the guilt I felt was overwhelming and i couldn't stop crying.

Now I've kinda come to terms with it and I had to take the drug to be able to get him out safely and seal me up safely i still have a wobble now and then but i'm getting there, and I'm totally loving being a mummy to my gorgeous boy!!!

 

[CARNAT22]

My actual delivery was OK but my labour was horrid!

I was in early labour for 36 hours (spanning 2 nights and a day) during which time I barely ate or slept.

By the time I got to hospital I was showing signs of ketotis. I was so exhausted I only dilated 1cm in the birthing centre. So I went in at 5cm and 4 hours later I had only got to 6cm and had to go to labour ward and have the drip.

I hated the labour ward, I hated the bitch midwives and my experience from then on was horrible.

Some of my "highlights" of horribleness are when both MW's and my OH were telling me off for not pushing hard enough, One of the Dr's sneering at me for refusing an EPI and my cannula popping out whilst I was pushing. I had to remain totally still whilst babies head was almost ready to be delivered so a Dr could stick a cannula into my arm (which resulted in God awful bruising for weeks afterwards)

I managed to deliver baby after 2 hours of pushing and under threats of "Dr's will be coming in any minute with forceps" honestly one of the MW's said this to me!!!

James had taken so long to be delivered there were worries about his health and after a quick cuddle I was left sobbing, wondering if baby was OK. Don't get me wrogn I know the priority was with the baby but I just felt so unsupported! I had to deliver placenta ASAP as they needed to check it to see if baby had been starved of oxygen, they had it in a bowl on the end of the bed with me watching whilst two Dr's and OH were with baby on the resus trolly on the other side of the room

So whilst it wasn't "gory" horrible it was pretty traumatic. I was then stuck on a postnatal ward with no windows and left pretty much to my own devices???

I would say it took me a good few weeks to stop dwelling on it. I didn't feel guilty but I was very angry.

Now I tend to focus on the positives. I had a lovely MW in the birthing centre, who came to visit us afterwards and I had no physical problems with my lady bits (my shoulders and arms were wrecked though as I'd used bars when pushing). The longest lasting thing about my labour was my bruise from the cannula, I'd even stopped bleeding by the time it fully faded.

I would say if you are still having negative issues with your birth you may want to speak to your HV or even request your labour notes (you have to pay) to see if they can offer any closure.

I would go through it all again X a million to get James here safely and it's not put me off having another baby!! It did however take me a long time to get over the fact I had a no very nice experience.

xxxxxxx

 

[wifeywifey]

My labour was what most people say there dream labour would be, tightenings started 6am, 4pmset off to hospital arrived at 4:15 checked at 4:30 i was 5cm had gas and air pool started to be run 5pm I was holding my baby. I was so traumatised I went from 5cm to holding my baby so quick, I felt so detached from him and took me ages to bond. My first was back to back with episiotomy, heart rate dropped had one last push to get him out or end up transferred in an ambulance that took me a couple of weeks to really get over. Everyone is different I found talking really helped I even asked my mw what happened to my other 5cm lol

 

[shell1978]

Mine is still so raw i hate thinking about it after 4 days in hosp after a failed induction i ended up having a section i was so emotionaly drained by then i just wanted my baby i cant ever imagine doing this again x

 

[diane]

I had a good labour but horrendous after experience. I was offered post birth counseling and have found it really has helped me. Also being diagnosed with PTSD and trying to come to terms with what happened.

It scared me that women die from what happened to me and I don't know how I will cope in future but I would like another child. Just don't know if I could risk it happening and leaving my daughter motherless. It's hard to deal with. Time is a great healer for most tho Hun xxx

 

[Ammdaz]

I found my first birth pretty traumatic - I'd planned a homebirth and got to 10cm at home then the mw broke my waters and there was a lot of meconium so I had the ambulance transfer to hospital with blue lights and sirens too. By the time I got to hospital I was so tired I was begging the doctors to help me out. I ended up with an episiotomy and ventouse with no pain relief except the local anaesthetic for the episiotomy. I couldn't even have gas and air because it made me so sick. I will never forget the feeling of them pulling my little man out, it honestly felt like they were pulling my insides out. Thankfully he was fine although they did take him off to be checked over because of the amount of meconium which I hated because I had this irrational fear that if he was taken out of my sight he could be swapped with another baby - sounds stupid now but it was a real fear of mine at the time and I worried about it for ages after! Oh and then I had a PPH after delivery as well which scared the hell out of me I know people suffer a lot worse than I did but it did take me a long time to come to terms with it all. I found it very hard to think and talk about it. I also felt feelings of guilt, he ended up with two massive bruises on his poor little head from the suction cap and I felt like it was my fault because I hadn't managed to push him out. I felt a failure too for not managing to do it myself. I found it very hard to get all the bad memories out of my head and looking back I probably should've made myself talk about it more. But it did slowly get better over time and I came to terms with it. Now when I think about it I still feel a bit sad that I didn't get the kind of delivery I had hoped for but that's about as far as it goes, it doesn't traumatise me anymore. And the thought of having to give birth again in a couple of months doesn't scare me, I'm just hoping that I can get a bit closer this time round to the more relaxed natural birth I wanted last time. My advice would be to talk things through with someone, your OH or a close relative or maybe your mw or health visitor as I really think this would've helped me xxx

 

[Will78]

Similar to others, I had a bad experience and feel very guilty still for having 'moments' & flash backs which bring me to tears.

Without repeating my other post too much ("bad delivery & now a prolapse"), i found the hardest thing was that all the trauma of a long labour & forceps birth, episiotomy etc, i remained very stressed for days and my milk never came through until about day 6. My daughter lost >10% of her birth weight while we were stuck in hospital whil she had antibiotics for merconium in my waters. Basically I was a mess down below & little did I realise I had an infection too & couldn't sit / lie down without being in agony. When you put all that together, how then could I satisfactorily breast feed?

Despite having the right b/f technique & MW support, they finally listened to me and confirmed after 6 days that i didn't have enough milk. On paper it seems like I pretty well starved my baby for 6 days. That makes me the worst mother ever!

We had to give her formula, which she lapped up, but then to add to my own devastation, the staff, my own mother and OH had a go at me for 'starving' her. HOW COULD I HELP IT IF I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH MILK? and they tell you not to introduce formula before b/f is established because baby will get confused.

If I had any advice for mums to be, don't take it for granted your baby is getting milk, learn to hand express and actually see the milk for yourself, otherwise ask for a formula top-up. I lost so many days trying to get my milk supply up that I'm still trying to increase it now 6 weeks on, and the guilt remains.

Everytime a HV or MW asks me how i'm feeding her, and I say 'combination', they frown, criticise me for giving in & I basically end up sobbing my heart out, recalling everything that happened to justify having to use formula. The HV now thinks i've got PND (Itotally haven't, I'm coping as well as any new mum) and she won't leave me alone. My baby is now 10lb12, doing extremely well the way we are feeding her, and hitting all her milestones. How dare they question my ability to feed her now?

Fed up with interfering HVs and this global obsession with solely b/feeding. It's not the end of the world if you can't!!! Makes me so angry.

 

[Les1504]

I felt exactly the same way, I had a dreadful time and my LO ended up in neo-natal which I blamed myself for! I also felt there were unanswered questions and things the hospital could have done better, so I spoke to my HV and had a birth debrief with my consultant at the hospital. I genuinely came out feeling like a black cloud had lifted x

 

[Leah04x]

I had a horrendous experience and made me slightly worried if/when the time comes to do it all again!

I was in labour for 35 hours and got to 10cm dilated, however, there was a lip on my cervix which was preventing Ethan's head from coming down. They then decided to give me a c-section. They didn't top up the epidural enough and I felt it when they cut my stomach! Cue the shouting/screaming even though I was out of it on all sorts. They then had to put me under general anesthetic to do the c-section. Ethan was born at 10:25am and I didn't see him until about 2pm when I came round from the anesthetic - I wasn't first too cuddle my baby, he was cleaned up and dressed by the time I saw him. Also, he was starving after waiting for me to come round for a few hours but I was still way too out of it to breastfeed like I wanted to - I did try, but failed miserably.
I also got a nasty internal infection after my c-section, which made me really poorly and I could barely move (let alone care for my newborn!) for a couple of weeks after he was born.

The doctors put in my notes that I'm fine to have a natural birth next time round. This terrifies me! That I'll go through 30 odd hours of labour to end up having to have a c-section again. At which point, I'd probably go into complete meltdown, worried that I'll feel them cut me and have to be under general anesthetic again!

Saying this though, I'd still go through it all 10 times over for Ethan! 9 months on and it's still in the back of my head though when it comes to baby number 2!

xx

 

[BunnyN]

I had a good labour and birth experience but it's something I feel strongly about, perhaps because my mother had traumatic experiences during labour and hospital care. Toward the end of my pregnancy I really resented the attitude that all that matters is that the baby is safe in the end. I felt like my concerns and questions and choices were not really listened to and doctors and nurses were quite patronizing. (In the end I changed carers and was much happier). Of course safety of the baby was the most important thing to me, I don't need to be told that but I don't think that means what happens to the mother doesn't matter. Wanting a good birth doesn't mean you love your baby less. I know a perfect birth isnt always possible but I think that sometimes a little more compassion and support for the mothers wishes would help lot and help understanding and coming to terms with what happened afterwards should be provided. Hugs to all you ladies.

 

[Ella1979]

I had what I can only describe was a traumatic birth. At just under 36 weeks I had a blinding headache (I can't even begin to describe how painful it was - worse than the worst migraine I've suffered, I guess, like someone smashing the inside of my skull with a hammer). I phoned triage in the middle of the night and was advised to take codeine. They then rang back and said I should probably come in to get checked out.

Hospital MW checked bp (very high) and urine (protein ++++) and said I had pre-eclampsia. They did an ultrasound to check baby and measured her as only 32 weeks. Apart from her size, she seemed fine. I was put on bp meds.

The following day, as my bp wasn't coming down, they tried an induction. This caused my baby's heartrate to slow down every time I had a contraction. Due to "fetal distress" and my bp still rising, they decided to do an emergency c-section. By this time I couldn't stop myself shaking from fear and worry over my baby. I had the mag sulf injection you have to have to stop convulsions that can start if the pre-eclampsia turns into eclampsia. This made me go through massive hot flushes from toe to head (very weird).

I was then wheeled down to theatre, transferred over to the operating table and given an epidural. The feeling of your body going numb is very strange, but still didn't stop the rest of me from shaking uncontrollably. It didn't take too long to get the baby out, but because she was unbelievably tiny for dates (3lb 11oz), I didn't get to hold her and my only memory of her birth is her tiny little white body being whisked over my head to the SCBU team. It seemed to take them forever to sew me up. Luckily I didn't have too much bleeding.

I was then transferred back to the delivery suite where I was given a dose of morphine for the pain. My husband was with me the whole time, thank God, and he was able to go to see our daughter in SCBU. I was so ill I had to wait until she was 3 days old before I saw her.

Luckily our LO was absolutely perfect - small, but perfect. She had to stay in SCBU for 3 weeks and was fed through a nasogastric tube as she didn't have the energy to bottle feed.

I was in hospital for 8 days while they tried to get my bp under control. For 6 months afterwards I had to take bp meds.

It was the most horrendous experience and even now telling it makes me cry. It was so bloody scary.

This time round I'm "high risk" and under the care of a consultant. I'm having so many checks to make sure they don't miss the pre-eclampsia if it happens again and scans to make sure baby is growing well. When the consultant told me how well they're going to look after me I could have cried again from absolute relief.

All that matters to me is that the baby is safe and well and that I am safe and well. I don't care if I have to give birth in a hospital under consultant care rather than at home or at a birthing centre. I don't mind if I need drugs to get me through it, or if I have to have a c-section again rather than a vbac. In the end, to me at least, none of that really matters at all.

 

[Colourmeblue]

Both my labours were natural, with no cuts. This time, i didnt even have a tear. Both labours with gas and air and pethidine. However this time round, i was definately traumatised. It was soooo painful, so much more than my first. I was sure i was going to die, and by the time i got to 9cm, i actually wanted to die. I was telling mv's to just kill me and get my baby out. The pain was so extreme. And the feeling when she was ready to be pushed out was so overwhelming. I will never forget that feeling. At one point, her head was there and then the mv put her hands either side of baby's head to aid her out, and it just felt too much. That night i couldnt sleep, every time i drifted off I would shake out of my sleep with flashbacks. I would wake thinking im still in labour and it was terrifying. Now, 2 and a half weeks on, the memory of how traumatising it was is fading a little. When i do think of it, i start feeling panicky. After labour, i said i would never do it again. But now i can say, i would like another, but i denfinately need time to recover. x

 

[Jajis]

While I know that my labour / delivery could have been much, much worse than it actually was, it was still pretty traumatic for me. Even now, eleven months on, I still have flashbacks and nightmares than can make me cry, and shake with fear.

I hid it pretty well, mostly because I thought that it was normal and I was just being a bit pathetic, and assumed that with time the feelings would ease, as I'm sure they do for many other people. But they haven't for me, which is why today I went to my GP and told her how I was feeling.

She diagnosed me with PND, and she's arranging for me to go to the hospital and talk to somebody about my labour / delivery, to see if it helps, and to try and help with the fear I have of having another baby (which I definitely want at some point, but the idea just bloody terrifies me). I just wish I'd done it sooner, because I think even just talking to my GP about it has started to help.

 

[Missbatesy]

Wow you don't realise how brave us women are until you have had a baby! Truly the most amazing experience of my life I had a quick labour, started having regular contractions at 7am, I was 2cm dilated when I got to the hospital but they kept me in for a few hours because of how strong and regular the contractions were, they checked me again at about 3 and I was 7cm dilated and sent off to delivery! By 5pm I was fully dilated and at 5.38 and not even using the gas and air anymore I pushed my little lady out! That was fine. But after that I lost my strength completely & couldn't even hold her any more, some of the membranes didn't come out and she had torn me in two different places inside. By the time they had got everything out I had lost just over a litre of blood and was in absolute agony! When I came round from the pain relief they had to give me it's was 3 hours later and I finally got to have proper cuddles with Laycee!x

 

[Toria111]

It's amazing how many people go through traumatic births. My first I had a 52 hour labour, 2 hours pushing as they couldn't figure out why he wasn't coming out. Eventually went to theatre and they got him out with an episiotomy, 2 failed ventouse and eventually forcepts. this all resulted in a 3rd degree tear and internal damage that needed a 30 min op straight after my son was born. Followed by 6 months of physio to stop me from wetting myself.

I had a scan the day before labour started, and they estimated he was over 9lbs and to tell the midwives when labour started. I did this, and they said not to listen to the sonographer and that my baby was no more than 7 lbs. turns out he was 9lb3! He'd gotten stuck, and ended up with a dislocated shoulder, cuts up each side of his little face, a hage bruise and lump on his head and severely jaundiced. This all lead a lumbar puncture just after birth and 10 days in hospital.

If only they had listened to me when I fell pregnant the second time, I cried as really couldn't face going through that again. I refused to go back to the same hospital, so had to request my notes as I had seen a specialist who had said I must have a c-section next time. Anyway, they refused. Turns out, the week after I had my ordeal. Another lady went through the same thing, and sadly she and her baby passed away. They thought I was going to sue them!