anyone else ever had a flashback after giving birth...sorry v long

[kittenbaby]

well my dd is now 5 months old -born 37weeks
had quite a trumatic birth
an difficult pregnancy bad hg high bp at the end breech scares etc
this is roughly my birth story

i did so well during the labour and giving birth
only had gas and air during the labour and nothing at the pushing stage
apart from the fact i was in the water
thought everything had gone so well
after dd was born i delivered the plactena naturally after nearly and hour while bf dd
and i thought thats it ive done it!

then when i was examined the mw said we need to get someone more senior to look at you the look of horror on her face im not sure ill forget
then a sister examined me then a doctor then a surgeon they said i had 4th degree tears
i never knew anything like that existed and that id have to have a spinal tap and a repair operation
i was crying my eyes out even though when i was in labour and giving birth i was pretty silent and just got on with it
i found the examinations far far far worse than the labour and birth
thats was the worse bit

i just cant understand how this has happened to me, and i still cant now really
have had
like if i had had an epidural or even pethidine and had lost the urge to push and had to had forceps or vontouse and that had caused it then i could understand why it happened
or if dd got stuck and they had to rush her out , or if she came out the wrong way round i could understand it obv im glad those things didnt happen but then id understand what happened

but i only had gas and air
was on all fours
was in the water
only pushed when i was told to do so
its so difficult to understand

about 5 days ater the birth i had a full on flashback, i was awoken suddenly and i thought i was in labour, i was making allsorts of noises anbd crying and swearing[wasn't like that in the birth at all],screaming at my dh telling him to get away from me, i thought he was trying to hurt me,i kept saying the babys coming over and over again
dh said afterwards i was sort of howling like a dog
thankfully dd was asleep the whole time,so glad she didnt witness that, the flashback lasted about 20 mins
then i was crying for ages we then phoned the on call midwife in the early hours as we didnt know what to do as it seemed as if id gone nuts for about 20mins
i thought i was in the hospital even though i was at home in the ensuite
she was really helpful and calmed me down alot [even though it was 2am]

i have been on the bta website and i can relate to alot of info on there

5 months on im still having nightmares about having operations,last night i dreamt they where giving me an operation on my neck and back,had loads of other nightmares about birth/operations the surgeon etc
although thankfully only one actual flashback
some things trigger a kind of horrible feeling in me like in one of the bounty pack s there was a top and tail wash,well this must of been the stuff they used for my bedbath the next day at the hosp, as when went to use the one in the bounty pack the same hit me
isnt it weird how smells and trigger such strong memories?

just wondered if anyone else has had flashbacks or similar experiences as noone ever talks about this kind of stuff?

[kittenbaby]

also i think part of the reason i was so scared in the operation was because dh had to stay with baby so i was totally on my own

mum n dad where away abroad on holiday 2

i dont really think about it in the day,but i guess i must do at night in my sleep

[SpikeandDru]

kitten - this is post traumatic stress disorder - glad you have found the bta website because they are good.

Can you talk to your GP? He/She might be able to refer you onto a counsellor/therapist for support.

I didn't suffer from this myself but know someone who did and who suffered with severe postnatal depression afterwards with horrible flashbacks etc. She saw a therapist in the end (I think through her GP) and is now well recovered.

[kittenbaby]

hi spike
thanks for replying to me
well i wondered if it was ptsd but im only really having nightmares about it now
do you think thats worth having counselling for ?
i can talk to my gp hes really nice he told me hes never seen anyone get a 4th degree tear the whole time his been a gp
so hes v sympathtic

[kittenbaby]

i dont feel depressed ,i wish i could understand why it happened
but they just told me it was just extremely bad luck

maybe im still in shock?

[Klaw]

"only pushed when i was told to do so "

Pushing if you had no urge to push might be an explanation for your tear....

Did you have the urge to push or were you being coached to do so? It's better when your body is just doing it and you have absolutely no control and find it hard not to push, iyswim?

Anyway, these symptoms are entirely valid and you probably would benefit from counselling. It wouldn't matter if it was 5 minutes ago, five months ago or five years ago, your feelings need to be listened to and you need to be supported.

Use BTA, it's what they're there for.

Apart from this awful tear I am very happy to hear that you had such a lovely birth experience, enjoy your dd and yes, you deserve some TLC!

[Camillathechicken]

agree with klaw and spike

could be PTSD- flashbacks and nightmares are certainly a part of that

like you say, you had a normal vaginal birth, no reason for having a bad tear... that must be why it is so hard to accept.. as there is no discernible reason for it.

certainly as Klaw says, pushing without the urge can make tearing more likely, as can baby being born too quickly or having a hand up against their face

[kittenbaby]

do you think i should contact the bta ? ive been on the site but thats about it
or should i ask my gp ?

suppose i feel like a bit of a idiot for still having nightmares over it

[kittenbaby]

well i cant really remember i think i felt the urge to push
but it was fairly fast i suppose

the gyne im under now doing the follow up said im very narrow down there and i could have an expander if i wanted,

umm no thanks i said im scared to even be touched down there,let alone use some kind of expanding device!!
so maybe its a physical thing too?
i cried all the way through my follow up , bloody hell bet they think im a right nut job !!

[Camillathechicken]

you can certainly contact them

you are not nutty or an idiot

you have had a horrible experience and need time and help to get over it

[kittenbaby]

thanks camilla maybe they could put me in touch with other women that have experienced this
i think it was maily the flashback that scared me iykwim
like i didnt know where i was or what was happening
nothing like that has ever happened to me in my life before
and it seems like it never happened to anyone i know either

maybe ill email before i call

[sugarfree]

I had undiagnosed PTSD and PND following Ds1's dreadful delivery.I would say it took 18 months to feel anything like normal again.
You can get better quicker than I did by taking the advice the others have given you.
I didn't want you to feel so alone.
Please get help.

[kittenbaby]

thanks sugar when did you realise thats what had happend to you ? did you see anyone?
xx

[sugarfree]

I never saw anyone because I thought they would think I was nutty and take Ds1 away.
I realised what had been going on after I started to feel better and I saw a program about war veterans and PTSD and it all fitted.
At one point I was having flashbacks every couple of days and looking back I was on autopilot for just about a year. I didn't have any insight at all until I started getting better and then I realised how ill I had been.If I had known me I would have dragged me to the GP IYSWIM!
Even now I don't remember any music or current events from that year.
One thing that helped me eventually was talking about the birth in the tiniest detail,even though it was really hard.
Trouble is,after the first week friends and family don't want to talk about it and you start to feel like you are 'banging on'. Thats how an outsider might help you,they have to listen to your 'banging on'
Even now if it crops up in conversation (very rarely)I start to feel a bit anxious.
Ds1 is 14 in 10 days and I've since had 2 more sons with no further problems.
I was completely fine after Ds2 and after Ds3 when I felt I might be slipping into a very mild PND,I confessed to Dh and we talked it out.
Don't be as daft as me,go and see someone as soon as you can.

[sugarfree]

Ps.I think you are very brave to come on here and talk about it too.I couldn't have.
xx

[kittenbaby]

thanks sugar im going to contact the bta today

my gp knows about the flashback as when we called the on call mw in the early hours they sent on round 1st thing the next day
and then my own wm came and chatted to me for a quite while and my mw said she would tell my gp

[slim22]

Hi, I was really touched by your post. Listen to sugar. You need to fully debrief.

I think PND is very appropriate in the situation you describe. Ask GP.

[wardrobemistressakasugarfree]

Thats good to hear Kitten-keep in touch 'k?

[slim22]

Duh! I meant NLP of course, not PND!!
NLP as in neuro linguistic programation.

[frostythesnowmum]

I have had a flash back exactly like you describe - woken from sleep and I could clearly obviously feel pain and after my heart racing and my breathing fast until I calmed down. It really was a horrible experience and completely related to my horrific labour which I wont bore you with but I was traumatised for a long time after.

[Dinosaur]

Hi,

My experience wasn't anything like as disturbing as yours, but for quite a while after having DS2 I had flashbacks of a particularly scary and intense experience during labour. They have gradually faded away over time though. However,in the months following DS2's birth, I had a lot of dark thoughts and in particular used to have a compulsion to think about walking into the sea with him in the baby sling and drowning us both. I wonder now whether I had undiagnosed PND.

I do think it is worth you having counselling. Poor you, what a horrible and traumatic experience.

[Camillathechicken]

thread about birth truama you are absolutely not alone. i suffered horrific PND after an emergency c.s... i got through it and had a much more positive experience 6 years later.

[minouminou]

you poor thing
do you think it was the look of horror on the midwife's face that set it off?
i mean, you thought all was ok, and then it suddenly wasn't, and then you went straight from a nice relaxed water birth to full-on surgery
bit of a shock to the system, for sure.
don't blame you for having flashbacks at all...i had an ok time, but kept imagining the smell (i know entonox doesn't hve a smell, but the pipes they used at the hospital had a bleach smell) of the gas and air, and was, for a few seconds at a time, right back there, so if i can have flashbacks after that, then i'm not surprised you've had them.
at least now there's somewhere you can turn to - few decades ago you'd've been told to shut up and put up
hope it works out for you.

[kittenbaby]

hi everyone thanks for all your support

i think it was the shock of it all to be honest, like when thinking about what could happen at the birth i thought of senarios such as well if the baby gerts stuck or anything i may have to have a cs or whatever
but i never ever thought you could end up having to have an operationafter childbirth to repair all the damage .
i remeber think when the placenta came out pheww ive done it, its all over.
ok maybe ill need a few sticthes but so do most women
then they started saying get a surgeon and i had to have an operation i felt really scared,i didnt feel that was in labour at all i was calm
i hated being seperated from my newborn and my dh as well
and i dont think people ie my family and stuff really understand how serious it was and that they think i just had a few stiches more than most

thanks to all of you that have told me about your experiences with nightmares/flashbacks
helps me to feel im not alone

[wardrobemistressakasugarfree]

Mine was caused by thinking that I was going to do it with only the whiff of a green apple candle and soothing music!

I ended up with a prolapsed cord,a dash through reception with a shouty posse of doctors,midwives and students with my arse in the air and a midwife's hand up my fanjo.

Up in the lift to theatre which was occupied,(at which point I realised that if the baby wasn't dead he would be severely brain damged.In my head I was screaming and screaming,but when I said to my mum about it after, she said I had been eeerily silent)back in the lift to Emergency theatre which was like something out of M.A.S.H,I could hear them pulling the dust covers off equipment.

A rushed anaesthetic which I (briefly) woke up from whilst still in theatre,at the end I presume because I don't remember any pain,just masked faces and theatre lights.
A haemmorrhage whilst still in theatre which left me with a Hb of 6.8 and so ill that I was unable to breastfeed.

From them breaking my waters,and the cord prolapsing to birth was a grand total of 14 minutes.

When I woke up properly I was utterly convinced that Ds1 had died and I can still remember how bereft I felt,like it was yesterday.

When I booked for Ds2 some midwives actually remembered me as The Prolapsed Cord of '93!

Thank you for listening to me 'banging on'

[pregnabrain]

Hi Kittenbaby

You are not alone in this (as you can see from all these posts) and you are DEFINITELY not nuts or making a fuss about nothing.

You've had a horrendous shock and are now, understandably, finding it hard to cope with that.

Many aspects of your story chime exactly with me. I had a hard induced labour but managed to deliver my baby vaginally after two and a half hours of pushing. I was euphoric for about 10 seconds until I saw the midwife holding up the inflated catheter (I had had an epidural) and heard her say in a shaky voice "It came out...inflated". The awareness that this was likely to have bad repercussions for me was followed almost straight away by my new dd passing out and having to be rushed off to ICU (with me left alone in the labour room for what felt like hours). The following few days were even worse. I didn't sleep for a week, and suffered intense flashbacks and hallucinations.

Time sort of helped. My physical symptoms improved as my body healed and, especially, as my hormones levelled out.

But, the thing that helped most was me acknowledging that what I was going through was not normal. A year after dd's birth I was still experiencing flashbacks, paranoia, obssessive thoughts and endless tears.

I finally broke down in front of my pelvic floor physio and she did two wonderful things:

1. organised for me to have a labour debrief with the head of midwifery at my hospital
   
2. put me in touch with the specialist perinatal psychologist, also at the hospital, who started seeing me straight away.
   
   Both these things have been incredibly valuable in helping me to come to terms with what happened to me (so much so that, after MUCH agonising, I'm now pregnant with my second).
   
   I really hope you get the help you obviously need. Don't think about it too much - get to your GP / consultant / whoever and start demanding help. Good luck with it all. x