For those of you who remember/helped me..

[finallypregnant]

When I wrote this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1365/560523

I thought I'd let you know what happened. I called hospital again that evening around 10 pm as the pain was very intense. Had a cry at midwife who reluctantly said come in and we will check you over.

Got there and was given an internal. Told once again that these were practice contractions but midwife said she'd put a trace on me to see how baby was. Well, during one of these practice contractions baby's heart beat dropped from 150 bpm to 60. This triggered an attempt to break my waters 3 times (hellish) and then an emergency section within 2 hours of arriving at hospital. DS born through what I thought was a calming experience and for a few days had no problems with section.

Got home 4 days later and during the course of the week became very, very ill. Taken by ambulance (999, blue lights and everything) back to maternity hospital where they established I had e-coli. Pumped full of drugs (had to stop breastfeeding but wasn't capable of talking yet alone expressing). Finally got home 5 days later with antibiotics, iron tablets and blood pressure tablets.

Been back to GP for a check up and it now also looks like I have an infection in my section scar so now on more antibiotics.

It's never ending and I feel my body failed me completely in something that should have been completely natural.

Thank you to everyone who did offer me support at the time though.

[HonoriaGlossop]

you have had a terrible time, and been through alot...I'm so sorry.

I hope you can start to feel better and really enjoy your son soon

I think the trauma of this kind of birth is just something that you have to come to your own terms with, but one thing that has helped me since my traumatic labour and birth is remembering that sometimes, bodies DO fail us and they always have; at least we are lucky enough to be here with our children - in times not so long past we would not have survived and nor would the babies, probably.

I do realise though that the outcome on it's own is not enough to make the experience not 'matter'

Good luck with your new ds!

[kitstwins]

Wise words HonoriaGlossop - as much as the outcome is incredibly important and the OP has a healthy baby, trauma has to be acknowledged and,as you say, the outcome often isn't enough to make the experience not matter. I WISH I could have forgotten about the trauma of my caesarean birth and aftermath. If I could have made it go away I would have done as I spent a year struggling with it and being defined by it.

To Finallypregant, it's very hard but you should firstly be kind to yourself - you got yourself to hospital and got your baby safely delivered so in that sense your body didn't let you down. You did the right thing by your baby. AS to the rest, you were unlucky and that's all it is. Not your body failing you, just not 'your day'. Sometimes they don't go so well in childbirth and the events are often totally beyond our control. A big help to me was accepting that I couldn't control what happened to me - that a sh*tty sequence of events happened and it was just bad luck. It wasn't MY day that day. And although my babies were born healthy and well and I'm forever grateful for that as I recognise what a precious gift that is and not to be taken for granted, I still had to come to terms with what happened to me.

I found the Sheila Kitzinger Birth Trauma website helpful and I would really encourage you to get in touch with your hospital's Birth Afterthoughts/Debriefing service. Most hospitals have them although they aren't particularly well advertised (presumably they don't want people to think that they might need them) but your hospitals Patient Liaison Service (PALS) should be able to point you in the right direction. You could ask your midwife or health visitor to look into it for you as she should have the details for this. This can be an invaluable help as it's an opportunity to talk through your notes (when you feel ready) and discuss what happened to you and any questions you might have. I found it really helped to make sense of it and have sympathetic doctors apologising for what had happened to me. It really helped and was hugely cathartic.

As for the infection, again that's bad luck and not really fair when you've already had such a tough time of it. But they are quite common post-section, and you also sound like you're quite under the weather physically post-birth so this is probably slowing the healing somewhat (I was badly anaemic and was told that this can make healing much slower - joy!!). The antibiotics should kick in really quickly and you can help things along by airing your scar as often as possible and bathing it in tea-tree and water solution (just with a clean piece of cotton wool). I then just used to pat mine dry with a clean flannel and let the air get to it. I did this three or four times a day. Blasting it with the shower head also helps too.

You sound like you've had such an awful time and it's really hard when you've had a difficult birth to then have problems afterwards as it stops you enjoying your new baby as you had hoped. But it won't last forever and you will heal and get back on your feet. And if you talk to people about your experience and perhaps look into discussing with your hospital that should really help with making some sense about the day and aftermath.

Forgive yourself. It wasn't your body - you did everything you could. It just wasn't your day and whilst that's a dreadful shame, it is not your fault.

Kx (sorry for epic)

[Mikafan]

poor you finallypregnant. I also had an infection after my section and was on anti-biotics. It does feel like its never ending doesn't it. On top of feeling like crap you then have what feels like the never ending bleeding - I felt like I'd never get back to normal - but you do - slowly but surely it will creep back up on you. Try and take things easy and take as much help as you can. Good luck for the future.