To feel very upset that I wont ever know what it feels like to give birth naturally?

[SchrodingersMew]

I've had a horrible couple of weeks. Had problems with fetal movement, hospitalised as they thought I was developing pre eclampsia and now almost unbearable pain due to Hypermobility Syndrome and the weight causing problems with my hips.

From the start I have wanted a very natural birth; only G+A, water birth, skin to skin etc. But was told yesterday while I was in MAU that they don't recommend I birth naturally and also not to go to 40 weeks as it will cause too much damage to my body. So I will be booked for a Csx sometime between 36 and 38 weeks.
They have also referred me to the psych team as they think I will get PND due to not coping with the pain, I don't know if this is also a reason for telling me to go earlier as I am obviously not in a decent state of mind and had a bit of a break down in the hospital yesterday.

I know I should be relieved that I now will have a date and that I will be in less pain but I can't help to feel upset that I wont know what it feels like to experience a vaginal birth. I have been reading all the birth stories on here the past couple of weeks and it has been getting me excited.

I know I am probably being UR and should just be gratefull that everything is being done to make sure me and DS are safe. :(

Meglet Have you seen Kill Bill? There's a scene in it where she spends hours trying to wriggle her toes. You've just put that image in my head! :o

Dogs I love you for posting on this thread, you've made VB sound awful enough for me to actually be enjoying the thought of being sliced up! :o

I have no idea of the size of a spinal block needle. I approach all needles with the same view - only to be had in life or death situations or where the pain far outweighs the fear of them. And I close my eyes as soon as I have given consent for needles, far, far before anyone ever gets them out.

So, DD2 was born 14 years ago and throughout that time I've remained blissfully unaware. :o

Another way of thinking about, if you are so inclined...

Of all the billions upon billions of babies born in all the world throughout history, how blessed/lucky is your baby to be born in a country and at a time when this kind of medical procedure exists to give him the best chance to live and to have a mother? It's utterly phenonemol.

I don't believe in destiny or anything, but just think or all the minute chances that have come about to allow this to happen. It is a positive thing. I know it's disappointing when things don't work out the way you expect, but it is positive.

Dogs the reason they gave me a spinal was (a) up until that point I hadn't had any pain relief, and (b) they had taken taken me up to theatre as they thought I was going to need another c-section, the ventouse was just a last ditch effort before they operated and so they gave me the spinal first.

They tried ventouse without a spinal with DS1 before things went completely pear shaped and I had to have a c-section under GA. So I had episiotomy stitches as well as c-section ones

But as I say all of these things do fade with time.

schrodinger Yes. I was just like that . But without the ninja powers and yellow jumpsuit.

I hear what you are saying. :( :)

I don't have straight forward births (understatement of the year) and had to work hard in the past year at putting away my dream of a 'proper birth', it never happened for me. However I realise how lucky we are to be blessed with three healthy children.

However I don't see why you can't feel both relieved and upset for the reasons you have outlined.

Just because you are happy to have the plans in place for your baby boy's entry into the world, doesn't mean that you can not also grieve a little for the type of birth you wanted to have and won't be having this time.

All the best.

PS. My EmCS was my quickest hospital stay of just two days, so don't think a ElCS will keep you in hospital for ages. Also I breastfeed my son in the recovery room just outside the surgery before being moved somewhere else.

If I'm honest with you, SM, VB was awful. I was unlucky - ventouse delivery and going from 3cm to birth in an hour and 20 minutes, only G&A - which does feck all to help - cord tied round DDs neck and internal bleeding that caused staff to tell me I'd die if I didn't go into theatre and me to tell them to fuck off and refuse.

As you gathered, I survived despite refusing to go into surgery, I was stitched in the delivery room.

Never again. I'd have had a temination with my second (and last!) child had I not been allowed a caesarean.

Psammead You are very right. :)

Ohh Jemima That really does sound ouchie.

I'm glad everything was okay in the end though!

What's great about birth is the baby at the end, and that's the same no matter which approach you take. How it comes out is not a reflection your skills as a mother or anything else, all that counts is what you do with it afterwards.

Babies I thought I would be in for ages with a csx. And thanks btw. :)

Dogs That sounds bloody awful!

HONEST SM, it's so calm, so ordered, and an amazing experience... one you can actually take in and marvel at because you're not in any pain. :)

:o Stoopid me!

That was the ELCS I was speaking of when I said it's calm and amazing, not in response to your "sounds bloody awful" remark about my VB.... my VB was bloody awful!

Dogs Curious.... Do you think I would be able to watch?

Told you I'm a nutter. :o

I had an emergency CS with DD1, and really wanted a VBAC with DD2. I got it, but also got a 3rd degree tear (she was back to back) which had to be repaired in theatre. If I were to have a 3rd I'd choose an elective CS.

You should get a spinal block, not an epidural. SB is much safer. I had one both times, the second one was much easier since I wasn't contracting.

I felt disappointed after my CS that things hadn't gone as planned and also felt guilty, as if I could have done something different to change it.

I think I've come to terms with it now, and with two small girls, don't have much time to dwell on it anyway!

Do what's best for you and your baby, and try to reconcile yourself with it.

Frigging hell, I think I have killed my own thread with that last comment.... :o :(

X posted

Zonked I think I will get over it, I think my mental state just now is probably just making it harder but I'm sure it will improve.

Can you tell me what the difference with the SP and the epi is?

Thanks, :)

Hi SchrodingersMew, sorry to hear you are feeling so low.

FWIW, I did labour for about 24 hours, and the EMCS at the end very very probably saved DS's life - even so, he needed extra care. And maybe it saved my life too as due to circumstances, a vaginal birth would have been likely to have caused massive bleeding. The epidural I was offered was a godsend, I was really at the point where I thought I couldn't take any more, and furthermore, it was then in place already when the decision for the EMCS was reached. Even with it already there, we narrowly escaped having to go the GA route (a minute longer or so...), as it was so urgent to get DS out.

And yet.
I resent the fact that I was offered an epidural despite having written in my BP that I was not to be offered pain relief, that I would ask for it when needed. I truly think that a good midwife could have helped me through that point. I resent that my wishes were not respected and that the understaffing led to an epidural I wouldn't otherwise have had. (Although it proved a godsend!)
I was very upset at not having had the experience of giving birth. I still feel strongly about it now. (At least I now have a healthy baby!)
I still think and resent that the whole traumatic birth experience was a major factor in the feeding difficulties we had later on. (If they hadn't got him out, if they hadn't whisked him off for treatment instead of giving us skin-to-skin time, I wouldn't have needed to worry about feeding, but about funerals instead...)

If I were to say YABU, I would be being very hypocritical indeed.

I only got to 4 inches when they whisked me away for an EmCS, and do you know, when they said 'it's going to be a CS', I felt nothing but utter relief that labour would stop, I'd get an epidural without having to ask for one and I would get my baby without having to go through the rest of it.

The CS itself was fine, I had morphine which was great and I am beaming and look so happy in the photos holding my baby as my innards are being put back in .

My DH then took the baby away for skin to skin as I was stitched up, and then I went to a recovery room where I was able to breastfeed straight away.

Melta I am truely so sorry to hear your story. :( It sounds very traumatic.

When I hear stories like that I guess I feel I am lucky to be being offered the safer option before anything happens.

I hope you start feeling better about it soon! :)

Noble They allowed you to take pictures before you were stitched up?
Starting to look forward to the morphine!....

You know, it was traumatic... but I have the most wonderful, happy little boy now. He gives me joy every day! :) And seen rationally, it really all was for the best. We were lucky to have such good care, and I was lucky that my wishes were disregarded, in a way.

That's what I'm saying - in my book it is sooooo not unreasonable to be upset about things birth-related. Birth is a very emotional thing, involving lots of strong hormones messing with us. And also, there are lots of cultural expectations about birth, that go to the heart of our identity as women. It would be unreasonable to expect people to be entirely reasonable about birth, I say.

Btw my midwife friend said that sometimes when someone has had a CS they soon afterwards (few days or so) do this thing where the woman gets naked and perhaps a bit sweaty in a warm, cosy, dimly lit room whilst someone else bathes the baby, then brings the wet baby to the mother and they cuddle up comfortably and stay like that as long as they like. It sounds a bit cheesy written up like that, but who knows? If after your little one is born, you feel like it would be nice to do that, why not have a go? You don't need to have rational reasons for wanting to do it, it just has to feel right :)

Yanbu.

I have had 2 VBs.

DD I arrived at hospital 10th dilated, walked to delivery suite and it was 8 hours before she arrived. 8 hours. I had to have forceps, spinal and an episiotomy. It was not the birth I had hoped for and I was pretty traumatised by the whole thing and felt pretty bloody cheated. Plus the episiotomy was something I would never wish to have gone through again. Especially when it got infected and I went pretty off the scale nuts. My memory of the spinal was bliss.

DS I wanted a lovely natural spontaneous labour with no pain relief and he was induced, continuous monitoring, chained to the bloody bed. No huge intervention and a much, much better experience. No horror story.

Basically I'm trying to say even if you embark on a vb it will not be how you imagine or hope. You can have an insanely long recovery and be traumatised. You can end up in hospital for as long as a section, I was. You can feel cheated.

As for the trying to avert pnd. That is so positive and I wish I'd been referred with DD to avoid the last 2.5 years of trying to cope with it.

Speak to your care team. Post on here. Find out what you can control and do. Make as much as you can be of your choosing. And best wishes.

Yes, there's a lovely photo of me, my DS on my chest and my DH next to me in a surgical gown and hat which was taken by one of the consultants with the screen up in the background and people busy behind it.

I don't regret having a CS one bit, would definitely have another one given the choice. And my birth plan was very similar to yours - but the labour I had up till then bore no resemblance to it at all for various reasons, so even if you went into labour naturally, you might not get what you wanted - in fact I don't know anyone in my group who got the nice water birth we all wrote down.

I think they say that disappointment about how the birth went is a big factor in PND so instead of focusing on what you wanted (which was an ideal, not a given), you need to start focusing on making the CS as good an experience as you can.

Would you elect to have a tooth extracted or appendix removed without pain relief?..... would you feel a failure for asking for anaesthetic?

As everyone says, the 'best' birth is the one that ends up with mum and baby safe and well. Keep that top of mind and try not to worry

I fought quite hard to have a birth in our home from home unit after v difficult forceps third degree etc birth first time round.

The natural birth that I wanted HURT like hell and gave me another third degree tear.

I was absolutely convinced in the last month of my pg that that was what I wanted and on some levels it was great, but looking back I don't know why it mattered to me. My chances of remaining continent post menopause are even lower than they were before.

I do really understand how important it feels at the end of pregnancy to have the delivery you had imagined, but an ELCS is a good good thing when it is for the right reasons

I have been lucky enough to have 4 straightforward pregnancies, 4 normal vaginal deliveries to 4 healthy babies. I loved giving birth and although it was painful(really really painful!) it was amazing. I felt like the strongest person in the world! BUT........ I would rate the first time I held all of them as the best moment of it all, and would trade my feelings of giving birth to feel that 'first hold' feeling all over again. You will still get to hold your baby for the first time and how you give birth won't change that.

I know I have no idea what a CS is like, but like everyone else is saying, as long as you get to hold that baby in your arms at the end, surely that's all that really counts.

That said though, allow yourself to feel sad about it and to really accept your feelings about what you think you are losing. Don't feel guilty about feeling sad about it, wallow in it for a while and then focus on meeting your baby.