to ask for help in expaining this to DD?

[herethereandeverywhere]

I've posted here for the traffic and because it doesn't quite fit in any other topic I can think of.

DD1 is 4.3. When she was delivered by Keillands forceps she was left permanently scarred on her face (a sort of circular gouge mark beside her eye). It started off quite small but is growing with her so proportionally will always be about the size of the pupil in her eye.

I hate that she has to bear that for no good reason and I hate her botched tortuous birth looking back at me every day, mostly because I'd protected her inside me for 9 months and in my first job, to deliver her safely I didn't protect her from that.

I have always known that one day she will ask me about it but I hadn't really prepared myself for what to say. Anyway, today was the day. As she looked in the mirror she said 'mummy look at that funny circle by my eye. Can you see it? It looks like someone has dug it out.' I froze and just hugged her and tried not to get upset in front of her.

I know that children suffer far worse than this and I know it's what's on the inside that counts etc. but this guts me and I just don't know how to approach it with DD. At the moment she's obviously not bothered by it but she might be as she gets older and more self-conscious. I wanted to sue the hospital so that when she was old enough I could say that the money was for what they did to her but DH is dead against and I'm not sure I have it in me to do that.

Any ideas? I think IANBU to ask but probably will be found U on other counts!

Ok, this wil probably sound ridiculous to you, but I'll try.
The scar is, to you, a symbol of what was negative about the birth.
However, there is no reason that it couldn't be seen as a mark of the wonderful day you and your daughter first met.
My daughter has a very large and obvious birth mark. I am very fortunate that I have no traumatic memory to associate with it, as you do. That mark, to me, is a symbol of the day I first laid eyes on my angel and reminds me that she is my darling little girl. Maybe one day you might manage to see hers in a similar way. And even if you can't, she might.
In terms of explaining to her, be honest but without being negative, so far as you can manage.

First of all I am speaking as someone who had a rather traumatic birth with DD1 (failed forceps, failed ventouse, emergency CS) so I do understand the feelings you describe and the sense of "failure" and anger that you describe

However, I do think you are transferring those feelings onto your DD's scar and the fact that you see it every day forces you to dwell on them. I don't think this is healthy. Or useful.

You sound very angry and bitter and determined to continue to be angry and bitter.

I'm sorry you feel like thi but I feel you do really need to make a effort (counselling?) to move past it

And why shouldn't you sue the NHS? because it will not only continue to eat you up and keep the birth top of mind, it will also use up vital NHS resources to fight it. And, in the long run, it is a small scar and not life threatening or acute. And it saved you having major abdominal emerhency surgery.

I am very sorry you obviously have been very badly affected by her birth but I think she will just take it in her stride as kids do if you keep it a non 'scary' story when discussing the scar. Also your talk of sueing the NHS makes me feel quite aggrieved actually. It is a service that we are lucky to have access to and taking money from it in this way is in my eyes wrong. If everyone who had small issues had this view it would take money from those who really need it for life threatening conditions or even push it towards a privatised service. And I don't think that would be a good thing personally.

theimposter if surgeons and doctors etc are immune from prosecution over their mistakes then that would be ridiculous.

of course mistakes happen to humans but sometimes litigation is the inky way to uncover bad practise and start change.

op why the fuck is a surgeon trying to cut C section stats? if you need one you need one and if you don't you don't.

crap attitudes like this need to be challenged. surgeons are not gods to have personal crusades.

My daughter has a bald patch/scar on her head it's about the size of an adult thumbprint. Depending on what hairstyle she wants you can see it.

She was cut during a cs. The surgeon said "oops!"

She was told once she noticed it how it had happened and is fine with it.

I know you feel upset by it but she probably won't even think about it

My daughter also has a three inch scar on her face from walking into a door, I notice it (very faint now) but for an extremely vain child she obviously very unobservant because she never mentions it

I've been a long time lurker, but this is the first time in 4 years that I've felt the need to post on this board.

I'm genuinely concerned about your ability to move on, and would seriously recommend you seek some form of counselling.

I'm also highly concerned about how you feel the need to sue.

Trust me i understand about traumatic births - DD was born blue, by emergency c-section for undiagnosed breech 10 hours after I first started begging the midwife to listen to me about being in labour & having her laugh at me, I was only admitted once fully dilated, by which point DD was not breathing & I was bleeding heavily. I spent a day in ICU and DD was critical for the first week, she is also severely disabled (not related, but also not detected in ante-natal screening).

Despite all that, I understand that mistakes happen, and it is not in anyone's interest to sue.

You really do need to get help to move past this, before this also starts to impact on how your DD views herself.

I wonder if the phrases like 'you have to get past it' and 'get over it' or 'put it behind you' are inadvertently implying the wrong thing? For me, they give out the wrong message though they probably weren't meant like that at all.

For me they have an echo of trying to ignore how you feel, or dismissing how you feel and as someone who was deeply traumatized by this, I don't think that's right. Pushing feelings down and trying to pretend they're not there don't result in someone getting over a trauma, but suppressing and not dealing with it and storing up an endless well of hurt and distress.

To truly address the hurt and damage this event has caused you, you do need to do something. Or it will fester and deepen and twist and hurt you even more than the event itself did. I have no idea about sueing but I would suggest getting an explanation and an apology. You need for someone responsible to truly listen and hear what happened to you.

Feeling powerless and unheard is one of the most poisonous things about a traumatic incident that could have been avoided.

To move on, don't just try and ignore it and let it harm you, dwell on it in a positive way, to get some action and apology. Doing this will help that scar reduce to just a scar in your head, and stop your very real and justified pain holding you in that moment forever.

MiscellaneousAssortment - apologies if I phrased it badly, I absolutely don't think she should ignore her feelings. Hence the reason I suggested counselling.

For me, talking to someone independently really helped me work though the anger I felt towards my midwife, and helped me to start focusing on all the good about the situation (I.e. DD survived against the odds), rather than all the things that went wrong. It also helped with the PTS & nightmares that I suffered for about a year after the event.

You ask what counselling will do.
Well, it should stop you feeling so very unhappy, for a start. You could talk to a lawyer about your chances if you were to sue-I have no idea about the legal side. But you do need to find a way of accepting and moving on. And good counseling will do that.

OP please look here www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk/ for more information and sources of help

I doubt your daughter is bothered by the scar but you are and it goes very deep for you x

My traumatic birth left my daughter with no outward marks but with some brain minor brain injury - I have been honest with her about it

Oh lord sorry ProudMum that comment absolutely wasn't aimed at anyone and please don't think it was

I read the whole thread in one and was struck by own sense of unease when reading all those phrases at once. Took me a while to work out why and was sharing in case OP felt the same and that language barrier may be contributing to her trauma.

Thanks to all who have posted, esp. those showing concern for me.

I have decided to go with "it was there when you were born" at the moment as she doesn't yet understand about how it may have come about. I'll save the details for when she's older. Fact is that although it's what's on the inside that counts and that I reinforce, she will eventually look in the mirror and need to know why she's 'wearing' it and potentially be unhappy about it.

As for me, well physically (and obviously mentally) I wasn't fine either and the day I met my daughter was not happy. It was traumatic, painful and humiliating. I have posted about my own experience in the childbirth thread lots of times. My recovery from her birth was far longer, harder and more painful than my recovery from ELCS for DD2. My huge episiotomy broke down so I had a large open wound that I had to wait for the scar tissue to grow across. I was faecally incontinent which is now almost better, though not perfect. the mismeasured my blood loss - probably, no-one will ever know as we were so busy getting treatment for DD who was readmitted to hospital for being too sleepy to feed (due to her traumatic birth). I had blue lips and no capillary reflex despite only losing a supposed 400ml.

My view on suing is that I would like to stop consultants and their teams being able to coerce women into this treatment for the benefit of their stats. The day following the birth a midwife introduced the consultant doing his rounds to me as 'the man who keeps our cs rates down' (all smiles). She explained that the instruments he used (Keillands forceps) had gone out of fashion. Do a google search and you will realise it's not about fashion but about safety, risk and brutality. With the US litigious culture you would NEVER find a US obs/gynae delivering with them!

My baby had not descended (deep transverse arrest), she was not in distress. My birth plan stated I wanted to go straight to CS if I wasn't progressing rather than suffer instruments and when I was wracked with pain, exhausted and frightened they coerced me into letting them try the Keillands forceps first (in theatre). The 'risks' I signed away were radically different to the way a forceps delivery was described in the NHS leaflet/on their website which totally minimises the brutality (consultant with foot against table pulling with his whole body weight=actual gently pulls=leaflet) and does not mention the risks.

I didn't want this thread to become about me but it has. I always thought counselling was only useful if I wanted to counsel my mind into agreeing to a VB again. I never would so didn't think I needed the counselling.

(Sorry its so long)

I totally agree with you about Keillands forceps herethere. The fact they are used at all is hard for me to get my head around. Perhaps in a very serious situation where there really is no time to do a cs, which obviously wasn't the case with you.
Did you know a mechsnic has come up with an ingenious tool to replace forceps? I can't for the life of me remember the name but if you should be able to google it. It's such a simple idea that reading about it actually made me quite angry. If anyone actually gave a shit it could have been developed 100 years ago. In what other branch of medicine do they still use such barbaric outdated devices? Not in any branch that treats men, that's for sure.

It sounds as if your dd is absolutely fine- it is incredibly unlikely that she will be unhappy about a scar that is the size of the pupil of her eye. And if she hasn't noticed it before I am guessing that it is not particularly obvious.

The scars you bear yourself, , however are obvious- and barely healed. Please seek help for yourself, whether or not you take any further action against the hospital. There are two different things- you can decide whether or not to take legal action, but whatever you do, seek counselling to help you come to terms with your horrible experience.

I had a traumatic birth with ds, forceps in theatre, prepped for CS (not keillands thankfully) and ds was also cut and badly bruised from them - although they haven't left a scar. My episiotomy tore internally to my cervix and I also had a retained placenta. There was no reason for them to hurry me either and switch to forceps, I had just 'run out of time' so to speak. The damage left me with an anterior and posterior prolapse which I had surgery for last year and couldn't lift for 6 weeks. ds was nearly 4, so old enough to understand mummy had to have an operation to fix her bottom, hence the conversation of his birth came up. I simply said when he came out of mummy's tummy he was in a funny position and mummy was very tired so the doctors helped by pulling him out - it cut mummy's bottom a little bit so she was getting it stitched up. It was all very matter of fact and he understands that even now, mummy can't carry heavy things because 'her bottom broke when I was born' and carrying heavy things could make me poorly again.

Callin the inside-out plastic bag thing from South America! Yes, I cannot believe there is so little science behind childbirth. Whenever I ask/ed a question (that wasn't about CS they are overflowing with stats for that) I was given a shrug/don't know and recommended breathing exercises/reflexology/moxybustion/acupuncture/standing on my head/homeopathy/pineapples/olive oil/ breast milk (because it 'might work' ). There is NO WAY that men would settle for a scientific black hole and a leaning to quackery if they had to face the dangers of childbirth - let alone the subservient role most labouring women find themselves in.

"Leaning to quackery" - good phrase and unfortunately accurate. I was threatened with all aorts when in labour with ds - ventouse, clip on the head, episiotomy. Luckily the gas and air made me incredibly bolshy and I just said no to everything. The younger mw basically implied afterwards that there was no need for any of it - the older cunt of a mw was just trying to cover her arse as the monitor wasn't working properly. Even that makes me angry so I can imagine how you feel.

Keilland forceps are barbaric and it does sound as if what you went through was not in your interest. Many uk hospitals do not use them at all and I'm sure you can find guidelines and research that suggests limiting their use. I'd still seriously consider looking into complaints/litigation. I think there are timescales so be aware of that.
Best of luck and I hope you get some resolution on it.

I had a traumatic birth and had undiagnosed ptsd for a while. Emdr helped and my emd therapist warned me that trad counselling is highly counterproductive. To me it soulds like the memories are stuck in the wrong part of your brain and you are reliving it. Emdr moves memories to the past bit of your brain so they feel like the past and not the present. You will still feel sad about your horrible experience but it wont haunt yo so much.
Explore suing if you want. At the very least it will force the med team to be held accountable. I don't think women should be grateful for the nhs when at time it does screw up.

I have a half-penny sized dent in my forehead from an accident as a kid, one in my eyebrow and a couple on my chin. I also have a few miscellaneous scars on my arms and hands. I can't say any of them either bothered me (except of course when I got the ones on my arms and they were red and angry).

I understand you're traumatised by the birth and worried about the scars affect on your daughter, but if you make them an issue, they will be. Just as if you don't make an issue of them, they're less likely to be.

My mum simply told me what happened (matter of factly). She also never told me it bothered her until I was an adult and then she told me she was worried about how it would heal and whether it would mar my looks. For the record it hasn't really, it's just something uniquely me :)

Just to echo what other have said, I do think having some kind of counceling/therapy would help you to come to terms with the traumatic birth.

I'm not really in favor of suing when accidents happen or there are small mistakes, but the birth doesn't sound like it was progressed with your best interests and maybe litigation could help to challenge the attitudes of the med team and prevent it happening to someone else.

Your daughter likely won't notice or care about her scar, and I'm sure she'll pick up many more small ones as her life goes on. Help her to be accepting of things like scars and you'll set her up with a healthy attitude.

I have facial palsy resulting from my birth. As someone who has grown up with something different which people notice (probably far more than your daughters mark but hard to say) please, please just tell her a simple factual truth. Keep your emotions out of it.

My mother did not do this and that, along with years of bullying has seriously damaged my self esteem. If I ever try to speak to my mother about my face all I hear is about how it made her feel.

Just explain what happened, how the mark was caused and that it's permanent. I know she's only 4 but the earlier she knows the truth the better.

And I'd second all those who say you need to speak to someone about what happens. Your husband also needs to understand what's going on in your head.

dd has a special scar from when the doctors saved her. (like Harry Potter has a special scar...)

I think you are struggling to give it a good spin because it was such a horrible and disempowering experience for you. Birth trauma stays with you :( sorry you still feel horrible 4 years on OP>

Blimey you had a rough time. I'm so sorry for that. It sounds brutal. As I mentioned upthread I was "failed forceps" (and ventouse) so I know what you mean about the brute force and trauma of it all. It is very disturbing.

But in your OP you asked about your DD's scar and this is quite clearly not about that.

Your DD does not share your tarumatic memories of your birth and I think you need to be very careful when you talk to her aboutthe scar, not to transfer your (very real and justifiable) negative feelings about how she got it, onto her. To you it is a symbol of a terrible experience. To her its' just a mark which she hopefuly won't even notice 99% of the time.

It's clear to me that counselling could help you to come to terms with what heppened - it's plain that you need to

Good luck!

The thread has become about you, because your attitude towards your daughters scar will be a much bigger problem for your daughter than the scar itself. I'm surprised you can't see that. The birth sounds terrible, but I don't think the American way if doing things is the answer.