To ask DP to forgive me for DS's birth?

[CulturalBear]

Have posted a few times about moderately crap DS birth.

Nutshell - waters broke, on drip 40 hours later, needed forceps/episiotomy, later abandoned on recovery ward (with naked baby) by hospital staff and DP for 4-5hours. DS largely fine, I was largely fine.

A year and a bit on, and it still bothers me.

Someone IRL recently told me the usual 'all that matters' is that DS is fine and I need to let it go - and asked what I needed to do that.

It occurred to me around DS's first birthday that I need DP to forgive me. He has never given me any praise or credit around the birth or year since - never said well done or that he's proud of me, or that I'm a good mum or even thank you for the things I do - all normal things a dad might say to his partner.

He is basically Spock when it comes to feelings - he logics the shit out of them so they don't trouble him.

But I believe that him not saying these things implies he feels ashamed of me. I think that if I could get him to express forgiveness for screwing up or letting him/DS down, then I might be able to let go this over-riding sense of failure I've had since.

For the record, I 100% do not judge the way that anyone else gives birth - it's bloody hard work and requires a huge amount of effort however it happens - I just wish I, personally, had done better. I have never been given a reason for needing the interventions other than 'he was a bit stuck'.

Ideally DS would tell me he forgives me - but I'm not sure I could wait 18+ years!

Would I be unreasonable to ask DP to forgive me? If not, how do I go about it?

Your consultant sounds a total arse.
To be fair I guess his goal was to make sure you and the baby were safe, he probably isn't concerned with your feelings (not that this makes it better of course....).

You have to get into a place where you can accept that what happened wasn't your fault. If you don't see a way to getting to that place yourself, then you need to find someone who you can talk this through who can help steer you towards it. For me, just going over and over it in my own mind, then going through my birth notes was enough to get my head moving in the right direction, though it still took a while and the guilty feelings did still come back from time to time.

But honestly, you do need to talk to someone - and that's probably some kind of counsellor.

Honestly IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. I can't stress that enough. Giving birth is hard. Without medical intervention, many women and their babies die in the process. That's because sometimes, for reasons nobody can really explain, things just don't go how they need to for it all to work.

You didn't fail your son, and you didn't fail your partner, and you didn't fail yourself.

Your consultant was an arse. Of course you couldn't give an effective push with a spinal taking effect!

And female GPs can be horribly unsympathetic at times - somehow that feels much worse than when it's a male GP as we hope for something a bit better from them.

You can talk to us on here, if that helps. But finding someone in RL would be better if you can.

I had some similar comments from the consultant when I gave birth. It was a ventouse delivery (turns out that dc1 had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck).
I remember clearly the consultant thing me I had to push harder otherwise it would have to be a cs. And the me grabbing my hand telling me I was doing fine and to just carry on whilst giving the consultant an evil eye.

I've since met a few mw and I understood that 1- that consultant was careless about her patients feelings aka me and 2- she was only thinking about her and what she needed to do.
Ie even though what she said was sounding like 'if you end up with a cs it's because you haven't pushed hard enough' it was actually 'if she can't push this baby more, he will never come out, heart rate is dropping so it will have to be an emcs.
It looks like your consultant wasn't much better than mine re talking to patients. And only cared about what not being able to push more meant for her in practical terms ie using forceps rather than ventouse. (Note it would also have been very possible that you couldn't have pushed more anyway, regardless of the spinal depending on the position if your baby)

Also just as much it's normal to want to talk about the birth to your DH, I think that sometimes our partners aren't the best person for that. It might be because they are been traumatised too. Or because they know you were in pain and don't want to know more about the pain/fear. Sometes because they are too keen to try and solve the problem when what you need is to be listened to.
That's why a counsellor can be good.

Maybe he feels ashamed of his "weakness" at the birth (fainting etc) and that's why he wants to forget the whole thing. As all the other PP have said, you have nothing that he needs to forgive you for and actually, I haven't read anything in your posts which make me think he DOES blame you for anything. It was a bad birth, with bad aftercare, some of which is the hosptial's fault, some of which is in fact "shit happens". I never dilated beyond 3cm with either of mine despite a shitload of syntocin drip. No-one has ever explained to me why the inductions didn't work (ended up with CS) other than maybe the heads weren't pressing on the cervix at each contraction. It really doesn't matter - if my pelvis is the wrong shape, that is not my fault and I'll be damned if I feel to blame for anything. Honestly, I think (especially after your second post) that just maybe your DP is getting a bit of a rough ride here. He coped badly (also not his fault, birth can be pretty traumatic to watch too, just because he's not physically feeling the pain doesn't mean it wasn't difficult) and sound like more of a mix up resulting in you being left alone by him. I honestly do think that rather than him being angry at YOU, he might be angry at himself.

I don't see any way beyond this feeling bar counselling. It's not forgiveness from your dh you need, it is from yourself - only in this case it is acceptance rather than forgiveness as you did nothing wrong.
My dh has never said the positive things re the birth of our babies that you hope for. It's never occurred to me that he needed to - and I had two elcs so "failed" more than you! I have never viewed my births as failures - how could I when I have two dcs to show for them?
You will be missing all sorts of good times with your dc while you feel so sad about how he came into the world. Moving on isn't easy but you must - please have a look into council long services, some operate after work I think it would help you enormously.

My dear dear OP. You have not failed. I understand how you feel though. i really recommend getting counselling. I had undiagnosed PND and possibly PTSD (we both nearly died... DS got stuck and I had a major hemorrhage ) and was really ill for 3 years. DS is now 4 and I am only getting back to myself now. I have had counselling for about 6 months and it has made a world of difference.

Honestly, if you think you need to apologise for anything that happened, you are not thinking clearly.... I mean that in the best possible way. Please do not ever think you have failed.

Op please be kind to yourself. If you were your own daughter saying these things how would you respond?

Your consultant was an absolute arse. You have every right to make a complaint to the hospital.

I had a very similar birth to yours with my dd 11 years ago. I actually turned my anger towards her as I felt it was her fault I had such an awful birth and damaged my body downstairs so much. I felt if I didn't have a (very much wanted and planned for) baby then I'd be fine. My counsellor told me that it wasn't my dds fault. We had both been through hell. 3 days of induced labour, ventouse and episiotomy. I developed severe pnd and didn't recover for 2 years.

I now have another baby - a toddler son and I opted for an elective c section this time for no other reason than my first birth was so difficult. My c section was wonderful and as an older mother I knew that giving birth is a small part of the whole parenting process. A year or so down the line no one you meet is even going to ask you about it or even whether you bottle fed or breastfed. The key to contentment is to come to peace with your own life and fuck everyone else. Honestly.

Your dp doesn't sound very helpful or supportive. But he doesn't need to forgive you - you didn't do anything wrong.

Agree with the other posters that confronting this with your husband is not the thing you need to do right now. First you need to make peace with yourself and come to terms with what happened.
I don't believe you necessarily have PND. From the way you talk you sound like you are suffering with post-traumatic stress. It is sadly very common for women to suffer from this after birth, especially one where there has been interventions that made the mother feel out of control with the situation.
I had a similar birth to you, and really struggled with PTSD for the first 6 months. I would cry every day, get flashbacks of the birth, feel a complete failure, feel hopeless, think 'why didn't i do things differently?'. Time eventually faded those feelings for me, with the slow dawning realisation that the birth was just one day and I had the rest of my life to look forward to with my beautiful and thankfully healthy son.
x

Meant to add this link to the Birth trauma Association which has lots of useful information. see if any of the descriptions on there resonate with you.
www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk/what_is_trauma.htm

Right a few things

Firstly if you dont feel able to go to gp to try and get counselling, what about a private counsellor - they can be pretty cheap in some areas and ridiculously expensive in others so it depends on where you live and what you can afford, but id say worth checking out.

Secondly could your dhs response to not wanting to talk about the birth and saying about they took too long to interveen but not much more actually be down to him feeling that he let you down, that he should have somehow made them help you sooner, like he should have done more, like it was his fault for getting you pregnant and thus you ending up with a difficult birth?

Finally and most importantly you were not to blame, you could not have done a "better" job.

cultural can I say a massive thank to you? I was half way through shouting at you in my head to stop being ridiculous, none of it was your fault, the consultant was wrong to attach value to your efforts, you had a horrible time etc. etc, when I realised I had a very similar birth and still blame myself the same way!

How about I forgive you, OP and then maybe you can forgive me

The thing is - I am hanging on (just!) to day-to-day functioning. I want to walk out of work (because it's shit and lots of horrendously stressful stuff there), and I can look after DS (though do struggle if I have him at home alone all day if he's too poorly for nursery - but he's nearly walking so a tricky age).

I can't very well walk into a GP and say. Um hi. I'm a bit sad about how my DS was born. But I'm coping ok. They'll tut me out of the office for wasting their time lol.

Why the hell should your ask your h for forgiveness, that is bizarre. You have been through lots of trauma and your body has done the mist amazing thing (carried and given birth to a baby). Does your h make you feel loved and valued? Doesent really sound like it, his attitude is probably running you down. You need to sit down and be honest with him about how you feel, mabey some counselling for you to help you through this!

I've found most men don't understand childbirth or the various stages, unless they have been very motivated and found that information out. So he's no idea maybe what was 'supposed' to happen and what you perceive as going 'wrong'. For him, a baby came out and it was healthy, job done.

You really need to forgive yourself, stop dwelling on this and move on. Counselling might be the first step.

They won't - you obviously need some help. DP is no help because it wasn't important to him and DS will never ever be bothered- you are the one who needs to come to terms with it.

That was in answer to 'wasting time' comment.

Your consultant sounds like an ass too.

I had a massively assisted birth, with 2 consultants and midwives plus trainees - it was like a circus. I couldn't feel anything and tried to push but in the end it was a ventouse.
If I had had no assistance either me and/or DD would have died.
Interventions are not fun and don't make you feel great but the fact is, if the alternative is one of you dying then intervention is the best thing.

Also - you are minimising your feelings and saying "it's not that bad" but it clearly is. You do need to speak about this with a counsellor, a difficult birth is a traumatic experience, physically birth is very demanding and if you put a performance expectation on yourself as well then it can get very pressured. Any birth where mother and baby come out of it alive is a successful one.
Your husband probably can't voice his problems either - I know my DH found the birth very stressful (he thought I was going to die) but we were able to talk about it. Your DH sounds like he finds this sort of thing difficult.

You can't go on pretending it is all fine with your DH clearly upset as well yet both unable to talk to each other.

I...um...you definitely have all of this wrong op.

You can't control what kind of birth you have. No one can. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot, it is all down to luck.

Frankly it is your dp who should be apologising to you for being unsupportive and well tbh he sounds hard to live with.

You don't need forgiveness as you haven't done anything wrong!
My first birth was very similar (apart from the being abandoned bit) - very long, drip, cut, forceps. I also felt traumatised and that I had failed. I didn't forget it like they say you should and obsessed over it. However, my husband did tell me he was proud of me and admitted that he had been scared during the birth. That made me feel like we were in it together and that he appreciated what I had been through. I'm OK with it now since having my second baby which was a much more positive experience. This time the memories have faded in the way that they should. It sounds like you just need your husband to listen to how you're feeling, to acknowledge what you went through and to show you some appreciation.

I forgive you icebeing

But you need to forgive yourself, it's not for me to release you.

Will have a look into private counselling perhaps. I daresay the NHS waiting lists will be ridiculous. If I even get a referral - my friend (mentioned upthread) would benefit greatly from CBT but they just offer her antidepressants.

Counselling freaks me out though. I've been many years ago and I hate the way it makes me feel so vulnerable - I'm worried it'll make things worse in that it'll bring back those vulnerable feelings from delivery. It's scary. It is also frustrating that it'll be me going when DP needs it just as much (in some ways more so - for other reasons) yet he gets away without doing it because he won't consider it. Ha!

No idea why you think coping at work is a sign of not having pnd. Have you done one of those online tests? It focuses more on feelings (do you look forward to things as much as you used to, that type of thing) not whether you are keeping up with the housework. Doctor would probably be shocked at how you are feeling tbh.