AIBU to feel cheated & robbed of natural birth

[sltorres9]

Hi all, I'm not going to go into too much detail but I gave birth in June '14, I didn't want much medical intervention but ended up with 2 epidurals, 2 diamorphine injections & a spinal block. Then I hemorraged (sp) had a blood clot, and was told I'd have to have a c section for any future babies.
But now the last two nights I've been sitting here sobbing my heart out. I'm gutted that my labour wasn't easy, that my partner wasn't able to cut the cord and he never will be able to. The section terrifies me, to the point where I actually don't want another baby. My labour has ruined it for me, aibu?

I am still amazed when I hear people talking about birth plans. Why give women the false hope that with birth everything will go according to a plan? Perhaps there should be more honest discussions about the reality of giving birth and the possible scenarios so that women do not expect the perfect natural experience.

shebird, calling them 'birth wish lists' might be a better way of putting it. I think most women do realise it could all go to pot. But when faced with the prospect of something frightening and painful, it helps to research your options so that when it hits, you have some idea of how to cope. Should it all go to hell, well, nothing you can do about that, but I certainly don't want to be in labour the first time I'm considering the pros and cons of various painkillers and birthing positions.

To other posters who have berated the OP because of infertility - that's not helpful. Infertility is one tragedy, birth trauma is another. Obviously it wouldn't be sensitive to choose an infertility support group to talk about birth trauma but OP's not doing that. The idea that women should be grateful to have a child no matter what the cost to their mental and physical health is probably a contributing factor to birth trauma - added guilt.

A friend suffered a stillbirth soon after I lost my father. Her tragedy was definitely greater, but that didn't mean I hadn't also experienced one.

It's not a competition.

I think this emphasis on 'natural natural natural' is one reason birth and birth trauma aren't taken seriously enough. Since birth is considered 'natural' and the process by which all of us came into being, there's this kind of idea that it isn't such a big deal really and women shouldn't make a fuss. I personally know a lot of people who were treated with disdain for being exhausted, emotional and fragile after giving birth. In one case, I know a man whose wife had just given birth and decided it would be a good time to complain about some issue he had. When she told him to stop, he said, "Well, you're not really ill, are you?" I know that's just a single example but it does seem to be indicative of a broader issue. You had a baby, you're not ILL, so get a move on.

They're divorced now.

sitorres

I know exactly what you mean about feeling your body failed. I felt like that.I too was naive, or failed to really register that my labour could be like that.

15 years on and it doesn't touch me. I don't recognise the reasonableness of me believing that,I think with some help to reframe this, and time, you will be able to feel differently, and get on an enjoy being in the moment with your baby.

All the best

And IceBeing.

I agree totally

. I personally know a lot of people who were treated with disdain for being exhausted, emotional and fragile after giving birth*

^ Oh yes, I stood in front of FIL after he was verbally having a go at me for the house being messy ( according to his standards) four days after having a baby, passing huge clots out which scared me to death, dreadful pain from cut, utterly exhausted and tired after being awake for essentially 4 nights with all the contractions before the actual birth started! pumped full of drugs!! And I said " I have just had a baby you know " and he was like " yes so, so have many women I know and they managed to keep up with things"

PS another reason why elective was so great, was that I had a great nights sleep before baby arrived, was not emotionally and physically exhausted but was able to come at dd no 2 refreshed!

"Well then FIL, you won't mind cooking, cleaning and doing night feeds for the next week for me. Perhaps I could also give you some horse laxatives so you can be pouring from your anus the entire time too. Should be easy, right?"

I hope you mixed hamster shit in his coffee.

"Natural birth? That would be the natural birth where women and babies died in the process"

Yes, but most didn't. Most came through in good health.

In the 1950's there was a 2% c/s rate in the UK and yet maternal deaths were rare.

There is a problem with the huge increase in women having very complicated labours - you won't find a midwife who doesn't see this as a real concern and something which needs looking at.

You had a horrible experience and not the lovely birth you had planned for, YANBU to be upset and traumatised by it. You can ask for your notes and talk them through with your HV/ local midwife/ a counsellor if you want, and get a second opinion as to whether it is certain you would have to have a c-section if you had another baby. If you do have to have a c-section then a planned one should be a very different experience. You have had a traumatic experience and I think lots of women find it really hits them once the new baby stage is over and they have time to think a bit, and maybe start thinking about no 2. (I had a major meltdown in ante-natal classes with no 2 having blocked out most of the memories of how I felt during dd's birth, and it wasn't as awful as your experience)

I recently looked up my local hospital to see what the % splits for different kinds of births are. You can see how many are natural vs csection, what pain relief was used etc. It helps to see your 'chances' of having a certain type of birth. Water birth with no pain relief is about 1-2%.

That MAY depend on how many birthing pools are available. I would like a a water birth but there are almost none at my hospital so I'm not dead set on it and it is unlikely to happen.

Couldnt agree more. My obstetrician says that dou to improved nutrition babies have been getting progressively larger in last 30 odd years, which is great for the babies but that womens pelvises havent grown any larger to deal with said larger babies and that is why CS are becoming a lot more common.

Yes. When I was pregnant, my midwives were strict on the weight gain. Told me to only eat healthy and that I only needed an extra 250 calories from what I normally eat. Otherwise my baby might get too big. So doctors are trying to curb that factor at least where I went. I ate healthy, except for drinking some soda everyday the last trimester every now and then, and my baby still left me needing stitches. Though she was only 7.5lbs, which by all logic should have been alright, but she had a huge head.

The scary, horrible and negative feelings from your first birth don't have to define your future births, no matter what method the baby has to come out.

In our unit we offer a pregnancy and birth revisited clinic where the Supervisor of Midwives will pull your notes and go through them with you at any stage after birth (commonest time is when people are thinking of trying for another but suddenly realised how traumatised they feel) and explain exactly what happened, what may have caused it, if anything could have been done differently and how things can hopefully be different next time. All hospitals have a SOM service and they will do this if you ask. When it first started a was a bit of a sceptic but it's amazing how much it helps a lot of women.

As for next time, an elective section doesn't have to be a cold medicalised experience. Just because your baby has to come out of your abdomen rather than vagina doesn't make you and your partner any less entitled to the good bits of a birth experience. I offer all my elective sections to have the screen down at the beginning. You won't see the surgery itself but it means you can actually see your baby being delivered as you would with a vaginal delivery and then baby can go straight up onto your chest for immediate skin to skin and the midwife will come and dry baby off there instead of taking them over to a resuscitaire. They may still have to go after if they need a hand clearing their airway or warming up but many don't. You can have delayed cord clamping and then as long as we clamp the cord, a pair of scissors can be passed out to your DH to allow him to cut it as long as all else remains sterile which if things are well planned and well explained they do. Then the screen would go back up for us to finish the surgery and that would create a little tent for you to have skin to skin with your baby and some will even feed there while you're in theatre. Speak to your hospital about these options because they're becoming more and more commonplace. The route your baby comes out doesn't have to completely define your birth experience and it can definitely still be a positive one.

minifingerz

Yes the rate of Caesarean section has increased dramatically (from 3% in 1950s to 21.3% in 2000). The main contributory factors are increasing maternal age and obesity, the practice of defensive medicine, recommendations for breech delivery and improved neonatal and maternal care.

Despite the development of a higher-risk population, there has actually been a dramatic reduction in maternal mortality since the 1950 s. This is because of improved obstetric and anaesthetic management and a heightened awareness of patients at risk.

There is some wonderful advice on this thread Op. Proof, if it were needed, of the kindness and generosity of MN. But please do try to talk about your feelings with someone in RL.

I will add this - I had an awful first experience (cut from my V to my A - not what I had planned). It caused all sorts of horrible damage. For years I thought I was alone. I had PTSD after the birth of my second (EC) which I think was a delayed reaction to the first labour. Eventually - and umprompted - the hospital approached me to discuss my DS birth and apologised and oh my God it was a weight off my shoulders. Do contact them to talk it through and see how they can help if you ever want to consider another child. I fretted all the way through my second pregnancy with flashbacks but in fact it was fine (not wonderful but I got a baby out of it!)

i then opened up to other mothers and realised if you threw a stick in any playground there were masses of other women with equally horrible experiences. It wasnt what they had wanted either. You are not alone.

I had a horror birth too - I wasn't even especially wedded to the idea of a "natural" birth anyway, but due to pregnancy-related illness I had a cascade of interventions that led to a quite horrible birth injury for me (and luckily a perfect DS, now 11 months old). A couple of months ago, I had a debriefing from a specialist midwife with whom I went through the notes from the birth and the aftermath, and I was surprised how much better I felt knowing that there really wasn't any alternative to the choices the medical team had made to get him out safely. I really haven't thought much about it much since, and I was dwelling on it a lot before the debriefing.

OP, YADNBU, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not going to speak to someone about the trauma of it all and continuing to blame yourself. There is not one bit of it that is your fault.

I was so utterly terrified of giving birth that I swore I would never ever ever have children. However, fell pregnant purely by accident. My hormones went into overdrive and there was nothing in the world that would harm my baby. I was still terrified mind you.

He was two weeks past due date so I was induced but, he was so big, (11 lbs) he got stuck and I had an emergency C section.

Now I had no plans at all about the birth because I could not even bring myself to read a magazine about labour let alone anything else.

I was so so grateful to the hospital staff, all of them, for bringing my baby safely into the world. So I think you are being a tiny bit UR. You have a beautiful healthy baby, how your baby arrived is not at all important. What is important is that you are both well.

The thought that I had failed never entered my head. I was just so greatly relieved that it was all okay in the end.

Please :) dont dwell on these thoughts any more.

slitorres, I really hope that something on this thread is helpful to you.

Please seek some RL help - you would NOT be 'stupid' to go back and ask for a debrief now - many women need a bit of distance to events before they can face them head on again .
Equally, counselling for birth trauma is often more successful after the initial events.

I typed in my first post on your thread about my experiences and then deleted it again. I have had 4 very different deliveries and I have good memories of all of them - whether it was the 'natural' VB or the emCS or the heavily medicated induction. I had a 10 week premature baby in SCBU, I have BF, mix-fed and bottle-fed a variety of my children. My memories are good one, and I feel very lucky that I always felt well-looked after and involved in decision making, I felt that I was making decisions with my HCP, and not that decisions were made about me. I think that is the difference, and clearly you had an awful experience.

You deserve help and support to heal from this. I think every woman has every right to 'expect' a healthy natural birth, but we also need to realistic about that this is not always possible or how it's going to pan out.
Parenthood comes with its own parcel of guilt anyway, about a myriad of things. Events that you had no or little control over, should really not add to that guilt.

You care, you feel guilty, you are a good mother.
Beating yourself up about events you had no control over now, does not only not help, it actually makes things worse for you, because you feel worse. Take control back, start asking questions, understand why what happened and then move forward.
Whether or not you end up wanting another child is by the by - I wish for you that you can reach a point where you can see and appreciate the achievement of making it through a gruelling ordeal and being standing to tell the tale. See the strength you have had to have to get through this and celebrate it, rather than beating yourself up about things you can and could not change.

Op, I salute you

Something I want to add to this thread - there seems to be an assumption here that a complicated vaginal birth or a really painful labour constitute a 'bad' birth experience and that a planned c/s will always be a better experience than this. I have never had a straight forward vaginal birth. I've always had problems - forceps delivery, shoulder dystocia, prolonged labour, augmentation, postnatal infections, baby needing resuscitating. I still found my labours to be emotionally positive and life enhancing experiences and wouldn't swap them for the passive surgical experience of a planned c-section for anything.

^^ really? I would. But I won't be having another. 52 hours of labour followed by all manner of horrors was 'life enhancing' enough thanks.

mini

Have you had an elective caesarian after a vaginal birth?

The reason I ask is that the OP's experience is that she was traumatised by her deliveries. You weren't

..... and therefore, posters are saying that having an ELCS may be a way to regain control and not the sterile procedure that many assume

minifingerz, that's great for you. You are not the OP nor anyone else. If a woman tells me her labour was a traumatising experience, who on earth am I to tell her it wasn't?