I gave birth to my son 4 months ago, I was induced and in labour for 14 hours which ended in an emergency c-section. I admittedly had all these plans of how I wanted my birth to go, despite telling everyone I had no plan and I would just go with the flow.
My c-section was more of a preemptive strike than anything else, babys heart rate was dropping a bit and the doctor was concerned, I also had stayed stuck at 4cm for hours and hours, though my contractions were 1-2 mins apart.
I was fully conscious during my c-section, a bit sleepy, understandably. When my son was born they gave him straight to my partner. They knew I was intending to breastfeed, they knew we wanted my partner to cut the cord. He didn’t cut the cord. They didn’t let me have skin to skin. They didn’t help me latch him on straight away (Bear in mind my sister had a c-section exactly a week after me, in exactly the same hospital and theatre, and they let her do all of this).
I didn’t get to hold my baby until I was in recovery, and I was trying to latch him but I couldn’t. The nurse wasn’t in the room for most of the two hours I was in recovery, so I couldn’t ask for help. She came to weigh him, measure him and generally check him over, and to change my puppy pad, but then disappeared straight away.
When I was wheeled into the ward, the midwives were confused. No one had called from recovery to let them know I was coming down. I had to wait on my bed in the corridor while they prepared a bed. At this point, it was about 3am.
My partner went home for some reason, (I have already expressed my anger at this of course, and we are fine, he loves his son very very much) So I was there, 19 years old, fresh out of random surgery, with a newborn baby that I didn’t really know how to feed. I also couldn’t move, naturally.
Rory was crying and crying, and so was I. I was clearly in distress. I kept calling the midwife for help, telling her he is hungry and I want to breastfeed him. She would hold him, shush him to sleep, put him down next to me, and leave.
The third time I called her, the first thing she said to me was, “You don’t need to press the button every time he cries”. I wish I was making that up.
She did the same thing, held him and rocked him to sleep while talking to him about how “she would need a big glass of wine when this shift is over”.
The morning came, my partner returned by 6am after obviously feeling guilty. My round of meds came, and a couple of midwives came to check on me around 9am. My puppy pad hadn’t been checked or changed all night. They were visibly upset about this.
My entire stay was a mess. I was only there for a day and a half, they never checked if I was having meals, while I was there I probably had a meal and a half (I have a history of mental health problems and not eating is a coping mechanism which obviously popped up after the traumatic birth) ended up having to exclusively formula feed which made me very depressed (only at the time. I know now there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, whether it’s a choice or not, he is fed and happy and that’s all that matters) because I wanted to exclusively breastfeed. My milk didn’t even come in until four days later. For two months after I was in and out of hospital with two infections, and an open wound. I’m four and a half months postpartum and only just healed.
It’s taken me a lot of time to recover mentally. I’m still not. I’m better, I think. But due to the current covid19 situation the last thing I want to be doing is going to the gp for mental heath help, but I’m doing alright.
Is it unreasonable to be upset with how I was treated at the hospital? I’m not just upset I am angry. This was supposed to be a magical time but it ended with severe postpartum depression, physical problems with my wound, and being unable to bond with my son til literally only about a month ago. I didn’t even feel like he was mine.
I wanted to take legal action. If it’s possible I maybe still would. I guess I just want to vent and express myself somewhere. Maybe get some advice about helping my mental health at home. While i feel like I’m doing better, at the same time I feel like I’m doing worse because Ive had more time to think about my birth.
I should note, my midwife was not present at the birth and didn’t see me until about a week after having the baby.
Do I have a right to be angry at the nurses who failed to care for me? Should I be seeking treatment despite the risk of covid19 at gps and hospitals?
I don’t know what I hope to achieve with this post. I will probably get a lot of judgement but maybe someone can relate to me, though I hope they don’t since it was incredibly traumatic and painful.
Cheers for reading if you got this far.