traumatic life threatening birth

[BlueCollie]

Hi, my son is finally here and lovely but the birth was really traumatic and I could not see if there was a separate section on MN to post and get others experiences and how they dealt with it. Where do I post?

There is a topic for childbirth if you want to put it somewhere different - but if you need to talk now then just go ahead. Sorry to hear you had a traumatic time - what happened?

you can put it in childbirth, or tell your story here, it is still your birth annoucnement, even if it is awful

please be aware there aer two organisations who can help you

the birth trauma association and sheila kitzinger;s birth crisis

and there should be a debrief service available at the hospital you delivered at

So sorry it was traumatic. I hope you find somewhere that you're comfortable talking about it, be that here, at hospital or one of the organisations lulamama mnentioned.

Congratulations on the birth of your son.

talk and talk and talk wherever you want, it's so important to tell your story when you've had a tough time. i didn't even have that bad a time with prem dd2 but it was like a weight lifted from my shoulders after i'd talked to the women on here.

i also spoke to a sheila k counselor, just over the phone, she was a love.

congratulations on the birth of your boy.

BIRTH TRAUMA SUPPORT THREAD here - but feel free to talk it through here! I had a crap birth like that and MN has helped me so much.

Okay. Well I was all set for home waterbirth had hired pool etc and was totally relaxed and happy about it all. However, after a day of contracting every 2-30mins and then 17 hours of every 5 mins of strong contractions with baby back to back I went to hospital and had epidural (fab I must say:O)) After another 12 hours of strong contractions and on the syntocin stuff I still had not gone any further than 3 cms dilated, baby had not moved and showed no signs of going anywhere. Locum reg came in and siad some stupid comment about him finishing at 18:00 and for me to wait another 3 hours...funnily enough at the time he finished (should have known then really) anyway by this time I was knackered and starting to get concerned about how my baby would continue to cope being stuck and neither of us getting anywhere. Spoke to the midwife and said not keen on waiting another 3 hours. She called Dr back after an hour had gone by and I said to Dr not happy to wait as I was still at 3 cm. He examined me again I was still 3 cm and so went off for c-section. I was cut during c-section which is not uncommon and lost a couple of litres of blood again not uncommon. However, I was stitched up and taken back to room...funnily enough got back there at 17:50. Anaes Dr was telling Locum Dr that I was not well and needed to go back to theatre, Locum Dr said I was fine, anaes Dr said I wasn't. At this point I was flaking and knew something was seriously wrong (I'm a nurse and know the signs!) Thankfully Anaes Dr had told midwife to call Concultant Obs Dr in and Aneas Dr decided to go above Locum Dr's head and crash call me back to theatre. I was opened back up and found to still be bleeding lots. They could not reach some of the cuts and so had to take a fallopian tube out. During this time I was given 19 units of blood and some plasma howeer this along with being opened up twice caused a life threatening clotting disorder called D.I.C. and at this point the only thing they could do was put pressure on and wiat. My partner was told that I may not make it at this point and this must have been so horrible for him. Thankfully I did after another 4 hours on the operating table (I was 6 in all the second time) and taken to ITU and was extubated later that morning. I then went onto develop further life threatening complications (adult respiratory distress syndrome) and was nearly intubated again but thankfully started to show signs of recovery from that before I then developed and Ileous (can't spell it, sorry) and my stomach swelled to huge proportions and then needed a CT scan followed by a colonscopy to get the air out before my bowel perforated. I evetually started to feel better but the needed potassium and then magnesium and then irn transfusions. During all of this we had to watch our boy get taken away to the special care baby unit as he had jaundice within the first 24 hours. All in all a bit horrendous. The hospital I can not fault, they allowed my partner and baby to stay with me the whole time i was in (11 days) and kept me informed of everything happening and the care was excellent. They have also reported the Locum to the GMC and will not allow him to work in the hospital again. I think the worse thing though is that I am a nurse and know just how close I came to dying on not just one occasion. I was unable to breastfeed despite trying and trying and expressing when I wasn't too tired/unwell and feel guilty about that.
Just wondered if anyone had had a bad experience and how they dealt with it. My partner is excellent and is doing everything as I am unable to pick my boy up, I get to feed him and have lots of cuddles though .

wow bluecollie, HUGE congratulations on your lovely little boy.
what an awful experience for you though

i have no experience or advice on this, just some un-munsnettly for you, amd the one thing i can say is for goodness sake don't beat yourself up over breastfeeding! (and i am sure others can tell you i am more than a little evangelical about bf)

sounds like you had far more important things to be worrying about, and recovering from

hope you can get a debrief and move on from it, and i hope you are really enjoying your new addition

Oh Bluecollie that sounds awful , it is hard sometimes when you have insider knowledge (I'm a nurse too) and things go wrong.

I really hope you recover soon and you're experience doesn't spoil this special time.
Can i ask what you called your gorgeous boy? I have three gorgeous boys of my own

OMG that sounds so so frightening - glad you are beginning to recover now and congrat s on birth of baby boy!

Oh my goodness. I have nothing helpful to say but didn't want to say nothing. I'm so sorry you had such a dreadful time and the medical knowledge you have must have made it all the more scary for you.

I hope it helped you just to get it out.

Massive congratulations on the birth of your wee boy. Do you want to share his name with us?

I had a traumatic birth but nowhere near as serious complications, and I know that I should have been properly counselled afterwards. Please do take the support that is available to you.

I did not bf my DS either, don't feel guilty aobut it. Your boy has his mum, that is more important than breast milk.

Bloody hell. You've really had a tough time.

I'm afraid I don't have any advice, but just wanted to say I'm not surprised you're feeling vey shaken by this experience. I hope you will be able to find others who can help you make sense of it all.

And as already said, do NOT give yourself a hard time about not bf. Absolutely nothing to feel guilty about whatsoever.

Also, massive congratulations on the birth of your little boy.

OMG - thank god for the other doctor...I bet your hosiptal does some sort of counselling. Do you think that would help? I know it probably won't help...but the worst didn't happen..you are here and you have a beautiful baby. Congratulations. Don't beat yourself up about the breast feeding..it isnt your fault and your son has a mummy who loves him which is the most important thing

sorry you went throught this

congratulations on your baby

my advice seek help, get a debrief and don't let others tell youto get over it

i had nightmares for over a year after dd was born, she nearly 2.5 now and i only just now feel upto seekinbg help.

good luck to you.
xxx

deffinatly seek some counciling my bestfriend had a similer experience except her ds didnt make it,and she was in intensive care herself for quite a while.

only 4 years on is she coming to terms with it all just about.

congrats. x

Bloody hell. What a horrendous experience How long ago was your son born? Please, as pp's have said, don't beat yourself up over not bfing. It sounds like the fact that you're both still here is a miracle.

oh bluecollie you poor, poor love, that sounds really, really bad. i'm glad that the hospital is taking it seriously, it's so important. it might be an idea in the future to have a look at the detail on your notes. i did that, found it a very useful exercise just to tidy up my head. i wasn't tortured, just messy.

btw i only have one fallopian tube now, after a couple of ectopic pgs when i was ttc. my one remaining tube managed to get me two lovely dds.

BlueCollie - first, a big congratulations on becoming a mummy!!!!

but I am really sorry you had to experience that - how scary.

Its good to get it all out and maybe when you are ready book an appointment and go in to speak to them about the birth to help you understand why that happened.

it must have been quiet stressful going into hospital after planning your homebirth and being in labour for all that time, it is quite common (as i am sure you know) for labour to halt on going into hospital, your energy levels were probably so low by that point too.

but you can go through it all when you are ready, for now make sure you are getting spoilt rotten and enjoy the little person you have made. i'm sure he will help heal the pain you suffered.

take care x

Thank you for your lovely messages. My boy is called Jake and he was 8lb 7 (i'm only 5 foot) and doing well. I'm doing okay but aware it might hit me when my partner goes back to work in Jan. I'm very lucky the army have let him take time off until then to look after Jake and me and recover from it all himself. They have also stopped him from going to Afghan in Jan...that is one other bonus to come out of all this apart from my boy. I think I am lucky in the sense I am the type of person who tends to look on the positive side of things especially when there is nothing I can do to change what happened....well apart from beating myself up over the breastfeeding bit LOL. The hospital has put me in touch with a councelling service and I beleive they are paying for it so I will be contacting them to arrange that for the new year as I don't want it to re-surface when I have another child. One of the first things I asked was 'could I have another child' and 'how long do I need to wait before trying' the Dr's and my family looked at me as if I was nuts LOL.

I think (amateur psychologist alert) that it's not unreasonable to ask if you can have another child as obviously your fertility has been affected and you might feel you should have/will do things differently if you can't IYSWIM.

Good that the hospital have offered you counselling and that the army are being supportive. Are you living on patch? Are the relevant welfare people aware of what happened etc? Do make the most of any support offered (not that you need me to tell you that, I'm sure you can work it out!) and store up offers. IME forces people are very supportive and often quite pleased to be asked to help, even if it ends up that they can't.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to beat yourself up about the bfing, tbh. only time and more experience of being a mum can really cure that. i was a supremely crap bfer with both of mine, tried my best but... ... not to be. at the time i was heartbroken, i think because you've had this child INSIDE you and bfing seemed to me at least to continue the very intimate one-to-one relationship when everyone else seemed to want a piece of my dds.

still and all, it wasn't to be. i wept and cursed about it and then after a while i got beyond it. yes, it's better, of course it is, but i thank god for formula, without it my children would have been in Real Trouble.

Likewise yourself, BlueCollie, i'm afraid it looks like you've been handed a set of circumstances that make bfing difficult for you (although you're seriously in the right place if you want to have a bash at turning that decision around) and you'll get used to it after a while.

BlueCollie

I can only offer sympathy and hugs for the traumatic birth, but I was also unable to bf. After a week of stubborness on my behalf and my DS loosing 23% of his birth weight was recommended to bottle feed by a bf counsellor! My DS's birth was described by the hospital as "traumatic" but a drop in the ocean compared to yours.

Whatever you do, please don't beat yourself up about not being able to bf. I did and it cast a big shadow over the glorious first few weeks of being a new mum. I got to the point where I wouldn't feed DS in public in case anyone looked down on me for not bf'ing. I think I was slightly bonkers.

Anyway, DS is now 15 months old; bright, strong, happy and healthy. And who could ask for more than that?

What an incredible story. Obviously horrible going through it and probably worse since you knew what was happening, but aside from the locum who was diabolically bad, it seems that after that point, you had some fantastic people on your side who managed to get you treated quickly.

Not sure when your baby was born, but if you have the energy, and who would blame you if you just stayed in bed for the next few months, would it be worth speaking to someone about relactation? I was listening to a radio program about a woman who adopted a newborn baby and took hormone pills, so when she took the baby home, she was able to breast feed! Amazing.

But don't feel guilty about anything. You survived. You have a lovely baby, and husband. Try not to feel so grateful that you can't have a good old moan though!

when people told me to be grateful that me and dd2 were 'okay' (disregarding the complexity of my feelings and my lack of choice in what had happened), i used to mentally punch them a quick jab in the nose. be grateful for that! ay-YAH! [miss piggy icon]

Oh my dear, I am so at what happened to you - that is completely terrible.
Good thing the locum has been reported and won't be working in that hospital in future!!

Do take counselling if you can get it. Nobody needs post-traumatic stress disorder, PND or post-natal anxiety. They are all completely shit to try to deal with.

And if anyone can help you if you should decide to try breast-feeding again, Mumsnet is it - there are brilliant people on here who could help you. If not, then not - you've been through enough, do not feel guilty!!!

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