Preoccupied with childbirth

[lizkingston]

Hi there
I'm wondering if anyone else has been preoccupied with the idea of childbirth even if not currently pregnant.
I had my son 2 years ago by forceps delivery after a largely unsupported labour (midwives not very present in the delivery room), and felt pretty abandoned and upset afterwards.
Now I find myself thinking about labour a lot of the time- how I would do it again, what pain relief I'd want to try, considering home birth/doulas/an independent midwife.
I think part of it is wanting to rewrite history by having a better birth experience, and having a well supported birth and hopefully no need for intervention. I'm not pregnant at the moment, and due to some professional exams I need to get done for my job I can't realistically plan to get pregnant any time before June next year.
Perhaps this is just me feeling broody!
I don't think too much about the baby itself that would result from the labour, more just doing the labour "right".
Has anyone else felt like this?

yes i think its very normal, esp aftre a traumatic delivery

I'm not an expert but didn't want this to go unanswered. hopefuly others will coem along soon with good pratical advice

Yes - I think it's normal, I certainly felt like this after a traumatic birth (for different reasons though). I am pregnant again and I think planning things differently (hypnobirthing etc.), learning more about my choices/rights (e.g. to refuse some interventions etc.), educating my DH about those choices and doing things like meeting with the consultant and giving an A4 sheet cataloguing what went wrong last time and what I want to happen this time and that being acknowledged and included in my file has helped.

In fact meeting with the consultant really helped and it's a good idea to write it down as I was in tears again as soon as I entered the hospital and would never have been able to explain everything calmly. She thanked me for doing it and read it at the beginning of the meeting and then addressed each point with a plan which is now in my notes and I will have a copy.

If your consultant doesn't take the same tack... then change them now!

I am a lot calmer and more confident now about the whole thing.

Thanks for your messages.
I met up with one of the senior midwives to look through my notes and answer some queries about my care last time a few weeks back. I think it did help me to think more positively about my last delivery, because I didn't want to turn into a la-bore! I'm spending quite a lot of time thinking over last time and what I'd do differently. Maybe your suggestion about writing some of it down might help to get it out of my system for now.

I work around babies a lot, so I'm kind of reminded about this daily at the moment! Probably just feeling pretty broody but not able to do much about it until I get past my work exams next year.
Anyway thanks again

Any

I do this! My experience was similar to yours in that I felt unsupported, when I rang the hospital they wouldn't believe I was in labour and kept telling me to stay home so when I got there I was already pushing. I keep thinking about it and getting so cross with myself for not being more assertive. I wish I had demanded to be checked when my waters broke or even just refused to lay on the bed when I got there, ds was born by ventouse because I was in such a panic I wasn't pushing properly and I really believe if I hadn't been made to lay on my back I could have pushed him out myself. I'm determined to do things my way next time.

I have made a complaint to the hospital but no response so far (its been 8 weeks ). I hope when they finally do respond to my complaint I can draw a line under it and move on

I'm also constantly thinking about my DC's birth, though that was "only" 5 months ago so memories still a bit fresher. Apparently I had a textbook labour on just G&A but tore quite badly and then had to have spinal block and surgery to stitch me up again afterwards. I'm going through all possible options for a second birth in my head at the moment (including C section) but still can't really see how I could ever bring myself to do it again...

I am always thinking about the birth of my daughter! It was a very long labour (50hrs) and I eventually had diamorphine, after codine and paracetamol and no sleep for god knows how long. I think I am trying to fill in the gaps in my memory. I do keep remembering new things, the last 8 hours in delivery room with g&a are a blur. I can hardly remember anything, must have been the build up of drugs and the lack of sleep, but I just can't stop thinking about it!

Hi i had my DS almost 2 years ago and i still cant stop thinkin about his birth, when i went in to hospital to the delivery suite i spoke to the MW and said i want to do it on my own without drugs as i wanted to remember everything, i did start on g&a after a few hours and thought i was doing fine with that and a birthing ball. I was really upset when the MW told me i needed something stronger and i asked her to tell me what would happen when i had the pethadine. She did not tell me it would make me sleep! I slept for 4 hours and woke up needing to push, i feel like i missed the run up to his birth, it might sound silly to some but i ask my partner 'did this happen' often and hes getting fed up of it. I made it clear this was not how i wanted it but there seemed to be no support to do it as naturaly as possible. I think about the birth i want when i fall pregnant next time all the time and i think its because i actualy feel like i missed most of my DS birth. I hope When you do decide to have another baby that your birth is how you want it!!

After DC1 I knew what I wanted to do differently (use hypnobirthing, focus on breathing and not push too soon). I did these things with DC2 and stayed much calmer and didn't tear, but then spent months thinking about how I could have avoided going to hospital to be induced (although I know I did everything bar caster oil - I went 2 weeks over), and imagining my planned homebirth instead.

Eventually though, I stopped thinking about it. Both births were actually pretty straight forward. So even for a non-traumatic experience I think there's a desire to go over in your mind how you would have liked it to happen. I'm actually a bit embarrassed about my reaction as compared to others I had it easy. Nowadays I look back on both births with out any bad feelings, but as I said they were straightforward and both were pretty quick.

Just thinking about it, I wish I'd told the midwife who said 'ooh, couple of pushes and your baby will be out but I'm going off shift now so we'll take you down to delivery' that I was just going to push. It added another 30-40mins to my labour being transferred, I ended up having 3 midwives (one after the other, not together!) due to shift changes. I do not know the name of the midwife who delivered DS.

I should really stop having my babies at 8pm First time round the midwife wasn't even in the room as she'd just gone off-shift - I delivered DD myself!. Actually, that's a lovely memory.

Omnicron! Sometimes I think that midwives see so many births in an average day that they forget that the woman is a person. I felt like I was just a vagina on a bed when I was giving birth, the midwife put her hand inside me with no warning (I would have consented but still ) then the doctor walked in and did the same thing without even introducing herself! Its such an intense, scary and vulnerable time sometimes all thats needed is a bit of comfort and reassurance but so many of these stories of traumatic births feature women not being listened to or treated as a person. Apologies to any midwives reading this, there are some fantastic ones out there but there are also sadly some not so great.

I've just spoken to my cousin who gave birth to her 2nd dd 2 days ago at home in a pool just using hypnotherapy and she is absolutely elated! Her 1st birth was a traumatic induction with lots of intervention but this time she is raving about how wonderful the birth was so it just goes to show that there is hope for us all

Glad to see I'm not the only one, and that there is hope even after a trying first one.
Guess I'll just have to get on with having the next one as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks
:o