my story

[MiauMau]

I had my little DS on the 24th and feel the need to digest the whole process. I was long and drawn out and parts of it just don't make much sense to me. Feel free to add your experiences and opinions on the whole thing.

On Tuesday at 3am I started having contractions that stopped around 7am, they were about 50 seconds long and with intervals of between 5 to 10 minutes. The contractions came back at 3pm started getting closer together and I went to the MAU at 2am with contractions that were lasting between 1 and 1.20 minutes with intervals between 2 and 4 minutes and was sent back as I was just 1cm dilated.
I was finally admitted on Thursday at 9am 4cm dilated and already feeling exhausted due to lack of sleep. At the labour suite I got into the swimming pool as soon as possible and stayed there until 6pm when I left, was reassessed and discovered that I had only progressed to 6cm. During all this time my contractions never just came and went, they just stuck together as one big contraction that never died down, they just carried on continuously and getting more intense. By then I was utterly tired and couldn't cope with the continuous pain, and feeling a failure I asked for an epidural. My beautiful water birth was gone.
With the epidural came citocin, and it took me until 5am to dilate to 10 cm, the midwife suggested that I should go off the epidural in order to be able to push more effectively. I pushed for another 1.15 hours under the most excruciating relentless pain and feeling completely delirious with tiredness I again stopped being able to cope with it and asked for the epidural to be switched back on. The consultant came in and a told me that I had three options, I won?t bore you with details (as you all know them) and even though I was really tired I chose the ventouse to try and minimise the need for an episiotomy, which in the end didn?t work as they had to do one anyway (albeit a small one). Even with the stronger epidural the ventouse is a horrible procedure and I ended up losing a lot of blood.
DS was born at 8.50am, 10 minutes shy of a 24h labour. I could barely open my eyes and appreciate him, although I had a bit of skin on skin I was so numb by the whole experience that I slept throughout most of the day not noticing that I was being moved from one place to the next.
In this whole experience the only truly positive aspects were the wonderful midwife that I had for most of the labour (I went through 3 shifts of midwives) and the fact that she was understanding enough to allow me to have 3 birth partners (DP, my mum and best friend) instead of the usual 2.

Would anyone else would like to share their story or thoughts on what you just read?

Wow, sounds like a difficult birth. Well done for getting through it and managing to have a natural birth despite everything - you did very, very well.

I can relate to this. I too had 'no space between contractions' - one long continuous contraction. Horrendous. I thought it was because i was on the syntocynin drip and they kept cranking it up. I too had a ventouse delivery but didn't lose any excess blood. I also had an epidural. No gaps between contractions - there's no question that you need an epidural.

I'm starting to think about conceiving again - not looking forward to a similar pregnancy and birth (I had pre-eclampsia and high BP complications too) but it just shows that you will get over it :)

Tbh, doesn't sound very different from my first birth experience. I also had classic 'failure to progress' had some pet headline to cope with pain overnight, minimal dilation. Ended up on epidural with induction drip all day. Wore off for epic 2.5 hour pushing session. Luckily no intervention, but horrendous third stage with me screaming. I was then essentially in shock. Baby was 3 weeks early and would barely wake, and I felt I was in some sort of coma. Couldn't get her to breast feed at all but they discharged me next day as they needed the bed and I was beyond exhausted and desperate to leave.

Up shot is that many first labours are very long and drawn out like this, it's not that uncommon. I had miracle health visitor who helped me get bf going at home, and we recovered.

I am due dc2 any moment, and am confident that my body has a much better idea of what to do this time, and I have some coping strategies. I don't feel that stressed about it luckily, even though my first birth felt pretty dire at the time

My iPad changed pethedine to pet headline!!!

Sounds a lot like my first labour - 24 hours, slow progress, epidural, episiotomy, ventouse. I was drifting in and out of consciousness between contractions before getting the epidural as I couldn't cope with the pain and exhaustion. Unlike your story, most of my midwives were pretty vile too, and the postnatal ward remains a personal low point.

Still, the next two were home waterbirths with no pain relief, and I coped with them just fine. One was even rather lovely.

So don't think that just because this time was tough, that your dream birth is something you 'can't do' in some way.

How's the exhaustion now?

It sounds very like my first labour. One long contraction for 26 hours. It was awful. And DS so sleepy and tired unable to feed and no one to help. They kept onand on at me to give him formula do they could tick the 'feeding well' box and discharge me.

But on the upside. I've just had dc2, a 10lb baby, a four hour labour. Was in hospital just 40mins before she arrived. It couldn't have been more different

Don't beat yourself up, I believe first labours often are long, drawn out painful things when we hope for peaceful, serene births.

Sounds similar to my induction (syntocinon, epidural, exhaustion, blood loss).

Please don't feel a failure for having an epidural - there wouldn't have been a prize at the end for going without when you were exhausted and had been contracting for two days already.

You've been through a lot. Give yourself time to process it all.

In a few weeks or months, maybe get a copy of your notes to help you make sense of the bits that are hazy, or to clarify what happened and why - it can make the world of difference. In the meantime, be kind to yourself. You had a baby. Trust me, I understand that feeling of disappointment and loss at not getting the birth you had in your head, and spending months trying to work out what went 'wrong' - and ultimately the answer is nothing went 'wrong'. This was just how it was.

Thank you all! I knew that I could always count on lovely comments here on mumsnet. Along side the labour being completely the opposite of what I wanted, I'm finding out that I've idealized parenting to such a point that I made life much more complicated that it should be.
I had the long relentlessness contractions for hours even before they gave me syntocinon, which actually made it worse, once the epidural wore off.

You did great - in fact we all did. And many of us are doing it again......

I also had a similar birth - long latent labour, exhausted, started in birth pool but my BP went high so had to move to labour ward, had an epidural and pethidine, then pushed for two hours and ended up with forceps and second degree tear.

It does take a while to process it all. At first it felt like it was constantly replaying in my head. I got my birth notes and found reading through them helped.

It's a huge huge experience. You did manage to get through though, so well done. it all gets easier too, the first few months are just about adjusting and catching your breath, it all gets so much better than the birth/newborn stage which is way too intense to be enjoyable or easy. I found staying in bed was the best approach!

And apparently a long difficult first birth is insurance for a more 'healing' second time!! fingers crossed.....

Can I just say I had a long, drawn out first labour only just escaped an instrumental delivery but not the episiotomy. A MW told me that next time it would be different for me & that she wished women could have their second labours with the first child because they are so much better. I thought she was talking nonsense...

My second labour was quick, barely sny pain relief (2 paracetamol 3 hours previously & 2 contractions-worth of G&A before they took it off me ), three pushes & not so much as a graze. Pretty impressive for an undiagnosed breech

Firstly Congratulations!

I had a very different experience to you OP but I can relate completely to what you are feeling. I found my DS's arrival very traumatic (19 weeks ago) and am now about to start counselling to work through my emotions as I've had some unpleasant flashbacks. I know that its happened and have had a chance to go through my notes so know why things happened the way they did but dont feel over it IYKWIM. I know I cant change what happened and I'm so happy with my DS every day and i want to be able to think about his birth in a positive way.

It is all very daunting in the first few weeks, what worked for me was to try not to dwell on the parts of the birth that werent what you expected and just to concentrate on your new baby and enjoy watching them. And then when you need to talk about it, to talk to your birth partners, they were there so know what you experienced and should be able to listen.

flossiebella undiagnosed breech?? How is that possible??
I found G&A terrible, made me throw up and extremely woozy and I found it difficult to deal with that. People kept on telling me that it was just like being drunk and that at each time it would feel better but, I've never been drunk before as I don't drink alcohol.

MiauMau It's apparently more common than you'd think, something like 1 in 4 breech babies is an undiagnosed breech - a head and a bum feel very much the same from the outside! My friend was induced and it wasn't until the baby was crowning that they realised she was actually rumping and that it was her backside coming out first instead of her head.

Even with scans? sounds so odd

I hated G&A too. It made me feel completely 'out of it' and I thought I was passing out. I couldn't cope with it at all - but they kept trying to force me to take it - even my DH

I too had a terrible time first time. 31hrs of back to back contractions with no peak, just terrible pain, 8hrs pushing, blue light transfer, episiotomy, 3x failed ventouse, failed manual rotation, emergency cs.

It took a long time to get over it (and I agree on the g&a thing, I don't drink and hated the feeling). I know now that the baby's utterly ridiculous position meant that I dilated oddly, failed to progress in that the baby wouldn't descend properly and the pain was the malpositioning.

The real problem was the gap between my expectations and reality. I planned a home waterbirth with no drugs and had an emcs. I thought it was something I had control over and the huge leap to the reality of it was one I couldn't process at the time. And foolishly I persevered too long in the face of what was my body clearly trying to send me a message about something not being right.

I had a second btw. Same progress in terms of shocking position and final emcs after 38hrs. But it was a very positive experience. Because I knew it wasn't my fault and had shifted my expectations.

Ask for a debrief, talk about it as much as you like and do not in any way, shape or form believe you have failed. You've done marvellously. You mention struggling with parenting too? It sounds very much like you have extremely high expectations of yourself?

Miau it's rare apparently but possible; i was told afterwards that once a baby engages it is virtually impossible to tell whether they are head up or head down. DS2 was transverse/breech until 38 weeks where he was deemed cephalic. At 40wks started to engage, my movements changed & was feeling hands halfway down my bump which I assumed was due to engagement. Induced due to SROM at 40+6 & after 4 hours on antenatal ward (v v busy, not many staff, progressing much quicker than they thought I was) passed a huge chunk of meconium. Thought it was weird as it was so "whole" (sorry TMI). Taken down to delivery, examined by MW who instantly makes an excuse, comes back with doctor. Portable scanner appears and whaddya know, there's his head neatly under my ribs. Section prep started (my biggest fear), told not to push, suddenly I'm yelling I can't stop pushing so they delivered him breech. The plates in his skull had formed a perfect mark where they had been in my ribs so it was felt he had been that way for a while. Genuinely I hadn't noticed, the movements were all similar to DS1's.

It was pretty surreal but actually amazingly positive. Sod's law though; did all that, managed to avoid section, retained placenta. Ended up in theatre for an hour while they removed it under spinal block!

MiauMau Most women only have two scans though - 12w dating scan and the 20w anomaly scan.

If there are no concerns, then you don't get another scan - and between 20w and labour baby can flip around pretty much freely!

ShowOfHands it's like you have read my mind. the only reason why I opted for a hospital birth was because of my family history of bad births (both my mum, sister and granny had difficult births). I've always been an idealist and highly impractical, I guess that life doesn't work quite like that when you have a baby! All the little and big things that I wanted for DS seem to have been ripped away from my hands and it started with the birth and it is carrying on through the breastfeeding and the day to day life. Each day I have to give up on another ideal and it's been hard. Luckily it helps when I look at DS and see how absolutely lovely he is, even though I've already made so many mistakes.

MiauMau, please don't say you have made mistakes! You are doing your best and that's all anyone can do. Give yourself a break and a (once you get a minute!)

Oh no no no no no. Not mistakes. You're handed this peculiar set of circumstances on a plate and left to deal with them. And in every other situation I bet you put pressure on yourself to be in control, to use all of the tools you have to approach something and to plan how it WILL be. And it turns out that in the biggest thing you'll ever do, you don't have that control. It's a really hard thing to accept because you hear about hypnobirthing and positive thinking and women who even do it in comas and it's natural, we're animals, right? So wrong isn't it?

What I found helped in the end is that dd grew up and started asking questions. And they weren't 'why did you fail' or any such judgement I placed on myself but things like 'did I cry' or 'what colour was my hair' and 'tell me the story of my birth again'. And it's that simple to her. I wasn't actually alone on that day, it wasn't something I did right or wrong. There were two of us and those peculiar circumstances pertained to both of us. And the other person there is just interested in the story. And when I answer her questions I can with a clear conscience- and a lot of joy actually- know that in everything that I could control, I did my level best. And that's what she's interested in. How we met. She's oddly fascinated by how she got stuck and what the doctors did to help. It's a good story after all. It's the day I became her Mum.

You'll get there. But you have to let go of the ideals. Be the best at what you're given, grieve briefly for what it might never be but don't let it rob you of the magnificence of what you've actually achieved.

That's a lovely post and has given me something to think about, showofhands. Thank you

Thank you for your lovely messages, it's getting a bit easier. People keep on telling me that I'm still being affected by the birth and that's one of the reasons why I'm having problems breast feeding.
It's really odd on how physically I have pretty much recovered but, my brain still gets trapped. I'm thinking of asking for the birth notes, does anyone know how I can get about this?

Miau check your hospital website - if it doesn't tell you there who to contact for your notes then contact the hospital PALS (their details should be on the site too) and they'll tell you what to do.

Obtaining mine was a case of completing a form, sending it in and then waiting for the notes to be copied - took a couple of weeks in total. There's usually a charge which can be up to £50ish depending on how many pages there are - most people on here seem to pay about £10, mine cost bloody £47

Worth it though, really clarified a lot of things, I'd recommend it