I can't listen to other peoples birth stories without feeling terrible

[Whenisitmysleepytime]

Mt bf has just had dc2 and so at toddler group we were all reminiscing over our dc's arrivals.

I had to walk away as it made me feel tense and anxious and really sad about how my dc - particularly ds arrived.

Ds was emcs after a labour that went nowhere and he got stuck. They decided he needed to come out before things got dangerous. I took a long time to start to come to terms with that and I probably had pnd. (although never diagnosed)

Dd was an elcs and a much better experience. Almost nice in comparison. :)
But I still feel awful that neither of my dc were born 'properly'. I just didn't feel u could even try with dd as I was terrified of a repeat performance.

I should be ok with it all now - ds is 3 and dd 1yo but in still a mess if I have to think about births.
That's not really normal is it?

Anyone else like this?
How do you move past it?

Well I did have a 'proper' vaginal birth ...only now 2 years later when pregnant again did i find out that i fractured my tailbone with the birth and 28 hour labour of my first one ...it has affected my knee joints ...got me spd this time and i have a rotated pelvis which is affecting my spine...i wish i had had a c section...i have decide to have an elective one this time round...

I am greatful that my daugther and i got out alive and healthy and that is all i hope for baby nr two!

Hi,

My DS is only 7.5 months so kit quite the same but I am wondering when I will feel less sad about his birth (although of course I am joyous he was born!)

He has a heart condition which was monitored and. I was rushed off for an EMCS 2 weeks early. I am so grateful he was born safely but I can't shake feelings of regret about how I didn't get to hold him straight away and was separated from him the first night as he was rushed to special care. I feel so sad he was alone that first night :(

When I see natural births on tv or pics if people holding their baby after labour I cry. I don't have that photo.

I think this is normal and although I know how lucky we all are that our beautiful son is with us I will always feel a bit sad that his entry to the world wasn't easier and happier.

You're not alone and you're not odd for feeling like this.

Both of my children were born prematurely after awful pregnancies and I lost a little girl at 17 weeks at the beginning of the month. I feel like a complete failure as a woman and get incredibly bitter when I think of other peoples normal pregnancies and good births ( and even bad ones where the woman has her healthy baby to herself immediately afterward, if I am being honest). I find other woman's pregnancies very hard to cope with and detach myself completely even if they are friends. I think about it all continually.

I'll let you know how you move past it when I've worked it out :(

I just thank God every day that I had an EMCS - without it both my DS and I would be dead. .

i'm not much help i'm afraid. i actively avoid the birth story discussions as ours was pretty horrendous. I was expecting twins, and things went well until the 34 wk scan when they told us we had lost one. our boys were delivered by cs the next day. still not there in terms of talking birth stories and frankly worried about how i'll feel on the first birthday. i feel bad for our boy that made it that his birth was under such tragic circumstances an was far from the happy day that he (well, both our boys)deserved

I think what you are feeling is quite common and normal. I had an EMCS at 30 weeks and felt that I had to grieve the loss of the 'perfect' birth experience that I thought I was going to get. I suppose I felt like I had failed in some way.

As time has gone by (my dd is now nearly 7), those feelings have faded away. For me, the giving birth part of motherhood has become less and less significant compared to the many and varied other experiences that being a parent involves.

So sorry to hear about your losses Methe and Ipswich.

I feel very similar. I know how lucky I am but I still have feelings of sadness about the birth experience and also how things were in the hospital - I don't remember the first days very well. I mainly remember being in pain, baby crying and struggling to BF. I don't really remember cuddling her much although my husband says I did. I'm hoping the bad memories fade and the good ones will live on.

I've posted about this many times before on MN and I think I probably sound like a stuck record on it so I apologise.

After dd was born (traumatic and long, intervention-heavy labour, eventual emcs), I felt very desperate indeed. I had nightmares and flashbacks. I felt I'd failed, let everybody- including my precious baby -down. I couldn't understand why. Why my body couldn't do the supposedly natural, why I'd felt like such a passive bystander in my dd's birth, why so many other hands had to touch dd before I did, why I couldn't move past it. I avoided programmes and discussions involving birth. I had such a visceral reaction to it all. I felt bitter and envious and I thought my body had let me down. I was ashamed of myself if I'm completely honest.

Several things helped in the end.

Acknowledging truthfully that I had no choice over what happened. I'd gone into it so prepared, I'd done everthing 'right'. It does not matter. It wasn't mine to control.

Talking talking talking. To a counsellor who was also an obstetric consultant. He could listen but he could also answer questions. I needed to tell the story many times to as many ears as possible, real ones and MN ones. It all helped me process.

Understanding that I could feel sad about it all and that was okay. It didn't mean I couldn't be a good mother. That what happened after she was born wasn't anything to do with how she was born. That in the things I could control I was doing my level best.

The application of time. The most surprising thing which happened was dd grew up and asked about her own birth and this confirmed something I hadn't quite grasped before. That it wasn't just me battling against a spiral of problems. We were both there. And when she asks about it, she doesn't ask 'why couldn't you' or 'why didn't you' she asks about what happened the moment she was born, what she looked like, can she hear the story about pooing on the nurse again, did she cry etc etc. And all these questions reaffirmed what I should have accepted all along. That I gave birth to dd. I didn't reenact a textbook labour. I didn't have the baby in the book. I had dd. And her position and my body and chance/luck/fate gave us the experience we got. And it's a story now. The story of the day we met. I did nothing wrong. I know that now. I think I forgave myself.

And when I had ds 4.4yrs later and it all went the same way again, I laughed my way into theatre and out of it again because I knew one day I'd have a funny, wonderful, interesting little boy who would ask me about the day we met. And what a special day that was.

I had a bit of a long dragged out labour which ended in a emcs but cos I was so high on drugs I can't really remember much! The nurses called my mother and told her to be here cos it was a real emergancy! So by the time I'd been stitched up etc my mum and his mum had held my baby before I had! This pissed me off for quite a while - but .... Baby isn't going to know who held him first, you are mummy and will bring him/her up.
As for beating yourself up for not having a "natural" birth - you had a go unlike a lot of people. If you didn't have a emcs you and baby probs wouldn't be here, just be thankful. X

Showofhands that is just brilliant. Well done for persevering and allowing time to do the work as well. Talking is good too. My own obstetric history is difficult and as a midwife it was hard to be continuously asked why I "only" had one child. In fact, I'm lucky to have her and time allows me to say that out loud.

I used to feel a bit like you op but I am very much over it now (dc are 11 and 8) and I have felt reconciled for a long, long time. I think once you are generally out of the company of people who like to talk about their birth stories then that helps although, of course, sadly, you will sometimes meet people who have even worse birth stories than you do.

show that's a lovely post :)

I hate listening to other people's birth stories mostly, as all my friends seem to have had textbook 12 hour or less natural labours and deliveries. And those who had bad deliveries I just feel so bad for them.

But even though DS was yanked from me by forceps after a few days of nothing happening, he's still my wonderful, infuriating, hilarious little boy.

I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at pregnancy and birth (currently pg with DC2 and not coping well). Or parenting a toddler for that matter. But I'm sure I'll find some part of being a parent that I'll feel like a natural at, and others will struggle. There are so many aspects to it, we can't all be amazing at every one of them.

And it may well be worth your while looking into counselling - I found it tremendously helpful when dealing with recovery from sexual assault, just being able to talk to an impartial ear. Not for everyone, but worth a try IME.

I find the post labour photo particularly hard. Both of my labours ended up with me in bed unable to walkt - difficult emcs first time and me in intensive care second time. I actually came around hours after the birth in a different hospital to my baby as I was in intensive care. It still makes me shudder to think of it. Wasn't able to see baby for hours after I woke and then wasn't able to hold her. Not wanting to hi jack just saying I understand. I need to come to terms with it but I wish it was different :-(

Gosh - all of these posts tell such powerful stories. Glad to see there's some hope showofhands. :) and to all of you who have suffered loss you have my sympathy. :(

So we are all struggling to get over it. And other than time there's not a lot out there. I might speak to the gp about counselling but to be honest it doesn't affect my day to say life (just when I think / hear about birth) so I would imagine I wouldn't be eligible for anything on the NHS.

I felt like this too. Is so horrible, I'm sorry you're still in the thick of it. Only time helps, I found. It took me 8 or 9 months but I know it takes many people far longer. My story is not as bad as many here, I had less to get over, though it was hard at the time. So very sorry to hear the stories of loss.

I really struggled to come to terms with DD's labour and birth. Even during induction I was crying about what a failure I was. Although I was fully prepped and I thought quite pragmatic about the whole thing, when it came to the crunch I really wanted a perfect labour, and that is far from what I got (think the One Born Every Minute horror birth from a few months ago)
Time is a great healer. And 2nd time an elective section was also great. I think like others say once you get past the stage where everyone talks about the birth its a lot better.

I also find that those with really bad experiences, or who feel "guilty" about having a non ideal labour don't tend to speak up in birth chat situations. I know I never tell my birth story in real life (though quite a bit on here!).

Try to focus on the positives. Your DC's are here and wonderful and hopefully you will feel more positive about it with time.

Something that i've found helps, apart from time??.is to identify the little things that were good, especially sensory memories before and after the birth itself. Its different for everyone. Your huge smooth belly, the first feed, the first time they really looked at you, the tender way your OH felt, how baby skin felt, the funny noises they made and so on, your parents reaction to their grandchild. Focus on those moments and try and visualise them, strengthen the memory. Then get those memories out, regularly, so that they start to dominate the less pleasant ones. I'm not suggesting denial but our minds can hold on to and reinforce trauma and we can try and influence our thoughts in another direction.

Showofhands - I'm so with you. Once your perspective changes to that of the baby I think you can forgive yourself. They are the real heros. Us mums try our best, but circumstances are frequently outside of our control.

Yakbutter - I'm so sorry for your loss.

When my DS was born at 33 weeks, my instinct was to get through and out the other side without mentally breaking down. I knew that I had to focus on DS to do this, and I think it worked. I kept thinking about him as his 'future-self' and the story I would tell him. It was a traumatic event, but I didn't/don't feel traumatised by it.

By the by, I wonder if society expectations are partly to blame? Such a lot of mythology is talked about in pregnancy and particularly around the birth. We all look admiringly at the woman who gave birth in a bath tub. Interventions have brought down perinatal mortality enormously in the last 50 years - should we really care how this is achieved? Is spending hours on birth plans really fruitful when this part of babies is hours long - newborn needs last much, much longer.

Very moving post ShowofHands.

I can't really join in, in a way - I had a planned CS for tokophobia for my 1st DC (not sure yet if we will try for more) - it was the birth I wanted and got, so I never had any feelings about not doing it 'properly'. I was very happy with how things went.

I have noticed since giving birth myself how many women seem upset or disappointed with their births. I'm often confused about what it is they wanted, and where those hopes and expectations come from. They often don't seem to know themselves, and are sometimes contradictory in what they say - which is strange to me, having known why I wanted an ELCS very clearly.

I have also become aware that there are a LOT of women who have had miscarriages/late miscarriages/stillbirths who don't seem to be able to join in, or be allowed into, birth conversations anywhere. A couple of times I've had the strange sensation that other women have not wanted them 'at the table' and talking about their experiences - maybe because they are afraid? Squeamish? Superstitious? I don't know. It is very sad. God knows how those women feel.

"Chance/luck/fate gave us the experience we got. And it's a story now. The story of the day we met. I did nothing wrong."

^ That.

I have had a really bad birth experience (very similar with DD to ShowofHands first birth,) and an absolutely fabulous one. Both are my children, I love them both. I'll tell them both how they were born, and as ShowofHands says, it's just the story of the day we met. They both have a fabulous story, full of twists and turns and drama, btw. But very different stories. I am proud of them both.

Mayhew, have been thinking what you said about picking out the positive bits. It's been playing round my head and this morning I have written an account of the positive bits in ds's baby book. It felt a good thing to do. This is a good thread, I love what SoH said, along with other posters.

A slightly different perspective.....

I was lucky with both of my births, dd2's especially.

The thing is that when you look at the whole picture, from issues with conception, during pregnancy, premature birth, induction, difficult birth, breastfeeding probably most people experience some issues somewhere along the line.

In my case the issue with both was failure in relation to breastfeeding.

I think you may find if you talk to friends that other people may have similar feelings about when things went wrong at different times. I know a couple of my friends understand how I feel because of different experiences to mine.

I think showofhands is right that the longer it goes on the less important it seems.