My DS is 18 months old now and I'm still angry and upset about the delivery

[maisiemog]

I am concerned that my labour may have damaged my DS in some way, and still feel upset when I talk about it.
I was monitored continuously throughout the pregnancy because I had a 'massive' fibroid, but when I went into labour the whole system kind of collapsed and the fact that there had been so much concern about the fibroid seemed to be ignored. Guess what it completely bured up the whole thing.
My waters broke on the Friday, and as I was away from home I went to my nearest hospital, on the advice of my doctor's surgery. At this hospital they conducted an internal examination and said nothing was happening yet and I had no contractions. Fine, I went shopping to buy emergency baby stuff.
That night we went to my local hospital at around 12:30 as contractions had set in. They monitored the contractions, but seemed to have a problem with the readings and threw away the first two. No questions about the fibroid, nobody checked to see if I was passing urine, and it didn't occur to me that I wasn't.
The midwife couldn't conduct an iternal examination, because my waters had already broken and because another internal could have led to an infection, so we didn't really know what stage I was at.
I was told to come back the next day at 4pm. By the next day, I couldn't face the car journey unless I was sure I would be kept in (and tbh I didn't want to leave home until I had to), so DP phoned for me and they told him that if I came in at that point I would have to sit on a chair in the waiting room as there were no beds or labour rooms free.
He mentioned the fibroid, no real interest was shown.
Later the contraction were really strong and I kept feeling the urge to push, but fought it because I was frightened I would give birth at home alone. We phoned the hospital again and they told us to come in the next morning at 10am.
Loooong night, we went in the next morning and waited around for about two hours in discomfort, still noone asking about bowel movements or urine or checking my bladder.
Finally they said I wasn't having contractions, or wasn't in labour yet, but there was a room free so I could go and start to be induced.
I asked for an epidural because I had heard that inductions were very painful, so they started to put needles into my hand, and decided to have a quick check to see how dilated I was.
Surprise, I was fully dilated, and they could feel the top of ds's head, they were amazed.
It turned out that because of the size of the fibroid, I had been unable to urinate for the past couple of days and my bladder had 2litres of fluid in it. This had led to the whole labour grinding to a halt as DS couldn't get out due to the double blockage - is what I was told.
I had to have oxytocinon to re-start the contrations and because there was meconium and DS's heart beat was dropping and stopping so much they got the doctor in after about fifteen minutes and he gave me an episiotomy and used a ventouse to pull out DS.
It was very quick. DS was so knackered he couldn't feed and quickly jaundice set in partially from the bruise on his head, this led to weeks of sleepiness and major problems latching on.
I am so upset when I think that DS couldn't get out and was distressed for god knows how long. The fact that they lost his heartbeat for ages makes me wonder whether he sustained any brain damage, and all because of the fibroid blocking the passage of urine.
I just can't understand why, after all the prenatal attention and concern, nobody gave a st at the hospital and nobody checked my bladder or asked me once whether I was passing urine. It just makes me so upset that DS had such a rough start.
I would love to hear the opinion of a medical professional about what happened and why the contractions actually stopped and had to be re-started when I was fully dilated.
I would love to talk to somebody about what happened, but I have no idea where to start.

How bloody awful for you. Perhaps speak to your GP or health visitor?

maisiemog - I'm so sorry you had a rough time, it does sound like things should have been done differently. I don't know about the medical side of your experience, but you should contact your hospital and ask to go through your notes with a dr or midwife anmd have them explain fully what went on - they should do this for you. At least that might put your mind at rest that your ds is okay. If it helps at all, my dd's heartbeat was lost for ages during labour (a vbac so they were continuously monitoring) and no one noticed for ages as the monitor was picking up my heartbeat. She was and is absolutely fine, it was just bad monitoring, not a bad heart rate. I hope you can talk to someone, I know many women find this really helps get over a bad birth experience.

contact your hospital's PALS service - Patient Advisory Liasion Service.

Maisiemog, I'm so sorry about the horrible birth you experienced. I hope you get to meet someone from your hospital to talk it through and have some of your questions answered.

I had a bad birth experience too due to fibroids, although it was nothing like as bad as yours. In my case the fibroids were previously undiagnosed, so I can't blame the hospital team for all the things that went wrong. Similar to your story, labour suddenly stopped when I was 5cm. Also, the baby's head was never engaged because the fibroid blocked it from getting down - this had meant I couldn't go into labour naturally to begin with and had to be induced at 11 days overdue. I ended up with an emergency C-section.

The midwives did keep asking me to urinate and check that I still could, and it was blood in my urine which first alerted them to something being wrong. It sounds as if they should have done this in your case.

maisiemog - you should ask your GP to refer you back to the consultant (or phone his/her secretary directly) for an appointment to discuss what happened.

I myself am a bit confused about the fibroid and passing urine. It is actually quite common not to be able to pass urine in labour whether or not you have a fibroid. Did you actually get a drip up and have an epidural? Getting fluids by a drip can fill your bladder up with urine very quickly. When the bladder is full, the head cannot get past it easily in labour.
Part of care in labour is ensuring women pass urine. If they are unable to the a catheter is passed to drain the bladder.
If you had an epidural sited that can interfere with the progress of labour which then means sytocinon drip needs started to bring contractions back.
Many babies also pass meconium in labour. It sounds as though your baby was delivered because of the decelerations to avoid him being disressed for too long. It is highly unlikely that he will have suffered any damage as a result of his delivery - please be reassured that babies can cope very well with heart rate decelerations in labour.
It would be really helpful for you to talk it through with the consultant who woulkd have your notes there. HTH.

Thanks everyone for your input I would like to go over it with someone holding the case notes to see what their take is and to ask what happened.
Mears, I'm sorry I was a bit unclear. I went to the labour room, but didn't have an epidural because I was already fully dilated. I had been in the room for a short time, and the staff had put a needle into the back of my hand for the syntocinon, but not actually given me anything at all. They then decided to check my cervix, almost as an afterthought, as they were convinced that I hadn't gone into labour yet and that I needed to be induced.
However, they were shocked to discover that I had been in labour for some time and was fully dilated, but the contractions had ground to a halt. They then used a catheter to drain the 2 litres of urine that had built-up and told me they were going to give me the syntocinon to re-start the labour because I needed to push. The whole delivery took about forty minutes from start to finish because they felt they had to intervene because they were concerned for my DS. TBH I had gas and air for about five minutes until they took it away, so I was a bit out of it, but my poor old DP was still compos mentis and said they were searching for ds's heartbeat for about fifteen minutes, they had a monitor attached to his head, because the tummy belt wasn't working. At this point the doctor arrived and took over for the ventouse.
I ended up staying in hospital after the birth with a catheter for 5 days and taking antibiotics drinking gallons of water, so they were obviously very concerned about the size that my bladder had reached.
It was funny because after the fairly unwelcoming and unhelpful triage, the staff in the ward were fabulous and actually made me laugh despite the catheter and non-feeding baby.
It does help to hear that babies cope well with the trauma of birth and the drop in heartbeat.

MM - PALS will be able to facilitate this for you. should be able to be put through to them from the hospital switchboard.

\link{http://www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk/\Birth Trauma assoc}

Sorry to hear about your bad experience maisiemoq. I think that you should be reassured by what mears says. Babies are very resilient to stress during labour and babies who are in some way harmed by stress during labour usually show this soon after delivery for example by needing significant resuscitation at birth or by having seizures soon after birth. From what you say your ds didn't have these difficulties. Now that your ds is 18months if his development is fine then it is very unlikely that he would have any problems relating to his birth. I do think though that it would be helpful for you to talk to someone who has access to your notes. My hospital has a birth reflections service for womn who are in a similar situation to yourself ie want to talk things through sometime after the event.

www.sheilakitzinger.com/Birth Crisis.htm

My first baby is 13 days old and I found the long labour/post partum haemorage/DD in SCBU/hospital stay traumatic. (The actual birth was fine.) Since then I have been suffering with anxiety/feeling very low so I emailed Sheila Kitzinger. We spoke on the phone and she believes that I have not been suffering from "baby blues" but post traumatic stress. She had some useful tips e.g. writing down your birth experience in the third person. She also recommeded her new book "Birth Crisis."

Might be worth a look?

WinkyGirl x