Can anyone explain because I don't understand!

[Orenishii]

DS is 7.5 months and I'm still a bit traumatised by his birth. I had planned a water birth at home. Best laid plans and all that - ended up being induced because they said my waters had gone (they hadn't) and after 12 hours using hypnobirthing with contractions 2 minutes apart and back to back pain, I had an epidural. They put me on the dreaded induction drip, and it took another 7 hours to get up to 10 cm.

They said by this point the epidural had worn off, so I could feel the excruciating pain in my back...but nothing in the front, no sensation to push, no contractions. I was laying on my back, feet in stirrups, in agony from my back pain, being shouted at to push. I didn't know epidurals could wear off like that and to feel the back pain but not the front was like some kind of mental and physical torture. I ended up with forceps, and it still bothers me - that I didn't know. Has this happened to anyone? Can anyone talk it through with me?

It sounds horrible, I have no personal experience of this but wanted to give you a bump. Have you tried contacting the hospital and asking for a debrief? I've read about it on here a few times and it seems to have helped some people

Contact PALS and ask for some closure on what happened.

It sonds awfull and you obviously need to u derstand it before moving on.

I wish you well with it all x

Thank you both for taking the time to respond :) I had thought about asking for a debrief but I thought I'd just get upset, and it wouldn't make me feel any better. Maybe I should though.

I think it's just that it seemed like epidurals were the golden ticket - I hadn't even wanted one but was grateful for it when I had it. But I had no idea they could wear off or that there was a possibility it would wear off - I didn't even know they could!

Epidurals are great for some and not others I had one that burst the dural membrane resulting in having to have a blood patch to fix it post birth. Kind of a puncture repair to stop spinal fluid leaking.
It didn't work at all.

Sorry your experience sounds horrendous.

That sounds very grim - and yes it's fine to contact the hospital to ask for more information. Explain that you are finding it difficult to get over the trauma and would find it easier to reconcile yourself to the experience if you could understand it better.

I think (someone more knowledgable correct me if I'm wrong) that "epidural" is a catch-all phrase for any pain-blocking medication introduced directly into the spine, but that there are a variety of types.

I ended up having a couple of different types, because at one point in my labour there was a critical moment when they thought they might have to do an emergency caesarian if something didn't happen quite right, so I was given one thing (they called it a "spinal block") which was a single injection that would have lasted plenty long enough to cover a caesarian if that's what had to happen. In my case, the thing-that-could-have-gone-wrong didn't go wrong and my labour carried on progressing. After a while that spinal block wore off and I started having a lot of pain that sounded similar to what you described, so I guess you may have been given the same kind of thing as that.

In my case though, they knew this was likely to happen (as they knew labour wasn't that far along) and had planned that at that point the anaesthetist would come back and give me a longer-lasting version. Unfortunately at the point when I needed this the anaesthetist was tied up with another person, so I had to put up with it (with some gas and air which I didn't find that helpful) for about 45 minutes - that was enough for me, I found it really difficult to cope with - before I got the longer-lasting version that was fine until it was all over.

So it sounds to me like maybe they gave you the short-acting version because they thought it would all be over fairly soon, but they turned out to be wrong about that.

I hope you get some answers. Whatever happened is in the past and can't harm you or your baby now, but I know that understanding it better will help you get some peace from the memory of that trauma.

Hi OP, it sounds like if the epidural wore off by the time you were fully dilated (7 hours after it was administered), then maybe they didn't want to give you another one because they expected your baby to arrive. I haven't had one, but I got the impression that an epidural can't be administered too close to delivery as it can make the baby very drowsy or something similar. Maybe (and again here I'm guessing I'm afraid) the epidural was only partially worn off by the time you were pushing. That might explain why you couldn't feel anything at the front, but lots at the back. It might also have been how the baby was positioned in the birth canal, expecially if they had you on your back.

However, this doesn't make how you're feeling now any better. Frankly, being in severe back pain, being forced to remain on your back in stirrups, and being yelled at to push must have made a bad situation into a worse one for you, and I am not surprised at all you feel bewildered still about why this happened. I remember a MW in my first labour threatening me with "if you can't get the baby out in the next push I'm going to call an ambulance" (I was in MLU, she wanted to send me to hospital), and another MW told me she knew colleagues who had stood at the foot of a labouring woman's bed jangling forceps at them to get them to push. This is all abusive, bullying behaviour, and I hope you realise that what happened to you is not your fault. At all.

If you don't find you can get closure from going back and talking to the MWs who delivered your baby (for me, I never ever wanted to be in the same room with them ever again), you might want to see your GP about counselling, especially if this is having such an impact on your daily life so many months after the birth.

What a terrible thing to happen. I would complain. Epidurals are not supposed to be allowed to wear off - it is totally cruel. It is in the NICE guidelines that they should be maintained until after the baby is born and placenta delivered - specifically because it traumatises women if it is allowed to wear off at the most painful stage of labour. I would ask for a debriefing with the anaesthetist because they will make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.

Both my babies were back to back and I never experienced the proper bump contractions, just constant back pain. Can only describe it as if someone was actually trying to crack open my back. No experience of an epidural but given how long it took for you to dilate I think it was very cruel of them not to be prepared to top you up at the end. Fwiw a friend of mine had a very similar birth to yours and was very traumatised by it. When she eventually decided to try for a second she requested and was given a lot of support from midwifed and consultants to help her understand and get through her fears. In the end she had a dream second birth, fast and easy with nothing other than gas and air and baby born in the water. I think as suggested above you should think about asking someone to discuss your birth notes with you, I was very when my midwife (at appointment for second) gave me a big pat on the back and told me how terrible back to back labours are stealth boast

Also, sorry, whilst the position you were in is fine for an epidural it's just about the worst possible if you don't have one. Gravity is a great help and lying on your back doesn't help that, you seem to have been left in no mans land without the help of the epidural but without enough movement to get in a good position for labour, I would certainly be asking questions about that.