What the hell do I do now? Refused repeat section

[Loopylouu]

I had my ds by elective section 11 years ago.

I am 29 weeks pregnant and finally saw a consultant today about having another. It was refused. Hospital policy apparently.

I was willing to literally sell everything to go private if I had to. Called the private consultants office today who I had met with when I was 9 weeks pregnant, she advised me to stay nhs as long as possible, until 36 weeks to cut costs. But now she is fully booked and can't take me on.

All the other private drs are a grand more expensive, I can't stretch to that.

I honestly don't know what to do. Mu husband is being am arsehole. His attiude is I'll just have to deal with it then.

I'm panicking and I don't know what to do. If is have known this was going to happen I may have re thought things at the beginning. I love my baby, I feel evil for saying that.

Yes well done that lady thank goodness she had it in her to stand up for you....thank goodness!

Also your partner doesn't sound like the kind of man who ladies would go to discuss their labours either!

hopefully at least things on the home front have calmed down some what and you can cocentrate on your c section.

has your partner seen any one born every minuet?

I hope you get to see the right consultant and she can sort things out for you.
I have the name of the consultant I used when, 7 yrs after a very traumatic emergency section which left me with PTSD, I found myself expecting DD. I had an NHS birth (usually he just did my private well-woman check) and he was absolutely fab. He has such insight into the whole psychological side of it, liaised with the midwivery team on my behalf so that my pregnancy and C-section were such a different experience.
However, that was 12 years ago, having just checked the private hospital he used to consult at (South London) he is no longer there. Scarily, one of the consultants there now is the fool SHO who took 23 (yes, 23) attempts to get an epidural in during my first section 19 yrs ago! So we'll leave him out of the equation!
If things don't work out and you'd like his name, pm me. He is still an NHS consultant at a South London hospital, so he is sure to be consulting at one or another privates around London.

Oh god, the thought of an epidural again terrifies me more than any other aspect.

I just remember the pain, it was like bolts of lightning going up and down my back and both my legs. All the time the midwife was telling me to be quiet and stop crying. I have never experienced such pain, ever. It took so long for them to get it in.

I am also not good with local anaesthetics, I could still feel them putting in the needle, even though they insisted I couldn't as they had given me a local. It was the same when I had a mole removed, they had to give me the local twice as I could still feel everything after one.

I also felt the surgeon cutting me, I screamed and the anaethnatist went white and hurriedly adjusted something. It was awful. That was why I wanted to go private. When I first saw the private consultant she said that I wasn't the only one she'd heard all that from and that a private birth would be calmer and better.

How interesting, that was very much my experience. Being laughed at and told I couldn't feel anything when I clearly could. The anaesthetist yelling 'if this carries on I will put you out' and me yelling 'no'. And all that jazz.
Did you get this addressed afterwards? I struggled on for a year before going into counselling. But I got there.
Why would a private birth be calmer? Because you might get jam on your toast afterwards? Don't take that the wrong way, as my previous posts show, I make good use of private facilities as and when. But a good birth experience after a crap one is so much about everybody involved knowing your backstory and taking all account of your wishes and preferences, and being familiar with the place and the people and the plan of action.
My second NHS birth involved me visiting the labour and post-natal wards, meeting as many of the midwives as possible, meeting the anaesthetist, sitting for a few minutes in the operating theatre just to get used to it. It was the same hospital as the emergency section, it was the same theatre. But because I had a good team around me, I left the hospital 3 days post-op with my dd and never looked back.

I agree with previous posters that you need to bring your anxiety issues to the table in sorting out your birth plan. Don't spend more money on getting a private section, spend some money finding a specialist counsellor for antenatal anxiety/depression (if there is not one attached to the hospital) and get them on board with your consultant and the head of midwivery at the hospital.

BTW the second C-section was with an epidural too. It went in first time (because they knew I'd had previous issues, the Top Man came and did it), I knew to expect to feel some pressure during the actual operation, and I didn't even have the post-epi headache.
It was blimming lovely. I was awake afterwards to watch DH bathing and dressing and cuddling our dd.

And in conclusion, then I came home and shortly after that was sterilised! Job done.
Please let it all out and get yourself the help the need and get your job done too!

She said it would be better as my wishes would be listened to more and there would be more time.

I very much felt like I was on a conveyor belt. I needed the toilet before they started everything and it was met with eye rolling and the comment 'we don't have all day, there are other women waiting'.

I never spoke to anyone afterwards. Ds had problems after birth due to the negligence of the person who checked him over. When I was making a case to complain, it was at the time when the HV was making my life hell. She said that wanting to complain and blaming others was a sign of mental illness, she used that against me in her report, so I dropped it all.

Did they listen to your concerns about the epidural though? I asked a midwife at booking, but as there is no proof that I had a terrible time, it's just my word for it. She fobbed me off and said 'well it was a long time ago, I am sure it wasn't that bad'. It bloody was, my exh used to say he'd never heard anyone in so much distress or pain.

Thats a really poor midwife. It doesn't matter if there is 'proof' or not. Your word is enough to say that it is something that bothers you and they should be reassuring you not being dismissive of you.

The birth trauma association make the point that you could have a text book birth, but still be traumatised. A good HCP should know this.

I think you've hit a bad midwife with that.

You really do need some help with this loopy. You needed to find an explanation and acceptance of what happened before. You needed help, support, counselling. The irony is, had you felt strong enough to continue complaining at the time, you might have got that help. A wrong was done to you at a time when you were at your weakest ebb by that HV telling you to shut up about it. And as bad as my first NHS experience was, no one person was so awful as that HV sounds. You had a very bad time compounded by a dreadful person.
Please sort out some counselling whether you decide to go for NHS or private for the birth.
You will have this baby you know and then you too will know the delights of a large age gap between dc!

If you can't go private would you consider an independent midwife or doula as an alternative? You can have them even if you have an ELCS. It just means you would have someone there as your advocate (seeing as your husband is going to be as useful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to this).

Oh good god no, I had an independent midwife for the baby I miscarried at 14 weeks last year. She was awful, I won't go into it but she discussed things with the hospital and was crap.

I think my best bet is to try and see that consultant.

I think the HV had a massive problem. She was almost boastful about the number of families she'd got ss involved with. It was quite sickening. She wrote a 12 page report about me to them. The outcome was ss called and didn't even want to come and see me. But that HV put me through 4 weeks of hell.

Forgot to say, he reason I hired a private midwife that time was because I had one for ds. She was absolute shit in the end, she had a home birth when ds was born (I went into labour before elec Cs) and the other midwife she worked with was sick.

When I told her about it, she said hat a lot of women experience that with epidurals.

I can see why women wanting home births hire them, but in my experience they haven't been great.

There are doulas that specialise in ELCS I believe. I think its a question of finding the right person for you.