Upset by elective section

[cottonTale]

Don't read this pre section!

Prior to my elective section I had read lots of encouraging posts, hoped it would be a calm and positive experience following my previous emcs. I understand that all surgery carries risks, nothing is perfect etc, but I found the elcs quite traumatic.

It took five attempts for the anaesthetist to locate the spinal, this felt like forever and I wanted to run out of theatre! In the end an alternative anaesthetist located it as the first one gave up (I've had spinals before so he must have been having a bad day).

Within a short time I started to black out due to my pulse/blood pressure dropping due to spinal. I started panicking as to whether baby was ok. They administered some drugs to bring me back, but my hands were numb as spinal had been located too high apparently.

Then I was woozy and on oxygen, anaesthetist said this was a side effect, if I fell asleep they'd wake me for birth.

Thankfully dd was delivered safely, but the elcs was pretty frightening from my pov and I'm still pretty shaken by it a couple of weeks later.

Has anyone else had a difficult elcs? Maybe I was a bit optimistic to think it was going to be a lovely calm experience.

That sounds grim, CottonTale. I didn't have any issues in theatre but had a few minor issues in the first couple of days (largely due to hideous nature of the post-natal ward) that combined make me think pretty negatively of my experience.

I had a horrible assisted vaginal delivery first time round, and, like you, was looking forward to the calm, positive experience that many people describe an ELCS to be.

I felt slightly cheated for a while but have now come to accept that for me the baby extraction process ("birth" is too nice a term for my experiences) is just not something my body copes with very well. I am firmly in the never, ever again camp, now!

Cotton, I had a similar experience to you 5 months ago, ELCS after difficult first birth ending in 3rd degree tear.

Section was worse! Anaesthetic took four attempts, I had awful like electric shock pains each time they attempted it. My DH was asking them to give me a GA it was that bad! Then sickness / faint feeling, op took an hour (they said 30 mins). Then I haven't recovered quickly at all and am on my third 'internal' infection. Tbh I am gutted it was as it was considering my first birth was also bad (3 day labour, back to back, 3rd degree tear). Clearly not cut out for babies. It's really really made me think I can't have anymore. I feel for you because I know it actually shocked me how bad it was. I do feel a lot better now but am on my third round of antibiotics and wonder what the hell has happened on the inside.

You poor thing. I had a horrible category 3 emcs which was almost an elcs, just meant I got done before the ladies having elcs and it was only planned 2 days before. I'd had 3 nice quick labours before that but ds4 has some disabilities and was in a really awkward position. Firstly I was starved from midnight to 11pm, not even allowed to drink water on one of the hottest days of the year. Then I was allowed to eat for an hour and then back to nil by mouth again. The spinal going in wasn't too bad but then I got the shakes. It was awful, like your teeth chattering but your whole head, neck and arms doing it too. DS was born and given to DH who was sat where I couldn't see him. The not being able to move thing really freaked me out, it was so scary. Then DS started grunting, they called the paed and he was taken to nicu.

Sorry to hear that others have had bad experiences too

Missmidden I like your thought process - perhaps far too much false promise is held on birth and in reality a lot of women have really traumatic experiences, whether vaginal or section births.

Snowy your spinal sounds a lot like mine, my dp says he really wanted to say something at the time but was worried about making the situation even less pleasant if he asked the anaesthetist to resolve the problem. As a second anaesthetist (consultant) was able to site the spinal first time then I really think the first guy must have been quite new and should have been limited to a couple of attempts rather than me being used for his training...I had the shooting pains and burning down my legs too, every time he hit a nerve.

Ellie so sorry to you too, your experience sounds very traumatic and drawn out.

In a way I feel less anxious about my first (crash) emergency section than the second one, as I didn't volunteer for the first. It seems crazy that I voluntarily wanted into an operating theatre and had a terrifying experience, natural labour wasn't really an option though.

Dd was born at 38+5, before I ever went into labour. I'm glad she's ok, but I feel bad that she was introduced to the world in such upsetting circumstances, she may not have wanted to be born for another two weeks

I had some similar issue to you with my ELCS in Jan. It took the anaethestist about 20 mins to put in the spinal. She was trying to find an alternative spot to where my EMCS point had been, but she couldn't find one. I was really nervous so this additional wait didn't really help. She wanted to locate it lower, but it ended up being higher up.

Then during I started to feel really ropey and they kept having to give me anti-sickness meds and other meds to bring my blood pressure back up as it kept dropping. I did end up puking, but the anaethestist talked to me the whole way thru and was really reassuring. So despite the problems I still found the whole process quite calm when I compare it to my EMCS.

Whilst I didn't have the above issues at my EMCS, things went t*ts up as soon as baby was out. With a couple of minutes I could sense the panic in the room. Then I heard someone say '1.7 litres gone. Code red for blood'. Then I heard the doctor performing saying to her colleague 'if we can't control this we'll have to remove the uterus'

Sorry didn't manage to finish....

Then I started to feel uber dodgy like I was going to black out and I had to fight to stay awake as I thought if I close my eyes I wasn't going to come back. I ended up having to have a rusch balloon, a couple of transfusions and a spell in HDU.

So when I compare the 2 I think the ELCS was much better!!!

Lula so sorry that you had such a tough time. Have you found that you feel less upset by your birth over time? I remember feeling quite panicked and distressed by my emergency section, but in the course of time I felt less worried by it.

I don't really get upset about it at all now. I found it hard to deal with at the time, but I had a debrief about 4 weeks later which really helped.

Sometimes I don't even think it was that bad and then I tell someone what happened and then realise actually it was really traumatic!!! Thing is I can't undo it, it happened and there was nothing I could do to change it so I've accepted it.

That's good to hear Lula, I'm glad your debrief helped and time is a great healer. I was quite distressed by my first emergency section and felt traumatised for a while after, but a debrief helped me and in time I lost my fear over it - probably a year later I was ok with it.

So sorry to hear you're struggling, it sounds like an ordeal. Mine was very very similar - 3rd CS, first elective after 2 emcs (1 failed induction, 1 failed vbac). I thought everything would be so easy after previous experiences - but it took numerous attempts to get spinal in, eventually situated v low. BP crashed when they laid me down, blacked out, mad rush to get me back and stable. Then cleaning up adhesions from previous surgeries, separating bladder and uterus, then a huge battle to get my enormous (10lb 15oz, after 2 normally sized DSs) DD out, then the worst thing - because the spinal was so low, the anaesthesia didn't really cover the top part of the cavity very well and the pain during the cleaning was terrible, they were about to put my under a general when they decided to try a sedative which got me through. Really not what I expected from what I thought would be a calm experience. On the positive side, I seem to have recovered more quickly from this one and as I have learnt from my first traumatic birth, the key for me lies in talking, talking, talking about it - and processing it, and accepting that it was tough, and crap. Hope you feel much better soon.

Honestly? It sounds on the scale of normal.

The bp drop isn't unusual. Common side effect of the spinal. i knew from my emcs that I'd just have to focus on staying conscious. The nausea and spinny feelings were the same so I was able to tell the anaesthetist who tilted the table and gave me the drugs.

It took 40 mins to site my spinal. I'd developed a bit of a kink in my spine from carrying dc1 on my hip. I had quite an impressive scabby area for a couple of weeks.

In some ways I preferred my emcs as it was all done so quickly. Thinking about it though maybe this should be discussed when choosing a elcs. Although not really part of the "risk" analysis, but elcs isn't a calm, pain and stress free process.

I think it doesn't help that birth is portrayed as an "experience". We see images all the time of a tired but elated looking woman holding a clean and wrapped baby, not a hair out of place and with a loving husband gazing adoringly at them both. Then when it doesn't happen like that we think we did it wrong. I know I read posts and heard stories before and after DS4 was born about lovely calm pain free elective sections and I felt like I'd missed out because mine wasn't like that at all.

DS5 was born by EMCS. From the moment I was taken to theatre I expected it to be awful and it was, worse than the ELCS. It helped a bit to go in with much lower expectations and without the image of this lovely experience that "everyone else" has.

Be kind to yourself. What happened to you is fairly common but it's still traumatic, especially if you were expecting it to be different.