Feel sad about my birth experience. Failed at hypnobirthing.

[Cocopops2010]

Hi everyone I could do with some advice (and maybe a shake).
Dc is 5 months old and is a lovely baby. Sleeping and feeding well so I have no excuse to feel low. However over the last few weeks I’ve got really down about the birth. I can’t stop thinking about it.
I had done a hypnobirthing course and listened to the MP3s a lot, did the practice breathing etc. I tried to keep an open mind but really wanted a low intervention birth. (I guess everyone does, so I know i’m being silly.)
Anyway baby was two weeks late so was induced. Pessary worked and the breathing really helped. However then my waters broke and the pessary came out and then I was told I had to go on the drip.
It was awful. I tried really hard to keep my breathing and visualisation going but my contractions came on top of each other and I felt totally out of control. After three hours I had an epidural. Anyway the short version is that epidural failed after a few hours on one side, 12 hours later was finally fully dilated failed ventouse and ended up with forceps and episiotomy. 36 hours from pessary to birth.
I don’t know why I feel so sad now. I feel I failed which I know is silly. All the hypnobirthing practice I did told me it didn’t have to be painful etc but I just couldn’t cope on the drip at all. I really wanted to give birth in a UFO position which my NCT class had taught me about but ended up on my back feet in stirrups.
I need somebody to give me a shake and tell me to cheer up.

@babdoc yes you’re right. I just felt really crap when I read my discharge notes and the doctor had written that the reason for the failed ventouse was poor maternal effort. Made me feel like a bit of an idiot

@doranora yes good point our babies came out healthy and that’s what matters! I think it’s just luck of the draw isn’t it?

Absolutely luck of the draw! No one knows what they'll get. In my NCT class out of 8 women who all wanted water births only 1 of us had one (various medical reasons, not enough time or pool wasn't available).

There's no other medical procedure where it's somehow considered better to do without pain relief 'because it's natural'. My DH said if men gave birth 99% people would have epidurals

I really hope you feel better soon and can believe you did an awesome job - or at least look back without sadness, and without feeling like you failed. When in fact if labour was a test you would have aced it

I had a 73 hour back to back labour with my first, epidural after around 60 hours. Very very narrowly avoided forceps - babies HR was dropping and not coming back up. I am still traumatised by the experience and the pain I endured for days - I would have had the epi sooner but I wasn’t 4cm so they gave me fuck all.

Now 36w pregnant with DD2 and decided to do a one day private hypnobirthing course to try and take some of the stress out of the run up. I think it is a useful tool if you have an uncomplicated and relatively short delivery. And can be useful in the run up/early stages of labour in terms of panic management. But that is where is ends. It is not magic, and can not alter the course of a complicated delivery. There is nothing you could have done to change the delivery you had, and you did really really well in a highly stressful and painful situation.

I had to chuckle to myself when the HB instructor told me that contractions aren’t actually painful, it just how we respond to them, and you can eliminate the pain with mind of matter etc. My labour with DD1 was like medieval torture for days and days, I was vomiting and delirious from the pain, and ain’t nobody going to tell me I could have “mastered the pain” with fucking breathing and visualising a beach.

My DD1 is 16m old now and it took me till She was around 12mo to stop beating myself up about “failing at natural birth”. I couldn’t give a shit now. Two ladies I know both both first labours under 6 hours recently - good for them, they were lucky. In my situation they probably would have ended up with a medicalised birth too.

If DD2 is back to back/ the labour is anything like my first I am going to get an epidural AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I’ll do my breathing and try to stay calm and “open” and hope for an uncomplicated birth, but if I’m not that lucky i am not going to martyr myself or feel like a failure !! Xx

I was similar with my first, listened to it all which did help me at the beginning part of labour but then screamed at every bit of pain (no pain relief as there was no time) -but I think inductions are just like that. Inductions aren’t the easiest so i don’t blame you x

I realised when you mentioned poor maternal effort that you posted back in December too. Does your hospital offer a debrief service? Would it help to talk to someone about it? There’s a Facebook group for people who suffered birth trauma which you could join... I joined it for a few weeks and then in the end I didn’t need it anymore.

Hypnobirthing only works for women who have relatively mild pain. If you have a difficult birth and your body is in agony then no amount of positive thinking is going to distract you. You shouldn’t feel guilty for suffering excessive pain beyond what hypnobirthing can be expected to deal with.

I was in labour for 18 hours with just hypnobirthing. That’s already 3-4 times as long as some other women endure. Then I went another 6 hours with just gas and air before they had to break out the big guns because I was in agony. I did bloody well to cope for that long! I won’t be told that others did better than me because they didn’t have any pain relief at all, when the fact is their labour was maybe only a quarter as long as mine and probably less painful if they had no complications.

A lot of people don't get the birth they want

Hypnobirthing, lamaze classes, etc give mums an illusion that they can take control of the situation.

But ultimately, you do not control the birth process, you have to sort of let it happen to you

FWIW, I really wanted an epidural, instead I arrived at the hospital, vomited in a bin, was told I was 10cm dilated, and it was too late for an epidural. DH says I shouted "give me the fucking drugs!" before telling him to fuck off

So yeah, these things don't go to plan

You did nothing wrong, you did not fail at anything

@shazafield yes that’s true - it can’t alter the course of labour. I think maybe I misunderstood it and thought it could, but when I look back I can’t really see any alternative route it all could have taken. The pessary coming out was bad luck but I might have ended up on the drip anyway.
@bobfossil2 I think I will look into the debrief. I really liked the midwife I had for my antenatal appointments so I would like to talk to her. That’s a good idea thank you x

Ha, instead of repeating my positive affirmations, I just mooed and told DP to fuck off (three times, he told me indignantly). Magical...

@solitudeataltitude haha! When the anaesthetist walked into the room for me she started talking about the possible complications of an epidural and I just shouted ‘I don’t care get on with it!’

Hi op,
I know how you feel, I too had a shitty birth, failed epidural, back to back labour, failed ventouse, forceps and third degree tear and major pph!
The thing is you still did it, even though it didn't go to plan!
It's called labour because its bloody hard work, and you got your baby here safely and you are OK too!
Time will help. My ds is 16 months now and I still think about my labour, I went into it thinking I could manage the pain, but I just couldn't. It's nothing to be ashamed of op.look at the bigger picture, you have a beautiful baby and your fit and healthy too. Enjoy your baby.

@Cocopops2010 I was also induced. 2 things:

1. The biological hormone that's released also crosses the blood brain barrier and acts like an anaesthetic. This isn't he case with induction with synthetic hormone - not only are your contractions stronger you also don't have that same numbing effect.
2. The midwife said she had seen so many inductions and how painful they get that if she were ever to have one, she would just get the epidural as soon as the hormone is started! Not even wait to see how it gets as she was yet to see an induced woman not take pain relief.

Hope that helps

Hypnobirthing should be done over under the trade descriptions act. All very well trying to rationalize it as a tool but the courses are very much sold as a one stop solution for a perfect birth, to the point where many of then won't even talk about non textbook births.

As someone who drank the Kool Aid twice and wound up with two medicalised births in which the best part was the epidural, be kind to yourself and screw the hypnobirthing.

I blame society, and the pressure from the internet on how to give birth and what a beautiful experience it will be if you micro manage it. This sets almost every woman up in this decade to feel if there is any deviation from your plan.
I personally think your amazing, you grew a baby, after a long hard labour you have a healthy baby, that you got to take home and care for. Well done you get an A* in this exam....

@notanotherjaffacake I think some of the courses do advertise it as a ‘magic’ approach. The course I did gave you access to a Facebook group where everyone shared their birth stories. However the administrators said they wouldn’t publish any stories that referred to pain. So I just didn’t even bother writing my story!
@mummy2017 thank you

There is absolutely no way anyone would chose to survive the drip with breathing alone, that thing is a work of evil. I was the same op, I was terrified of induction and having an epidural (I knew one would lead to the other) and really wanted a low intervention birth. I’d had a back to back labour with my 1st with no epidural so I thought with dc2 in a better position this time would be easy. How wrong I was, the drip was total agony to the point I thought I would die. It’s so so painful, un natural and you’re completely out of control. Like you, having previously been freaking out about the risks of epidural I couldn’t have cared less what they were in the moment. Even in the original hypnobirth book she says that it’s unlikely to work for an induced birth. I hope you can come to terms with your birth.

You didn’t fail at all, your LO is here and safe and that’s all that matters. I completely get how you feel though. With my DS I had a hypnobirthing plan, I wanted a pool in my living room and a very relaxed and calm labour. I ended up finding out I had a tilted cervix, and that was preventing me from dilating last 3cm, I was in labour for hours and eventually had to be rushed into hospital for an EMCS. But he’s here and that’s all that matters

Also - many people try hypnobirthing after a crap first birth. Second births are generally easier and faster anyway, hypnobirthing or not, so I reckon many of those fab “hypnobirths” for second children would be easier anyway. And many of us have said that we haven’t talked about difficult births after doing a course because we feel like failures and they don’t want to hear it, so I don’t think it’s as good as it claims.

I can't believe they wrote that on your notes!!!
The birth we get is mostly a total fluke. I know so many first time mums who had your experience. Once you're induced, your chances of forceps increase. Also I did have a section and it sounds a doddle in comparison to your experience. You did have a tough difficult birth, you're amazing for getting through that. Be kind to yourself

Hi OP. I felt much the same as I had a horrible birth with DS. I was induced on the drip and it was very long and painful. I felt totally out of control during labour (I can't remember a lot of it) and remember when I got to the pushing stage I genuinely felt like I was going to die - it was the most horrendously painful thing. I tore severely and then haemorrhaged around 3 pints of blood so spent the first few hours after birth under general anaesthetic being patched up and having blood transfusions. Oh, and I got sepsis too so ended up in HDU. It was truly awful and I felt like I had totally and utterly failed. Compounded by a slow and painful recovery which meant I hardly left the house for the first 8 weeks. Childbirth can be incredibly hard and I feel as though the pain and trauma are often minimised. I do feel better about it as time has gone on and I hope you manage to come to terms with yours too.

You produced a human. How can that be a fail? So birth was tough 💐 and hypnobirhing was insufficient, none of that makes you a failure, its not an exam they weren't going to give you a certificate if you gave birth without pain relief.
Be happy, you are a mum, many people wish to be in your position. Read the infertility threads.

Your making me long to stand and hug your baby, I can even smell that new born aroma, you bloody clever woman,. OMG. Don't you dare swallow that crap about failing labour, you had a horrid time and still you laboured on to produce a stunning bundle of cuddle bunny.....
Bet your baby thinks your bloody amazing....

You didn't fail you can forget hypnobirthing if you've been induced it makes everything 10 times more painful, I had a short burst of them before I had my planned epidural and never again.
I don't know why we are so hard on ourselves, can you see a man trying to poo out a watermelon whilst someone helps him by cutting it out with scissors.
In my view it's a success if nobody dies.