Sorry everyone.... need to vent...
I had a baby almost 5 years ago. I did the NCT course and armed myself with all the facts. I took in everything they said. I wanted a calm, natural birth.
It didn't work out that way. My baby was delivered by ventouse. I had severe bruising and scaring which took months to heal. Walking was painful for weeks. After the birth, the bruising prevented me from sitting down for days.
I was told that the heart rate had dropped due to the cord being round the baby's neck, hence the way he was delivered that way. I had been a bit out of it at the time on painkillers. I have never talked about the birth much and nor has my husband. It was traumatic but we survived it.
The NCT reunion came round and it turned out that all of us had had to have some sort of intervention at birth, except for the girl who had wanted a home birth. Her baby sailed into this world. It was blissful. The NCT leader looked quite smug. Her message that 'if you want a natural birth and remain calm, it will happen,' was ringing true. I told her about my birth and how I had had to have the baby born quickly because they cord was causing his heart rate to drop. She told me this was most unlikely, many babies are born this way (I know that this is true). She said it was more likely that my birth had been 'over medicalised'. Apparently when you give birth in hospital, doctors frequently don't give first time mums the time they need to give birth. She suggested that I had been very anxious and this has reduced my ability to push. The woman basically changed my understanding of my own birth. For the last 4 and a bit years I have believed that if I had breathed deeper, been more in tune with my body or had dimmer lights I would have not had six months of physical discomfort due to scarring from my episiotomy. My birth would have felt joyful not traumatic.
So I am pregnant again. Did a different (but similar) antenatal course, desperate for that joyful birth. Told the group about my first birth. Was told again, it was unlikely to have been an actual emergency. This time the meditation will get me through. Childbirth will be a dream.
Today I finally spoke to my mum (a doctor) who had been in the delivery suite at my first birth. She filled me in. She was really shocked that my understanding was that my birth had been 'unnecessarily medicalised'. She told me that my baby's heart rate dropped critically low and that, yes, I was in that very small minority of cases where the cord is wrapped in such a way that it affects the heart rate and could have caused a still birth. I knew that my son had been taken off me but didn't actually realise he was being resuscitated while I was stitched up. My mum had been very concerned. My bruising was caused by him being born with both his hands next to his head. (There isn't anything they could have done to prevent this position, not even a home birth amongst scented candles). I was unlucky with the episiotomy scarring, but the quick delivery saved the life of my baby.
My natural birth prevented my child from being still born. How was I so easily brain washed and made to feel inadequate by these people, even after almost five years?! I do believe that being calm, meditation and the rest of it helps but how can someone, who wasn't there and hasn't seen my notes feel like it's OK to educate me on what happened and why it all went wrong?!