C-section or normal birth after traumatic birth experience?

[Kardelen]

I have a DS l, but pregnant with the second. My first birth was traumatic as my water broke at 37 weeks, had no contactions so had to wait for days in hospital for a labour bed to be induced. One reason for this was because I was unable to tolerate the vaginal induction (said I have vaginismus), so had to wait for a bed to be induced intravenously.

after 3 days of waiting to be induced c contractions started on its own and progressed very quickly and I woke up to see blood and terrific pain. Was in panic as they couldn’t find the babies heart rate. They quickly wheeled me to theatres, and said I was 10cm dilated. They quickly gave me spinal, and used north forceps and vacuum to aid the birth of baby. But then my placenta got stuck, so lost a lot of blood . Episiotomy was carried out but not sure if this was to manually remove the placenta or to make the birth quicker. Also had vaginal tears grade 2.

had to stay in hospital longer as they had to check if baby had sepsis due water breaking for days before he was born. The care was horrendous, one midwife even admitted that she neglected me post birth. But I won’t go into details of this.

my stitches got infected after, and in total had to be on antibiotics for 3 weeks. Certain family members failed to understand why I was in so much pain, as it was ‘ vaginal delivery’ so I had to keep explaining, thus remembering every detail again and again.

heard c section is hard, but my main concern is going through this again and having a stuck placenta again where I may potentially lose a lot of blood.

That sounds like a lot of nonsense people have told you about c sections. You can have a shower as soon as you’re able to stand and move safely. They normally get you moving within 12 hours of the birth.

Scars don’t necessarily cause an issue - mine caused no issues at all after one section. After the second, I occasionally get a little itching. Occasionally. The dry skin between my fingers probably bothers me more.

It is a longer recovery time than from a straightforward vaginal delivery, but not necessarily from a more complicated instrumental delivery. I would not describe it as an easy option as it’s major surgery. But if you think it’s the right choice for you - and for many women it is - then you have the right to make that choice. And tell the less-than-helpful people in your life where to stick their opinions!

I hope you have a more positive experience this time round, whatever you choose.

It's so different for everyone, but I had a bad first delivery, ended in an emergency cs with general anaesthetic after induction because I was ten days overdue and a really rough labor then it all going a bit wrong, I was unconscious for hours then out of it for several days. It affected me for months, but not in the physical way you have had.

I was offered a planned cs with my second and eventually decided to try for a vaginal birth - but chickened out a week or two before my due date after reading that my failure to progress the first time was very likely to happen again. But - at this point they refused to book me for a cs at or before my due date and booked me for a week after - and basically said don't worry, if you go into labor beforehand just tell them you've elected for a cs. Turned out this wasn't possible as I went into labor before due date on the Friday off a back holiday :( - they refused to take me for cd out of hours as it wasn't an emergency, and basically said if you're still in labor on Tuesday we'll do it then 🙈 Well, spent all weekend on the hospital in agony and was stil in labor on Tuesday, when things started to wrong and I ended up eventually getting an emergency cs.

My biggest worry was having to have a general anesthetic again if it was all in an emergency and it so nearly happened - I seem to have trouble with anesthetic but the lovely anaesthetist managed to get my spinal in after what felt like twenty attempts (based on the bruising afterwards) - but obviously I was exhausted, and had had to leave my little one at home for nearly a week by the time I got out. Definitely regretted it.

But - lots of people go on to have successful second births - I suspect I wasn't in the state of mind to give it a go and maybe was always going to be this way because of how scared I was. So if you decide to try it, you need to be confident and believe you can do it as I really believe if you're not mentally prepared for the birth your body just stalls.