Do I have birth PTSD?

[Oceanflower97]

Hello everyone,
So my little girl is 6 weeks old now and is healthy and happy. I love her so much but I feel awful. I'm always so irritable with my partner (before the birth we hardly ever fought but now it's a lot), I'm struggling to sleep even though the baby sleeps all the time, I cry all the time, and I can't stop thinking about the birth.
We went to the hospital when my waters broke and after not starting contractions they said I needed an induction. After the induction, I was having intense contractions every 3 minutes. After 55 hours of contractions, 2 lots of morphine, an epidural, and so much vomiting, I was still only at 3cm. Little one's heart rate was starting to worry the midwife so they said I needed a c section. During the surgery, they help her up so I could see her, then brought her next to my head where she stayed for about 30 seconds before I started vomiting again. I had my head to the side and could hear this hoovering sloshing sounds and they were suctioning the blood out of my tummy into a container by my head. I started violently, uncontrollably shaking so they took the baby and my partner to another room and I didn't see them for hours. Every day I'll find myself zoning out and just thinking about the blood going into that container. On top of that, I gave birth in France but I'm not fluent so I really struggled to understand what was happening.
Is what I'm feeling normal baby blues? I feel like so many other women have way worse birth experiences and are ok so I don't understand why I'm struggling.
Any advice would be appreciated ❤️

That sounds traumatic. My induced birth was traumatic, loads of blood and continuous contractions. Afterwards every time I closed my eyes to sleep I could hear screaming (gave birth on a really hot night so all windows open), so couldn't get off.

I had to stay in hospital as my LO was poorly, but I had a debrief with a lovely midwife while I was there and that sorted it for me.

Sounds like you need to talk it through with someone. All the best.

Hi lovely. So sorry that you had this experience. What you describe is not normal baby blues, you have definitely suffered birth trauma. If your symptoms persistent over a longer period of time and have a notable impact on your life, you would likely get a diagnosis of PTSD. I was diagnosed with PTSD after giving birth to my daughter in 2023. I recommend you have a look at the Birth Trauma Association Facebook page and website. That really helped me.
I also suggest a birth debrief if you can, so you can understand better why they did what they did. Hugs xx