Would any kind MNers be willing to talk to me about my dd's birth? I would like to move on from it.

[ShowOfHands]

I appreciate that this seems a rather self-indulgant thing to do but I feel that I need to put what happened behind me and I know that to do this I need to talk it through. I have tried the Birth Trauma website but floundered rather in the tales of other births. DH has tried to talk it over with me but obviously our experiences of the day are very different and he adopts an attitude of believing it is best just to leave it in the past. I am carrying around a lot of guilt about the birth and it is affecting not only the way I parent but my decision to have more children. I want a big family but I am so frightened of birth that I'm avoiding any physical contact with DH. The idea of getting pg again makes me physically panic. I cannot think about it.

What I want is something that isn't possible. I want somebody to tell me why the birth went the way it did. I don't understand so much of what happened. I am being sent a copy of the notes but am not hopeful of finding any answers as I read my postnatal notes and they were a lengthy list of lies and conjecture.

The birth briefly:

My waters broke suddenly at 39 weeks and contractions started within half an hour. I was having a home waterbirth. Took 20hrs to get to 10cm and my contractions stopped. I got out of the pool to re-start them and wasn't allowed back in. Contractions started again lasting 2 minutes and with a 30 second break inbetween. I had no urge to push but was urged to push with each contraction. I pushed for nearly 5 hours in every conceivable position. DD did not descend at all. I transferred to hospital. Dishy surgeon examined me and said em cs was necessary as dd was stuck (obviously). I begged them to try something else. Forceps wasn't possible because of her position apparently and they said they would try a ventouse in theatre but not to get my hopes up. Had a spinal block, 3 surgeons attempted a ventouse delivery. They swore a lot and pulled me down the bed with the effort. No luck. I had an em cs. The surgeon who delivered dd said there was no conceivable way she could have been born naturally and not to believe it was anything I did.

See, not that traumatic really and I'm being a bit of a baby. Please don't shout at me. I was so grateful to have a happy and healthy baby and I feel selfish for fixating on the birth. I planned a home waterbirth, skin to skin and immediate breastfeeding. I didn't see dd as she was born and she was taken away to be checked because of PROM and jaundice. They brought her back clean and dressed. She didn't feed for 24hrs and was sleepy because of the jaundice and it took a long time to establish a good bf relationship.

I have so many questions and I know you can't answer them but they go round my head in the middle of the night when I've been having flashbacks. Why was she stuck? What happened? The ventouse tears and scars are by her right ear so her head was on its side I presume? How did this happen? Why couldn't my body deliver her? Why didn't I have the urge to push? Is there something wrong with me that means I can't deliver naturally? Will I never have that urge to push that people talk about?

I feel selfish and self-absorbed but this is affecting my sex life, my confidence and my plans to have any more children.

Please, if you can spare a minute I'd appreciate any thoughts.

I feel a bit inappropriate asking this but - are you named after Show of Hands the band by any chance?

Anyway more to the point - I felt exactly the same about ds's birth. I was planning a homebirth and ended up with severe pre-eclampsia and a cs with no labour at 34 weeks. The birth wasn't traumatic at all, despite the circumstances, but I still felt terrile guilt about it for ages, cried about it in the car on the way to work, couldn't bear to talk about it etc. I felt a terrible failure especially as I hadn't even managed one contraction.

I don't really have any helpful advice but I'm guessing your dd is about 12 months... I remember this as about my lowest point re feelings about ds's birth. He is now nearly 2 and I can honestly say it doesn't matter to me any more. It makes me worry that if I have another, it will happen again, but how ds came into the world doesn't worry me at all. I did get my notes which I found quite helpful - other than that maybe it was just the passing of time.

Do hope you manage to feel better about it soon, I know how horrible it is to be so consumed by something!

Haven't had time to read all the responses but wanted to post this: last night I sat up watching a DVD that is basically a series of antenatal classes. I'm not pregnant, am looking at the DVD for a clients and I need to know what's on it before being able to help her promote it.

The whole thing was good but the bit that REALLY stuck with me was:
All mothers need to process their baby's birth. They have to think about it over and over. They have to talk about it. They have to write it down. Only by doing this and by processing it can we come to terms with what has just happened to us.

This is true regardless of whether it was a straightforward or complicated birth.

So please OP don't feel bad about talking about it or feel as though it's being indulgent. It's not. You're processing something that was very difficult in and of itself but also a shock to you as it wasn't what you'd been planning. So keep talking about it - I really think it will help you come to terms with it.

After my DS1 was born, I remember writing a really graphic email describing each step of the labour. I felt I had to get it down. My mistake was sending it out to all my friends, not all of whome wanted that much info. One of my friends forwarded the note to her mum (just because she knows me too) and the mother sent me an email giving me a bollocking for 'scaring her daughter into never wanting to have children'. Which incidentally wasn't true, just her perception. I wanted to tell her to shove something large and hot up her butt, but restrained myself.

I have been beating myself up for 4 years though thinking I was an idiot for writing and sending it - but now I know I just needed to process it. Maybe I processed it in the wrong way, but bugger it!

SOH you are the last person on earth that should feel like a failure for anything. You worked as hard as you could to birth your dd the way you wanted to, and it didn't work out. And the way you were treated after was terrible. I would be upset if I were you too.
Why do you feel like a crap mom?! You struggled through bfing and a year on your still going strong. Your dd is amazing because ds2 doesn't do half the things she does. I don't think you give yourself enough credit as to how amazing you really are.
This is your birth story right now. When and if you have another baby you will create a new one, and the experiences from this will make you more knoweledgeable and more powerful.

You need to talk to professionals about your questions. You need to know the answers, and you need to let them see how let down you are by the experience. I think if your care was different in the hospital you might not feel the way you do. Instead of validating you they pushed you aside.

I am planning a homebirth if I ever have another. Definitely want a vbac.

DD is just 12 months! This is the lowest I've felt, probably because it's the anniversary of it and everybody seems to be getting pregnant again.

And yes, I am named after the band. I adore them.

you have had lots of fantastic advice here, especially from krang , with birth trauma being in the eye of the beholder

i had a bog standard em c.s after a few hours of labour and no progress.. and suffered for years with birth trauma and PND as a result

the first thing you need to do, is give yourself permission to grieve for the birth you had planned, and didn't have. all the things you are feeling are normal, valid and absolutely fine !!

you need to find out more about the birth, especially what position her head was in, if it was asynclitic / sideways or a brow presentation.. both of which make descent and vaginal delivery vitrually impossible. sometimes instruments can help, but not always.

flashbacks make me wonder if you have PTSD?

if you want to talk more, then CAT me.

PS. i had a very straightforward hospital VBAC and if i had known then what i know now, i would have had a homebirth

Oh and what a crap thing for your brother to say! He knows nothing. I'm sure you are a wonderful mother, and that's what will matter to your dd, not how she arrived in the world.

lulumama, may I cat you really?

l&l am listening to ashley hutchings atm. love fairport too.

brief crappy typing as bfing

I am a very slow typist. But I think Show of Hands are great too.

Oh and obviously love Fairport! Ds started dancing to Ralph McTell yesterday - my indoctrination is working...

SOH, I can't offer any advice but can say I know something of how you feel. I won't go into too many details but my first was relatively 'normal': 4 years later I had em cs as ds was stuck- he was back to back, his head was not tucked into his chest and he was really big (9lb 8) so I know it was the best thing but I still (12 weeks on) can't think about it. I find it hard to process the fact that I delivered dd (albeit with ventouse) but couldn't do it with ds. I'm hoping that time will ease it.
Sorry this hasn't helped but maybe knowing others feel the same will be a small comfort in a strange way

Ah yes, brow presentation, that's what I meant- thanks lulumama

Agreed, your brother is an unthinking idiot for saying what he said. Mine told me I wouldn't be a proper woman really, if I had pain relief. Stupid, ill informed men should keep their traps shut about this kind of thing, imho. It's not like it's ever going to happen to them!

I can really only second what others have said re:going to your hospital and getting a Supervisor of Midwives/COnsultant MW to go through your notes with you.

You are NOT a failure in any way. And everyone's experiences of birth are different.

Also, i think that sometimes women before the birth idealise the type of birth they want - totally normal. However, i feel that women should be informed that sometimes things go wrong and that not everyone can give birth normally. WHIW, LO was in a funny position and i had a forceps birth. Also there is little you can do to influence the position your baby adopts inutero, yes there is optimal fetal positioning, which can help, but there are other factors eg the shape of your pelvis.

of course you can my door is always open ,so to speak x

Hello - just wanted to add that I had a very similar birth with DD, though quicker (7hr) dilation. Was in the pool at the hospital with exactly the same, no urge to push and contractions slowing, but still believing I was in the midst of my dream birth. Was whisked out of the pool after an hour, FHR dropping, placed on back with synto drip (no pain relief as had been puking too much for G&A), and after that it's a blur - numerous horribly painful VEs as people disagreed about her position (OP, brow presentation it turned out), given something to sign (because I was of sound mind... not!) and taken to theatre and prepped for CS. They got her out in the last attempt with big forceps having tried and failed with the ventouse (it popped off - all I could see were the faces suddenly covered in blood ). Luckily I wasn't too traumatised, or if I was it was overridden by my desire to go on maternity leave again [facetious emoticon], and DD2 was born almost exactly two years later.

Next birth really helped me get over the issues I had buried regarding DD1's birth. In spite of a long latent phase (detailed in MN thread!), the actual labour was a dream - woke at 4, woke DH (with a coffee - ) at 5, DD2 born at 6 - no pool, unsurprisingly, given timings, but I felt so much a PART of the birth. TMI, but holding the baby seconds after birth whilst sitting in a pool of amniotic fluid and blood, a midwife chatting to me whilst tugging gently on the umbilical cord, DH sobbing by my side was to me what I had dreamed of and I felt so lucky. I genuinely really enjoyed my second labour and decided almost immediately that it can't possibly be the last time I do it!

I hope you get some comfort from this thread. You sound like a wonderful mother. It sounds like your DD was stuck like mine - numerous medical sources have said that if I'd tried a HB like the MW suggested when she came to my home and I was already fully dilated, DD1 would have died. So in a way we are very lucky.

it most certainly helps to know others feel the same.

Perhaps my notes will help. I didn't think they would be that detailed and would just say 'baby stuck, em cs'. Perhaps the reason why she was stuck might be written down somewhere and I can answer one of my many questions. In all honesty I'm frightened the notes will say 'poor maternal effort' and that really will tip me over the edge. I pushed and pushed and pushed for 6 hours, I burst blood vessels in my eyes and tore a muscle in my leg so why do I feel like I didn't try?

Haylstones, I'm sorry for your recent experience.

l&l, dd clapped for the first time to the levellers and walked while SOH were on. She's seen Ralph McTell albeit whilst in my tummy!

I think you would find it useful to go through your birth with a midwife. Do they run a VBAC clinic at your local unit? Or can you find a local midwife who specialises in VBACs? Not saying that you should automatically consider vaginal birth, but MWs who are specialists in VBAC tend to have an understanding about the emotional issues following emergency cesarians.

There may be findings/events in your notes that you are unaware of that may clarify what happened and why. Most notes are written in Doctor speak and full of acronyms that a midwife will be able to decipher.

Don't worry about the crying - having attended a VBAC clinic, the majority of women had a good cathartic cry at some point: it's totally understandable.

MWs are used to being cried and snotted on, it is part of the job description i think !

SOH - I forgot to say that! I took such comfort from the burst blood vessel in my eye, proudly showing it to everyone as proof that I had in fact been pushing. Looks great in the photos, too (not).

Hope sharing my experience can help you know you're not alone. I had a very similar experience - laboured at home for 30 something hours. Contractions on and off - was probably dilated for a very long time but DS did not emerge. 2nd stage possibly a very long 10plus hours (which freaked out the consultant at the hospital). DS delivered by forceps - I guess the drip to restart contractions helped substantially.

I felt awful for weeks after the birth = not helped by said consultant getting very stroppy about trying for a home birth and having such a long 2nd stage (I had independent midwives who were happy with this - as was I and monitoring was so careful throughout. So I was racked with guilt and it definitely put a shadow on the first 3-4 months of DS being around. Didn't go for counselling - part of me wishes I had though. Time has helped me - though I can understand it might not have helped you. DS I think was in an odd position - probably presenting brow first and never properly engaged before birth which didn't help.

Our children are the same age roughly by the looks of it! I also ponder what would happen with no 2 - probably won't revisit the deepest feelings until that time I guess, which does worry me. I'll also be trying for a home birth next time.

PS - also had a dishy registrar!

pushing that hard for that long with no descent would indicate, to me, anyway.. that there was nothing you could have done to push your baby out, that her position was not going to allow you to push her out. and that is not your fault . not at all. x

showofhand, you have had loads of good advice on here and I can't add any apart from some empathy. I had a pretty difficult birth too and it played on my mind for a good while. It has passed now.

If you like hearing about "easy second birth stories", my friend had a similar experience to yours first time round. Nearly had a c/s but forceps worked just in time. She was traumatised by it. She also didn't have the urge to push and the baby was stuck. Second time around, she nearly gave birth in the car it was that quick and she had been making pusing noises all the way to the hospital, she just didn't know what they were because she hadn't experienced them before . Her ds was 10lb10 too!

I don't know if it helps or not, but I hope you manage to move past this soon.
xx

I also had a birth - failure to progress, pre-eclampsia and emergency cs - that was nothing like my birth plan. I too am disappointed that I didn't see my daughter immediately after delivery; when first I saw her she was already wrapped in a hospital blanket.

I had a de-brief with the consultant while I was still in hospital and, as others have said, it can be helpful.

I won't say you'll get over it because these things do stay with you. But it does get easier with time, just because the memory is no longer so fresh. I don't feel guilt - none of the things which went 'wrong' were within my control - but 6 years later I am still aware of what the birth wasn't, if you get my drift. To a degree, I blame ante-natal classes, which often focus so much on the 'perfect' drug-free vaginal delivery that anything else can feel like 'failure'. As others have said, it isn't.

Your brother, by the way, is thoughtless and silly. But you know that already.

HTH