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.

Hi SOH
We 'spoke' ages ago on the conception threads. I'm very sorry to hear about your traumatic experience. I think you've had some great advice on here but there are a couple of things that I wanted to comment on - hope nobody thinks I am speaking out of turn, it is well-meant

I had an elective section the first time around for presentation reasons. No labour at all. The second time around I wanted a VBAC for a number of reasons, one of which being that I didn't really feel I had done it 'properly'. I engaged a doula and did as much reading as I could to prepare. To cut a long story short, I ended up with an EMCS after a 48 hour labour (asynclitic head, OP baby). Although I am fairly sure DD2 would never have come out naturally, I possibly feel even more of a 'failure' in my weak moments for not trying hard enough. Also I found it hard to 'fail' in front of my doula whose stories of wonderful VBACs had so inspired me and who had seen so many women push their babies out. I had not anticipated that her presence would add to the pressure I felt.

In saying this I don't mean in any way to discourage you or anyone from going for a VBAC. Personally however I think it is counterproductive to view it as the means for putting to rest feelings of failure at having the initial CS. I invested too much emotionally in my VBAC and not managing to achieve it made me feel frankly humiliated. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be good to address your birth trauma before a VBAC attempt, not thruogh it. Hope I've made myself clear and not offended anyone

SOH - i'm not going to come across right probably as a glass of wine down so far

anyway, i had ds1 at home (for a first timer was fab, too a long time and placenta got stuck and took hours, but all wokred out ok, no stitches, skin to skin, yadda yadda), cue sickly smug first time mum

ds2 - oh yes, i'll have another HB no prob...till he turned out to be an undiagnosed breech in a pct with no experienced breech deliverers and an eagerness for breech c-s

so in answer to your thought, no, second times round, i still feel like i haven't 'given birth' to ds2

The only way i think i can lay it to rest is for baby no 3 to cooperate and come out the right way round, at home and in less than 20 hours!!!

oh and a friend who had a v similar first birth to yours (tho can't speak for her aftercare, yours was truly shite ), just had her second and she feels the ghosts have been laid to rest as it went so well so it CAN happen.

get pouncing on your dh and good luck!

justkeepswimming- you've kinda substantiated my point there... even after one successful birth you feel you need another to 'lay to rest' your bad experience of no. 2. Prob is it is out of our hands sometimes... experiencing another 'failure' just compounds the trauma.

(Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions, this is just an observation.)

BTW I LOVE your name- DH and I used to say that to each other during the crazy newborn days....

thanks pendulum

yes i know, i said the exact same thing to this friend before she had her (luckily positive) second birth.
if only as pg women we could do SOMETHING that would affect the outcome for definite.
i mean there's optimal positioning, raspberry tea and all that but none of it is definitely going to give you the birth you dream of
it's so frustrating in an era of control over everything else. think we led to believe lots of nonsense about birth when really it seems like a roll of a hundreds-of-sides-dice each time.
i envy big time those women who can pop them out!!

and i hope i'm not as smug as i used to be - if ds2 teaches me anything let's hope it's that!!!

i suspect im unusual in not caring how the baby gets here ,but they arrive safe and sound ,my first birth was traumatic in the true sense of the word , but the way i look at it is you get pregnant to have a child ,the birth is a teeny tiny part of the next 50yrs you are hopefully going to be around to cherish them. My mother prepared me for the birth by telling me that the birth of my brother was the most disgusting ,painful and undignified experience she had ever had the misfortune to go through ,so my expectations were rock bottem ,i think that helped me .