Feeling devastated about caesarean after breech baby turned again

[DefiantRabbit9]

My baby was breech I had an ECV last week and today I found out she's back to being breech. The obstetricians want to do a C section and I HATE it. All she had to do was stay put.

It feels like another dream life has robbed me of. A core fundamental experience of my being that I can't have. I feel anger, resentment and grief. I've literally done everything right and still failed.

I'm no more giving birth than when I had a 1.3kg fibroid cut out of me. Might as well have just swaddled that. I didn't go 40 years, get a 7K pay cut and exist the last 3 months in pain just to be sliced open and a flesh ball plopped on me. The reality that I will probably never give birth has destroyed my attachment to her.

Having had 2 C sections (not my choice) I can wholeheartedly say, once you get your baby out safe and sound OP, how the little cherub got here is completely irrelevant. Having a baby is about becoming a parent for the rest of your life. Not the time it took for them to arrive.

I also don’t pee myself like my friends who had natural births do (in our middle age) 😊

Please get some counselling and congratulations! 🙌🎉🍼👶🏻

You didn’t explain all that in your post though, you just said that you loved not being incontinent and attributed not being incontinent to having a c-section. So @Watchoutfortheslowaraf what does that suggest of people who give birth vaginally?

It’s this kind of pitching different births against each other that gives people like OP the issues they have. Like @IStillHearTheWaves says it’s ridiculous. You don’t need to bring the alternative down.

Maybe if you’d have explained more in your first post it wouldn’t have come across as being so rude.

Op, I'm sorry to hear you're not having the birth you have wished for, I get that that can be really disappointing.

I had an EMCS after 24 hours of no progress and ds becoming distressed - ideally I had said I'd want no more than a puff of gas and air and a water birth but was comfortable with whatever needed to happen happening (except instrumental delivery, for some reason I had a complete mental block on it, but obviously would have agreed if necessary).

I can't comment on the hormonal aspect of a c section without labour, but I can say that my birth experience was great regardless. I had a lovely team who let the midwife take photos whilst ds was being born so have a little timeline from him head and houlders out, body still in, all the way up to delivery with cord still attached and my very favourite which captures Dh and my first look at him over the sheet, our faces are wonderful.

I also healed very quickly - catheter out within 12 hours, minimal pain and was up and walking about town on day 5. I have a barely there scary and if I were to have had another child I would have opted for a section.

What I will say is, for me and many other women I know regardless of delivery method, the rush of absolute love and wonder was a myth - I loved ds and wanted to keep him safe, but my first 2 weeks post aprtum.were a panic of "am I enough for you, did I do the right thing? What have we done out lives will change forever...", then one day a couple of weeks i looked at him and realised I would fight the entire world for him. He's 8 now and our bond is so strong.
The reason for mentioning that is, sometimes, especially in those first few weeks, we aren't how we expect to be - this is normal and not necessarily related to the birth if this is what you experience too.

Otherwise though, you sound like you've done a fab job recognising you feelings and reaching out, and so I would encourage you to do that again if you feel that anything you experience after the birth isn't right - your midwives and hvs are experts in understanding and supporting women who's mental health is affected post birth.

You are allowed to be disappointed but this is the safest thing for you and your baby and it's no one's fault. However your child comes into the world, you have created a tiny human that you have kept safe and grown for the entire pregnancy and that's amazing. She will be amazing (and exasperating, and exhausting, and wonderful, and anxiety inducing as all children are!) and you are her mother. The birth is just the very first step of your next chapter together.

You can deliver breech, but it's really not advised, just think of the risk to your much wanted child, not your disappointment, once you hold them you will realise it is a beautiful baby. And giving birth can be an extremely difficult experience, I was an older first time mum and the birth was difficult, long and needed assistance in the end, in retrospect I should have probably been offered a c-section, nothing is as flexible down there when you are older...

Yes, you can say that c sections have lower rates of stress incontinence, and guarantee no vaginal tearing or abrasions, while also allowing you to know the day of birth ahead of time, and not having hours of labour without knowing when it will be over. There's no need to smear vaginal births, which have their own benefits and drawbacks.

Plus, you'll be awake and will know what's going on, and can usually have skin to skin pretty much immediately in the theatre. I breastfed in the recovery room afterwards while having an ice lolly (!), and it was such a lovely, perfect moment.

Agree with others in that you need serious MH intervention.
I had one EMCS and an elective less than two years later.
I won’t deny and say i felt crap after the EMCS. It was after a failed induction at 40+10 but really there was no other option as DD’s head wasn’t at the right place for dilation.
My elective (due to transverse lie but I prob would e gone for elective anyway as there was no way I was going to be induced again) was a completely different experience- felt much more in control, healed faster, knew exactly what was going on.

The main thing is you and the baby are healthy in whatever way they’re born.

Well - it's true. It was in response to a comment about looking for the positives - it was a positive for me regardless of the rest of my story. I don't see how what I've said is any more rude than you now claiming my perfectly valid feelings as someone who had an unplanned C-Section are somehow the cause of birth-related complexes in people like the OP.