Who took ages to recover from childbirth? Help and advice wanted from survivors!!

[godivas]

Hello everyone, I actually read old posts about this but wanted to hear more details since I am really despairing now.

I gave birth to ds1 10 months ago. Total trauma in the delivery room. No episiotomy. Ventouse and 3rd degree tears.

I have so much going on down there still that I started wondering if I will ever recover from this.

Sometimes hurting on the outside, sometimes aching on the inside, sometimes a feeling as if my soft tissues are burned off at the enterance. Sometimes I feel as if I was hit by a bus on the perineum. Sometimes I am totally fine.

Anyone experienced such complications and pain like this for months and months after the delivery?

well, I've read the thread and have to say that it's an amazing job you are all doing - recovery from an operation / procedure is bad enough, but looking after a little baby at the same time turns you into superwomen.

I have a slightly different story. After three days labour - induced and augumented with lots of fetal blood sampling, which left me with my fanjo down to my knees with swelling and bruising (they were not gentle at all), I had a botched crash cesarean and only 4 years later am I recovering. I had a 12 inch scar on the outside - right over my hips and very uneven. They didn't have time to use a cauterising blade so i lost a lot of blood also. I have a huge lump of scar tissue over my hip and couldn't hold my baby on my right side - still can't hold my girl.

My internal organs all bound up together with scar tissue and I had IBS afterwards for months - literally would have diahorrea unannounced.

My bladder is bound up with scars and I find it difficult to empty my bladder without pushing on my bladder from the outside. I've had kidney stones since the birth.

I had a huge diastisis - seperation in the andominal muscles which was held open by internal scarring, so my back is very weak and unsupported - and painful.

And I have a huge and lumpy scar so sex was ans is extreemly painful as the pressure was realy bad - felt like tearing. my sex life is zilch 4 years on as my DH is terrified of hurting me.

my womb has got scarring within the muscle layers - and some endometrium escaped during the sewing up, and is officially 'tender' and it is held in the wrong position by scars so it points backwards now, and hasn't reduced in size. I look preggo.
My periods are horrendously painful and very heavy with clots and flooding, so I'm in bed 2 days a month.
I have been recommended a hysterectomy because of all the scarring and the scars on my womb, and my heavy and painful periods.

Every gynae who has seen me has come out saying - what a huge scar - even the gynae in the hospital where I was cut up.
My other gynae (private) said Who did that to you - you could have taken an elephant out of there. He was much nicer than the female gynae in the hospital. I feel so angry, as I've effectively been sterilised.

The thing is that when i went to the hospital to have classes, NO-ONE mentioned any of this real stuff could happen - everything was focussed on stage one of labour stage two and stage three and how we were encouraged to avoid cesareans at all cost - it was like some huge conspiracy. I mean there we all were practicing our butterfly breath, and looking at charts about dilation and time etc - I look back and think WTF? how utterly useless was that?
It really makes my blood boil that my HV told me to hop on a bus with the buggy to come to the clinic 10 days after I was brutalised - so she could fill out some forms about my babe's weight gain. It was unreal how blasé they were about the aftercare.

So sorry for the essay, i don't mean to detract from any of your vaginal - or as my self esteem boosting mum put it - 'normal' births. I feel the system lets all new mothers down, even those of us who have had 'abnormal' (crash cesarean) births.

Aftercare is the most important thing IMO. I mean you know, it's quite shocking how we were all just attacked with implements and expected to carry on without a care. And look after a tiny babe as well.
The mind boggles.

I'll be looking at that cream also, thanks for listening, and thanks for posting - I know I don't join your club exactly, but I'm here walking on the road to recovery with you, just trying to do my best. I think we are all heroes.

Zazan, your experience sounds like a flippin horror show. It's amazing what dark places this miracle of life can take us all to.

You know I remember in the few days after birth, when people trooped in and out of my house expecting me to be happy and I just tried not to grip any of them tightly and start sobbing(!)... that how I really felt was literally like a big truck had mown me down and left me there, and I had people peering down at me and saying "well? aren't you ecstatic??!!"

It took months of therapy to not feel completely guilty and like a crap, unloving mother to admit that, and finally say you know what? Poor poor me.

I have friends who are trotting down the street proudly with their offspring and off to frigging "Buggyfit" or some such nonsense in what seems like seconds, when I was sat on a rubber ring for weeks! And convalescing from birth and then operations for months. Totally missed out on all the jolly, confident mummy groups and coffee mornings etc, then felt grrreat when we finally when to Mother and Toddler where we were looked at like aliens as my son was nearly two and it was out first time...

My mum (who is also big on boosting my esteem with comments like "oh for god's sake put him on the bottle" when I had thrush on top of it all and was doing my best and really needed encouragement..!) was so horrified by what women today have to deal with.

I'm sure you've all heard it before but as she said, in her day you stayed in hosp, in bed, for a week to 10 days, your baby was taken away at night (not saying that's good but still, you slept, healed, recovered), and you were encouraged to bottle-feed (same). Given she had the same forceps injuries as me, that week in bed keeping still would have healped the scar tissue to not be strained and spread through lifting a baby straight off I'm sure.

Flash forward to today: being unceremoniously dumped in terms of aftercare for our traumas, after barely any sleep on the ward, BF counselling before you leave (if you are lucky), a couple of HV home visits (if you are lucky) and then continuation of lack of sleep as the milk comes in if you are B'ing. I got so run down my infection was bound to happen. I am in such a good place right now, never thought it possible, but I had to fight for it all myself and I have paid taxes for 13 years...

ahem, block your ears please, AAAAAARARGH!!

that's better

Theaoutomatic, I think it's a good idea to make a formal complaint to the hospital or health authority even though your consultant obviously eventually did what should have been done earlier. I think too much stuff happens around deliveries and aftercare in the NHS that just gets swept under the carpet - doesn't get accounted for or admitted as problematic, so the system or standard practices don't necessarily change for the better. I don't believe in the sue- everyone-culture, as that just seems to make everyone more paranoid and willing to hush things up/cover their backs when they've made a mistake. Often all that is needed or wanted is an acknowledgement, an apology and action to make amends. I think women still tend to put up and shut up too readily. And yes childbirth is such a vulnerable time we're often grateful just to get home alive with a baby who's alive, and then we're so bowled over in love and/or busy with the child to follow stuff up effectively about our births. I am thinking of getting my notes from the hospital and following up on a traumatic birth and bad post-natal aftercare that I think needn't have gone quite how it did!

Good idea, it cost £50 to get my notes which is outrageous really..

Next time I will photocopy everything before I leave.

Mrsmattie I too had a c-section too 3 months ago, and still have pain in lower abdomen above incision when I overwork someday,or when I press the area. Did u have similar experience and this is what u mean by scar? Did ur lower abdomen feel heavier than it used to be before birth? How was ur cyst detected?
I feel so weak and tired nowadays, my strength has almost become 1/3 rd as it used to be before, just waiting when I can feel normal again..

php2731 it is quite normal to feel as though you have been kicked in the stomach for a good few months after c-sec. Its the muscles going back to the right place i guess and you may feel twinges in your scar for a good year yet.
Don't worry 3 months is not long at all despite what others have said on MN about being able to drive home from hospital 5 days after That is not normal! The doctors should have told you it will take a year to recover and it probably will. Stop worrying
If you feel weak and tired get your thyroid checked it can stop functioning properly for a while after birth, this has happened to me am permanently knackered, pissed off blah blah
CoteDAzur I read about the cream on one of your posts, am arming myself with all imformation I can before I have a tear repaired which I am SHITTING MY BIGGREYPANTS about!

oh Zazen, what a horrible, horrible experience. Is there anything else they can do for you re scar tissue, or is hysterectomoy the only option? I really hope things improve for you. Its absolutely awful in this day and age, and with access to modern facilities and new techniques, that ou bodies can be literally butchered by surgeons/doctors who seem inaccountable. Please feel free to rant on this thread any time, I have found it useful to hear stories from other womean and to learn about creams/injectionsetc which could help. I have ordered the cream recommended (thanks CoteDAzur!) and have to admit that its things like this that keep me going ie the hope that there is something out there that will ease the pain of scar tissue.

I dont think I will ever get over leaving the maternity ward a broken young woman, with a bag from the hospital pharmacy full of antibiotics and stool softerning potions and all this on top of literally being unable to walk. I hate that my first memories of motherhood are literally sitting on the sofa unable to get up crying with pain.

Think I will make a start on that complaint letter tonight, will need large glass of wine to help I think .

Some of the posts on here are enough to reduce me to tears.

My experience with DS (now 6) matches the one described by Godivas, but with three ventouses, massive blood loss and forceps thrown in. The day after the birth, I went into shock - I couldn't even speak (this was supposed to be a happy home birth, but ended up as an emergency transfer to hospital!)

I was immobile for days afterwards (in hospital for a week, until I could walk again), and was weeing myself for some time afterwards. I did see a physio, which probably helped (I no longer wee myself!) The whole experience meant that I couldn't bond with my baby for a long time (no happy soft-focus moments for us in those early days); my DH was the one who held it all together, fed DS, picked him up and so on. I finally felt that we'd bonded when he was about 2.5. I still feel incredibly sad that the early days were like this.

Astonishingly, given the huge amount of scar tissue in my reconstructed vagina, we managed to have sex three times in order to conceive DD, who was born very straightforwardly by elective c-section (that's the happy bit! Instant bonding, relatively easy recovery...).

I was so devastated by the whole experience that I didn't go to playgroups, meet other mothers - or anything - until DD was born!

About a year after DD was born, I went to the GP about the "scar tissue" (it kind of hangs out, if you see what I mean). She referred me to a consultant; I saw a Registrar who told me I was imagining the whole thing, and that my maternity notes had gone missing. In some desperation, I made myself an appointment with the best consultant I could find in our area who specialises in post-natal trauma. He said I have a cervical prolapse, and the treatment was an operation - unless it was bearable as it was. As it is bearable, if annoying and completely devastating to my sex life, I am leaving it alone. My only consolation was having a real diagnosis, and someone who finally listened to me.

Almost 6.5 years after DS's birth, I still get choked up when I hear ambulance sirens...

Godivas, you are so not alone.

oh my god the stories on this thread are utterly shocking and devastating reading
You are all brave, couragous and utterly inspiring. True survivors indeed.

Theautomatic may I ask where you ordered the cream from please? The only place I can find it is america!

biggreypants- I ordered mine from america, couldnt find a uk outlet, www.shop222.com. They do worldwide delivery. You can get it on ebay too but I wanted to get my supply quick!

ooh thanks thats the only place I could find it too. Will put my order in too

PS php2731 - my c-section was an absolute walk in the park compared to my first birth - but yes, it did still hurt a lot at 3 months. I'd heard all these stories about people running a marathon after three days (well, maybe not - but you know the kind of thing I mean!), but most people take a long time to get over a c-section. I didn't drive until 8 weeks (and I drove with a pillow across my scar for ages after that, lest the seat-belt press onto it), and I could still feel the damage at 8 months. Four years on, I have no discomfort whatsoever, and only remember that I have a scar when I'm in the bath!

Zazen, I had tears in my eyes reading your post. As has been said, I am still angry that nothing is ever mention about post care, yet it is so CRUCIAL after a bad experience. I had to stop myself from hitting the nasty OB bitch who told me "everything is healed" and there's no reason I couldn't have sex" Only the never ending, excruciating pain she so conveniently ignored. "looks" ok, so therefore must be ok. I could scream every time I heard someone else say that.

I can't help but think the establishment thinks of all recovering mums as people with no pain tolerance and who are apt to whine when I imagine in so many cases it's farthest from the truth. I used to have a phenomenal pain tolerance - walked on a broken toe for a day before seeking medical help FFS.

I actually found the male OB's better than the female, but I think that may be because they can't know how it feels and actually make more effort to empathise and understand.

I found the pain really affected bonding also. ds is 2.5 and I only feel like it's starting to happen now. I have missed so much, and I feel like something that should have been a joy has been stolen and replaced with something so difficult and ugly. Nothing can ever give me that time back, and that hurts more than any other of the issues (like they are such piddling ones to begin with!).

Has anyone else tried acupuncture? It isn't cheap, but I really have found it very helpful. It took a little while to help, but faster than I had originally thought. At this stage I usually get through the week between appointments in relative comfort - unless I am forced to run or jump. Though I do find cold weather fronts really flare up the shooting pains a lot.

I did ask about surgery, but the opinions were that if it is nerve damage, further surgery could flare it up again and take me back to square 1. Something I am simply not willing to risk. Nerve damage has never been "formally" diagnosed, but most of the people i have seen agree the symptoms fit. All the research I have done also show the symptoms fit that better than any other scenario. It's most likely a nerve was trapped in scar tissue during the repair. It had to have a fair bit of overlap since the tissues were so shredded.

Aren't we the lucky ones.

hi godivas sorry for not answering sooner but yes do feel normal now and have had DS since then.

zazen I have just read your post and completely agree about the blase/nonexistent nature of the aftercare. My situation was in no way comparable to yours, but I did have difficulty walking for months - and was expected to walk to the station, take pram down stairs, on to train, to another station, down more stairs, down an escalator, on to tube, up escalator, 15 minute walk - back to the hospital two times a week for (1) postnatal counselling and (2) physiotherapy. It was extremely difficult. No one helped me and I often ended up in tears. The hospital said they could only arrange transport if I was registered disabled - and my DH needed our car for work.

Needless to say this time round I've done refresher driving lessons and have bought a small secondhand car. Never again!

Also remember a conversation at the health clinic when a friend of mine was asking for more pain relief after her emergency section as paracetamol wasn't working and they said - in the clinic - where they could be overheard - that she shouldn't be so sensitive and that the pain would pass! At least I got Diclofenac from my GP, who was reassonably sympathetic.

lotster have to say it's something of a relief to read your post about other mums happily bouncing off to their stupid postnatal yummy mummy classes. I was SO angry and bitter that I couldn't do that . And NO ONE seemed to understand.

On a different note the only thing was I managed to bond with DD really well despite everything. I think it was because I was readmitted to hospital with my complications a week after the birth, so it was very much me and her against the world.

My Mum had actually asked the registrar whether she would get her holiday money back on her insurance if I had to go back into hospital and she had to cancel (my unobliging inability to produce a baby without complications was a great source of irritation and inconvenience to her ).

I remember very clearly sitting up in the middle of the night trying to breastfeed my DD (I had to fight to get my supply re-established) and singing her a lullaby... am welling up thinking about it... and saying to her that I would NEVER let her feel as alone as I did after her birth. I stand by that. It wasn't just my birth trauma - it was being abandoned by my own mother and husband that tipped me over the edge tbh. (My DH forgot to book time off to take me to the postnatal ultrasound and anal stress tests etc so I had to get myself there... dreadful...)

This is really upsetting to write, actually

Lotster, I am sorry you had so little support and my heart goes out to you. I was lonely too since my family are too far away to help, but the disappointment in addition to the loneliness must have been so difficult.

I have a friend in a similar situation, and to me it seems so telling of another generation - they hated motherhood but didn't speak out since it just wasn't done. They don't want to go there again, even with their grandchildren. Being a product of that generation, they seem to think everyone should just shut up, grit their teeth and bear it like they did. Even after what they went through, they can't see the damage of that kind of thinking.
....And it sounds like your dh needs to have a serious chat about his fatherly/husbandly responsibilities!

Verso - you have made me well up, too.

I think we are all incredibly brave and strong...

Hi Vizzbizz, think you mean Verso hon.

Hi Dottoressa and biggreypants
thanks so much for the reply. I feel so devastated now as am not even able to take care of my baby properly.

How long did u have pain around incision, was it in the lower abdomen above incision. Was the pain constant or u felt it when walking, pressing the area etc.
I also feel heavy in the lower abdomen, it seems there is some kind of swelling inside, feel it more when I bend or move in particular position. My tummy looks quite big still, and i think since things have become loose inside this may be the reason why I am feeling heavy in my abdomen. Please let me know if anyone had similar experiences.

Loster, thanks for posting about your op. I'm having a Fentons procedure under a GA in November and am terrified!
Bit about 8 weeks of not lifting anything though. dd weighs 25 pounds and is quadraplegic.
I just want the pain to stop and to feel 'normal' again.
I bitterly regret having a vaginal birth and its destroyed my body and brain damaged my daughter. I was so scared of a GA and now I'm bloody ending up with one anywau

Anyone else had continous discharge? I have to wear pads all the time (and TMI here) its pretty heavy.

God my heart goes out to you. I found that not being able to lift and care for my son properly since he became too heavy (I also had to recover from SPD), almost as hard as the pain to deal with. And feeling inadequate and jealous when friends and faimly just scoop him up - but caring for your daughter's extra need makes you such a hero!

At least as my son's aged (now 2.2), he can help me adapt how I lift him out of cot, car etc.. But you will definately need some help if your partner can't provide it. I was lucky because my husband works from home a lot so along with a couple of days nursery we coped. We had to though, as our parental input is pretty zilch and we felt really "us against the world" at those times.

After my first op which they did as day surgery, they gave me no guide as to lifting and as a result I was doing it 2 weeks later - probably resulting in the extra scar tissue that had to be removed 2nd time I had the op, which they did because they wrongly placed stitches first time.
Told it was a smaller procedure this time (it wasn't), I thought I'd recover quickly, then to be told the 8 weeks thing by the physio after made me so angry. I had to ring around nurseries whilst flat on my back begging them to take him for two emergency days a week, not even able to go and see them which was heartbreaking but as I say we don't have much family help.

SO, all that waffle later I'm saying that you really need the chance to recover properly if the physical reminders in your own body are ever to help you let go of some of this, and you don't want to repeat it and take more time off from your daughter. You must plan some help with the lifting.
It is such a bitch that the hospitals that cause it all then provide no care or pay for it though, and it's back you you as usual.

Do you have any type of cover or allowance for you daughter's disability that would cover some home help for you? If you don't know I would ring social services?
As I'm PG again and will have difficulty turning in bed later on as SPD worsens, they're lending me a monkey pole - so with your situation being far worse than mine they must be able to help you or advise you as to who can.

Don't be too frightened of the op as it's taking you to a better place. You'll be delightfully gaga for a couple of hours after! You'll have a catheter too so they can monitor your urine output (you have to achieve a certain amount before they remove it so drink up!) so you won't have to move.

Keeping on top of the painkillers and eating properly before taking the ones that require it is really important too, Diclofenac/Voltarol which you'll probably get is like the big brother of Nurofen so can damage you stomach lining if you don't, but it works a treat.
I'd also say, get a number to call if you have any questions when you get home, from the surgical teams themselves. Otherwise secretaries etc get in the way and it's really frustrating.

Best of luck to you, you are clearly doing an amazing job but you need a break to take time to recover yourself and you must get help, even if it's friends and neighbours on a rota. I know how hard it is to ask.

Sorry my posts alway take up so much room...!

I'm still that after the birth there was no physio, no checking of my bits, no advice, no nothing. Nearly 5 years of pain!

with ds I had a forceps delivery (the ventouse was broken, and the hospital only had one)

the morning after the delivery I remember lying in bed and couldn't hear what anyone was saying, or move. I just drifted off. apparently I was dying as I had lost such a huge amount of blood which no one had noticed. I spent 12 days in hospital. I have never felt so terrible - mentally and physically.

Six months later I was back in hospital for scar tissue repair, which really improved matters down below.

I then couldn't conceive again - my reproductive system had just shut down.

Luckily dd came along immediately after I was told I would never have another child.

Dd's birth was a walk in the park compared with ds's - I only had a ventouse delivery and a bunch of stitches - and a broken coccyx! I shall never again ride a bike or sit on a hard chair, but that's a small price to pay!

riven - I was repeatedly checked (upon my insistence) during my four day post-partum hospital stay and repeatedly told "Everything is fine". When I told the woman Nazi who was at my birth that something is wrong, that I am in too much pain, that I can't even think of anything else let alone walk or sit, she told me "We are not all equal against pain", meaning I was just weak and discharged me.

I returned to the hospital a week later, still in enormous pain, limping, and was crying in the corridor waiting for a bed to be free so I could be checked, when a gynecologist (not mine) saw me, cancelled his lunch plans, and took me to his room. My episiotomy was infected. He prescribed antibiotics and I was better in two days.

Just to tell you that "checking of the bits" does not necessarily lead to good care, if nobody cares.

Having then trusted my care to this gynecologist (rather than the asshole who didn't bother to visit me for two days after birth), I asked him what could be done for the painful scar tissue at 6 week checkup. He said the only thing to do was an injection of an analgesic which would kill the nerve trapped in the scar. That sounded like a very bad idea, given that I intended to feel (hopefully pleasurable) things in that area for many decades yet.

All this happened in Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace of the Principality of Monaco, by the way, where money is no object to anything, everything is new and shiny, and staff is supposed to be the best of the best.

When DD was 6 months old, in my native Turkey, I went to see a female gynecologist who is a friend of my parents. She is the one who recommended Contractubex to me, and it has really worked for me. I recommend you use it after Fenton's procedure, once the scar has formed.