Horrors of birth they don't warn you about.

[babybliss]

I had a wonderful pregnancy which ran by the book until labour.I went through 2 days of pain before they finally gave me an epidural then after an hour or so of pushing and a distressed baby and mother, some bright spark decided to try forceps and ventouse instead of a c-section.My DD was delivered not breathing and had suffered shoulder distocia. They gave me an episiotomy but I suffered 3rd degree tearing. I lost over 5 pints of blood and nearly didn't make it.My daughter spent 2 days in SCBU and luckily has made a full recovery. She is 7 months old and I am still not fully healed.I am told this is common but aneed to hear for myself if anyone has been through similar.

Aloha, does Odent believe that an emergency C-section is preferable to a forceps delivery, if the baby needs to be delivered immediately?

Sounds like an awful experience babybliss. My first birth wasn't great either, but not as bad as yours.

The two things that I wished I'd known beforehand were that pain-relieveing medications can have horrible side effects, and the contractions don't always steadily get more intense.

I was induced at 36 weeks because my water had broken. I decided to wait for an epidural until the pain became too much to bear, but in the meantime I had some IV pain medication. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I guess it was like Demerol. The 2 problems were that all of a sudden the pain was unbearable (maybe that was because I was being induced), and also the meds made me loopy. I kept falling asleep inbetween contractions but would wake when I had the contraction, not knowing what was going on, in agony and unable to speak or move. I was hallucinating and couldn't communicate and it was a nightmare (and I don't even think the meds helped with the pain).

I then had 2 epidurals - the first one didn't work at all and the second one only worked partially. As I got to nearly fully dilated I started to develop a fever. They were worried that I had an infection (because of my water's being broken), so they turned the Pitocin way up, and then finally used forceps and an episiotomy to deliver her. (It was either that or an emergency C-section.)

She was in the NICU for 3 days, and then under phototherapy lights at home for jaundice. She wouldn't eat (from a breast of a bottle), so the first couple of weeks of her life were very stressfull.

Luckily I recovered fine from the birth, and my second delivery was much better. I went into labour naturally (even though my water had broken before labour started). I didn't take any medications but got an epidural as soon as possible (which worked perfectly), and she very gently "popped out" (as my birth partners said), and started breastfeeding immediately. The two experiences were like night and day.

babyliss
ALthough it's probably the last thing you want to contemplate now, I would second Kate's comment re the second one being very different. My DD's birth was a wonderful experience and actually very healing for me. I think it helped me come to terms with my Ds's birth.

Yes, KATG, he does. His philosophy is basically that birth should be in a gentle, unhurried, nurturing, non medicalised environment, with female attendants, as little intervention as poss - ie induction - to encourage natural childbirth. You should choose positions that help labour etc etc...BUT if things go wrong, and it becomes clear that the baby cannot be born spontaneously, then a section should be performed sooner rather than later.
I am planning an elective section for my next baby, but I still think he has a point re forceps.

Interesting, aloha. I've never heard that point of view before. My doctor's view was that they would do whatever they could to avoid a CS because that was the last resort.

Oh well, purely theoretical for me!

Thanks everyone for you knid wishes. I have found out tht after nearly 7 months the last of my tearing has healed. YIPEE!! I can finally take DD swimming which I have been wanting to get into for ages.
KATG that sounds terrible but I'm not yet convinced about trying again. My DH still won't talk about the whole ordeal as all he remembers is watching his wife nearly bleed to death and a grey dead baby being delivered. He is still really suffering from this so I tread very carefully.
I think I would like another baby but would definately have an elective c-section. Have been told that I can't have a natural birth as 2nd baby is usually heavier and DD was 9llb 5oz. I'm a full figured woman but not that big!!

I didn't have anywhere near as bad a time as that but it would have been nice to know that the midwives I had seen throughout my pregnancy would then ignore me and my birth partner and completely disregard my wishes. I was in labour for 22 hours and during the second stage, they refused to give me any more pain relief. The surgeon they got down told them to give me what I wanted as I wouldn't have asked if I didn't need it. They also decided that my contractions weren't good enough so they rumped up the syntocin and I was ahaving one about every minute for 4 hours. They got the surgeon again who took the pair of them outside and went through them. I then had to have an episiotomy and forceps delivery as I couldn't physically do anything any more. I had a massive tear during the episiotomy (front to back) and then DS was born.
I wanted to do what would make things easier for me and DS. They wanted the whole natural birth. During labour, I had to beg in tears for painkillers and all they gave me was paracetemol and told me to have a bath. I eventually got one dose of diamorphine fo rwhich I was truely grateful.