has anyone felt let down by dh during labour?

[perfectlybroken]

I did, and think I have come to terms with it, but never really spoken to anyone about it. Has anyone felt the same way?

Why do you feel let down?

Has it changed your feelings towards him? Have you spoken to him about it?

About the only good thing my ex did was be great when I was in labour. The rest of the time, before and after, he was a complete prick.
What did your DH do? I think a lot of men feel very queasy, scared, anxious, when their loved one is in labour.

What happened ? My dh fell asleep during my labour in the delivery room !! He woke up before the pushing stage but still

I feel very let down by mine during my labour. It triggered a massive shift in my feelings towards him and now I have very little emotionally invested in him as I know I can't trust him to have my back.

What happened OP? Are you able to move on from this?

In my first pregnancy I lost the baby at 22 weeks through various complications to do with my cervix, baby was fine and lived for half an hour. Natural labour. DP was around when I went into hospital but then went off on a planned trip (which I also was meant to go on) a couple of days later. I was stable when he left but him being away meant he missed the birth and seeing our baby alive completely.

7 years later we are now having problems and counselling has identified it maybe this that triggered my feelings of lack of trust and respect. Conversely I have become very close to those that were there on the day.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. sometime I'm so sorry you lost your baby.
My DH just had and has no idea what I needed from him emotionally. I was induced and when I rang him from the hospital in a lot of pain to ask him to come in he was like 'well are you sure because I don't want to be hanging around for nothing' and when he came moaned about his cold until I sent him home. I managed on my own and just called him to come back for the pushing stage as I didn't want him to miss it. In the end I had an emergency c-section, and he was great at supporting me through that.
Prior to the birth he was good at understanding I needed rest and taking our toddler out, but just didn't get the emotional aspect of it. So for example he would be trying to get me to make huge life decisions at 5 days overdue.

I think I've come to terms with it as I really feel he just didn't get it. He's very good when I'm ill, which I was for quite a while after the birth, and he worked (self-employed) and looked after DS1 and me very well. So what I'm saying is I don't think he wanted to be mean in any way.
But horsedentist I get what you're saying completely. I suppose everyone wants their DH to be the one they can rely on totally in that situation, and it's just not the case.

pinkeyrose I've brought it up and it just confirms how much he doesn't get it!

Yes me!!! I can't get over how dd dad behaved the whole way through from pregnancy to now!!!

I gave birth at lunch time, I cane home few hours later sorted out 3 other children with dinner ect and that night bf informed me that he was tired so couldn't share a bed that night so I spent night on sofa with newborn just hours after giving birth

This is only one example has been so many more! I can't get over his lack of support and his attitude so we have now split up our dd is 4 months old, this past year I just have lost all respect for him because of his selfish, childish actions

Yes - very let down. My first partner went out drinking on the Friday night despite me being 6 days overdue - I went into labour and he showed up at the hospital drunk so the midwives wouldn't allow him in (we didn't last after that because I couldn't believe what I had done).

With baby number 2 (with my current ex) told me to 'stop being so miserable' during the pushing stage - my feelings for him then changed and we split up the following year.

It's such a shame because the birth (all be it horrendous in terms of pain) should be a shared and beautiful experience.

Homepride1 - honestly, that is awful, just go to show that some men are pathetically selfish. Must be hard on your own with a small baby - but so much better in many terms as you don't have to put up with that kind of shit.

Yes, my ExH let me down badly throughout both of my pregnancies, the labours and coping with newborns.

Completely unsupported throughout labour with DS1. We had to stop at the off licence on the way to the hospital as it was about 9pm and he was cross because the "pubs will probably be shut by the time you've had it". He was right....that was on the Friday night (having already been in labour for 24 hours) and I finally had an emergency C-section on the Saturday afternoon. He spent most of the labour moaning that he was bored and tired, and was utterly irritated by me and the difficulties I was having. Sigh. Seems unbelievable remembering it.....I wish I was joking!
(I was very ill after the birth of my first son (the shock of having an emergency cesarean, then a bad wound infection, mastitis and pnd) and he carried on going out, drinking, being abusive, telling me he "just wants to have a bit of fun, for fuck sake.....")
Labour/birth of my second DS was no better. Unsupported again... Bored, fed up, tired, irritated, hungry etc. I was delighted to manage an assisted delivery (episiotomy and ventouse) after the previous c-section, he was unimpressed. I was allowed home the following day, he went out that night and didn't come home til 6am.

Yes, it further changed the way I felt about him, and no, I've never forgiven him. It's one of the biggest regrets of my life, that I did something so precious with such an arse. It still makes me want to cry :(

That was a lot longer than I meant it to be, and it's still only about a tenth of the story.

There are some sad stories here, sorry. I'm starting to think dh was not quite so bad after all. He did at least look after us once we were home.

oh god yes. He went to a party when i was 40 +9 and when i called to tell him I had to go to hospital, he hung up on me. Admittedly he did call back, but i was hopping furious by then adn drove myself to hospital (stupid mistake 2. Stupid mistake 1 was leaving the house without my bag).
when he finally showed at the hospital, in a foul mood with ME, he left to go and get the bag and missed most of the main event in doing so. they'd given me the rather marvellous epidural by then and he was of so little help that I sent him out of the room to sit in the hallway. Where he occupied by texting his ex girlfriend (which I found out much later). He was a total fcknuckle about the whole thing, but that has not prevented him from being a pretty magnificent father since then, however I do still take the pss out of him for the whole episode (which ended in an EMCS, which he says left HIM mentally scarred after he looked over the screen).
Some people are just bloody useless in an emergency. Make alternative plans for the zombie apocalypse.

My ex p missed DD birth as was getting car serviced!!!

Is it all right if I hand out lots and lots of these.

Some of these stories are unbelievably sad and I don't know what else to say.

Yeah my ex was pretty shit during my second labour, kept telling me to be quiet and trying to go to sleep. I know it sounds dramatic but I'm sure it had an impact on my mental state and subsequent pnd.

I felt massively let down about DS birth, I know DH doesn't have my back and wont support me and its changed the way I feel about him, compounded by the fact that he couldn't be arsed to take any pictures of me and DS. It has nearly split us up and frankly I couldn't care less if he is here or not most of the time.

What is currently making it worse is that I'm having to go over the birth a lot now that I'm pregnant with DC2 (a surprise).

I've practically begged my DM (a nurse) to be at this birth at least she would insist they do things properly, tell me who they are and what they are doing, give me pain relief and not just sit there like a fucking lemon.

Mind you I should have realised what he would be like after a miscarriage a few years before DS where he had the day off work to look after me and moaned like fuck until I got up and helped him build loads of flat pack furniture.

OP I can understand why you say what you do, but TBH I don't think he did a lot wrong, emotional support is very hard to guage for anyone, and what may have been sufficient in an identical experience once, may not be again.

OK the cold thing is a bit but I doubt the Hospital want someone with a cold on labour ward with newborn babies. There are a lot worse than him around as you've seen from other replies.

bobbywash thanks for your honesty, I did wonder if I was being a bit of a 'birthzilla'. It just seemed so obvious to be what was needed, I found it hard to understand that he couldn't see it. RE the cold, I actually got the same cold a few days after the birth, and it was more like flu, so perhaps he really was feeling to ill to sit around in a hard chair.

Thanks for everyone for sharing their stories and I'm sorry people have felt so unsupported.

With DS1 my waters broke the night before and we went to hospital in the middle of the night - they sent me home again. OK I was on mat leave and he was due in work the next day (but he could've stayed off). By the time he got home from work I was in full blown labour but he needed to sleep!! When I finally woke him up to go, he left me alone to go and get food as the cafe was due to close and only came back at the pushing stage.....

DS2 he went out when I was 40 +9 on a night when he knew no-one else would be able to either look after DS1 or get me to hospital (DM was away, DSis was on a rare night out, DBro lived in a different part of the country. If I hadn't gone into labour the next day I think I'd have left him.

He was an arse throughout DS2 preganacy tbh and I think his behaviour contributed to me putting myself under so much pressure to do it all without relying on him and subsequently developing PND because I just couldn't cope.

I blamed him for a long time. Then I had counselling addressed it and realised that the person suffering the most was me so I just let it go.

that was 17 yrs ago and we're seperated anyway now!!!

I was DSis's birthing partner for her 2 youngest - she says having another woman there was the best experience as we really can understand the emotional - maybe we should start a volunteer group of birthing partners.

Blimey, I'm shocked by some of the posts on this thread.

I can't imagine not wanting to have been there physically and emotionally for my DW during her labours. I was very conscious that she would, at some stage, probably be relying on me to make decisions if she didn't feel able to. That was a huge responsibility that I was constantly aware of.

Perhaps, looking back, I was so strung out and stressed by it all that I wasn't as helpful as I might have been. I don't know. But when we've talked about it since I know she was pleased that I was there and could take care of some of that stuff for her so that she could focus on the job in hand!

I'm not in any way blowing my own trumpet here. My brothers and male friends who have been through the same seemed to have the same attitude to it. So I don't buy the idea that "men" can't be emotional and provide support for their partners during childbirth. Some men can't, clearly, but they are arseholes and shouldn't be treated as indicative of our sex!

I totally understand your feelings perfectlybroken and those of others expressed on the thread.

I felt completely unsupported by my (soon to be ex) partner and I have never forgiven him. He was an arsehole during my pregnancy anyway but his behaviour during labour was even worse. He shouted at me in the car en route to hospital as I'd forgotten my maternity notes (I was kind of occupied with being in labour!), shouted at me for not knowing where to park the car at the hospital, then totally distanced himself during all 12 hours of labour. He barely spoke to me, choosing to literally hide in the corner the whole time. I was in hospital for 3 days after birth and during the hours when he did actually come to see us he complained about feeling tired and spent most of the time asleep on my bed. Then for weeks after, when telling people the birth story, he would mock me and the things I said (none of which were abusive or anything, just the ramblings of fear caused by the drugs I was given). I was terrified in labour and he made it worse.

I was very very low for months after giving birth as I found the experience traumatic despite a standard delivery. He was certainly a major factor in this. Part of the reason I refused to have another child with him was because of his total lack of support for me during labour.

There's a huge difference though between a basically pretty decent husband who just misses the mark in terms of comments/does something silly and a generally bad partner who is unsupportive in pretty much every area. My husband is the former, he missed the birth of dd 1 (in fairness had been there for days but then missed the critical moment) and took a while to warm up with the hands on baby care, but has been a pretty good dad since then and certainly stepped up in terms of caring for the children including SAHP for a while.

The ideal we are sold is of a lovely partner, bending over the bed as we labour, mopping our brow, being endlessly supportive and while that may happen to some extent, people are human. In this case, your husband stuffed up by thinking about himself, but as you say he may have felt quite ill (by his standards not by labour ones obviously!) Selfish, annoying, but probably not unforgivable.

There was a study out the other week suggesting dads being present didn't lead to better outcomes (in fact I think they were worse). I'm not sorry my husband missed the first birth, it was horrendous and I am glad he was spared that sight (wish I had myself!)