Friend did something weird and I can't get over it

[ResentfulAndSad]

I have name changed as this is so personal and outing.

I've had a friend for around two years. We began as colleagues (she was senior to me), but stayed friends when I moved on. She's about fifteen years older than me, but it never had an effect on our friendship (not sure if it's even relevant). She has a young daughter who I get on well with.

When I was pregnant she was one of the first people I told and she was a great help to us, sourcing very cheap or sometimes free baby equipment, and I also really appreciated her experiences as a mother as I don't have any other friends who are parents.

On the day I went into labour we were due to meet up, so when I was in hospital I sent her a text to cancel our plans. After that I was too busy having a baby to check my phone, and DH was the same. Neither of us told her which hospital I was at, or which ward etc.

As soon as DC was born, he was taken away to be resuscitated, the reasons for which I still don't quite understand. I was shaking with adrenaline and very confused about where my baby was and whether he was alright. I was also haemorrhaging. A midwife came into the room and said, "your birth partner is here, may she come in?". When I was pregnant I had vaguely discussed with my sister the possibility of her being at the birth to support DH and to advocate for me, but in the end it was too much of a rush for her to be there (she lives a couple of hours drive away). So I assumed they meant my sister was here, which made little sense as she'd have been at work, but I thought perhaps she'd left early due to the Christmas holidays. I think I said something like, "is it [sister's name]?" but don't remember what the reply was. I said yes, let her in, I really want to see my sister. But my friend walked through the door. Bear in mind that I've got my legs apart, there is blood literally gushing out all over the place, I'm shaking and crying, wondering whether my baby is alive or dead - the last person I want in the room is her. But she just stood there in the middle of the room in absolute silence. I'm quite an apologetic, doormat type of person by nature, and I found myself apologising to this woman that I couldn't really chat right now because I'd just given birth and I didn't know whether my baby was okay or not. I'm appalled at myself for that now, and wish I'd stood up for myself and told her to fuck off, and I'm cross at DH and the midwives for not recognising how inappropriate the situation was. It took a long time for her to eventually be led outside to wait.

When I was being stitched up later on, I was still worrying that she was waiting outside for me and I felt bad that I didn't want to see her despite her coming to the hospital (my mental health is fucked, forgive me), and therefore this is my overriding memory of my son's birth. A midwife had to say to me, "it's okay if you don't want her here" before I felt comfortable asking them to get her to leave. I think DH went out and told her to go.

I really resent her for tainting my experience, and I feel that she is the reason I have such black holes in my memory of the rest of the birth.

In the six months since DS was born we've met up a couple of times but I feel very much that there is an elephant in the room between us. She's never mentioned the incident, except to say, "I'm glad I could be there for you" in a text the next day. I've started ignoring her text messages because I can't bear to see her or think about her. I'm so cross that she invaded such a private and personal time for us.
What do I do? Have it out with her? Just keep ignoring her until she gets the message? Get over it and pretend it never happened? I don't know how to proceed. We did have a good friendship before this, so I don't know if I'm being too hasty in writing her off - but I feel physically sick when she texts me.

There's a lot of assumptions here, OP hasn't said she's not enjoying her baby. Probably every time you see this friend you are reminded of the birth and what she saw.

Yes you need to talk to her and get her side of the story, you may be unduly being a bit harsh on your friend and it may have been totally innocent. It may be the midwife that is at fault here and misheard who she was and is covering her back.

Rightly or wrongly, whether she should have been there or not, you gave the midwife permission to let her in. You admit yourself you cant remember / didn't hear the name the midwife gave.

Talk to your friend, and talk to someone about the birth as well.

You haven't said, but is your son well now?

*Neither of us told her which hospital I was at, or which ward etc.

This is the bit that I feel puts the friend's behaviour definitely in the category of overstepping boundaries massively.

Did she ring round trying to determine which hospital the OP was at? This makes me think she was really try to muscle in on the OP.*

Or maybe commons sense means people have a good idea of which hospital a person gives birth in locally.

OP, first, I'd ask your GP for some counselling (or just pay for it privately). I think you need to be content with what happened before you speak to your friend. My guess is that it was a combination of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Good luck.

I have numerous serious MH issues which were exacerbated by the stress of having a new baby. He is absolutely perfect and healthy, just needed some help to get started :)
So please don't worry about me getting counselling etc, as I'm under a psychiatrist already. I do think I need to pull my finger out and get the debrief done so that I feel more comfortable with what happened outside her being there.

My memory is hazy, but I definitely would have said no if they'd told me it was this friend. My sister is very sensible and would have been my advocate anyway (not very good at speaking up for myself), so I was keen to see her (if it was her), as I was feeling vulnerable.

You usually give birth at the maternity ward / hospital where you have had your maternity appointments & scans.

Maybe OP had mentioned scan appointments / the hospital in passing during the time she was pregnant. She obviously had a close enough relationship to this person as she was one of the first people she told.

Assuming she was never inappropriate before I do feel you should get her side. Agree with pepper and viva. Any chance the midwives heard uou talk about your birth partner (ie sister)?
Also and this sounds flippant, don't mean it to be, if your only experience of a labouring woman is friends then you may well think that the labouring woman's distant family and friends all come and hang round the hospital while she's in labour. Sex in a hospital store cupboard optional

It is odd for someone just to turn up like that, even if all was well. Also would have expected an apology rather than the " glad could be there text".

Having said that, maybe it needs to go on the back burnet til you process the birth itself.

The memory loss could be to do with your blood loss. That happened to me, I have ver patchy memories of the time following DDs birth for that reason.

My midwife appointments were local. There's a midwife led maternity ward in the local hospital, for very low risk births, anything the slightest out of the ordinary and you're at one of 3 major hospitals, so it's not always easy to guess.

Op is your baby ok now btw?

I think some posters are mistakenly leaping to this woman's defense and trying to 'explain away' her actions as they think it is helpful.

I'd like to make it very clear to you OP, that you have every right to feel as strongly as you feel, and it doesn't matter what her excuses are, the result is what you are dealing with.

I am concerned that explaining away the incident will result in you feeling like you aren't allowed to feel as shocked, traumatised and yes, violated as you do.

Unpicking what happened may be useful for you to start to heal, but not if there's a huge pressure on you to accept and forgive.

One of the first things you need to do is acknowledge how big this is for you, and how upset you are. And it's ok to feel like that. This is what you are feeling this is a big thing that happened. By dismissing, minimising and insisting you pretend nothing happened, that's the way to get really fucked up

Baby is fine, thank you for asking :)

Someone related to my husband came into my birthing room when I was having dc1, he was pissed and I still have no idea how he got in. He had been out in London and kind of waltzed in at around midnight

I was legs akimbo and in a proper state so it was a shock to say the least so I understand how you feel.

It caused a huge issue for a few years and we are still nowhere near as close as we all were ten years later.

I am not sure how to advise you really, I was weirded out for years that he had seen me in that state but we had to crack on as he was a close family member....

It has faded with time and once we got into the swing of having a baby I forgot about it until I saw him.
I felt bad for him in the end as he didn't quite realise what he had done till it all erupted after. (Hug)

I don't see anyone 'leaping to this woman's defence', simply trying to rationalise events and figure out what happened.

I think the thing lots of people are missing is that in most hospitals, visitors are not allowed at all in the actual labour suite. Only birthing partners. Visitors are only allowed on the ward afterwards. So to get access to a labour suite, you would have to actually state you are a birthing partner. Which means the woman in question went Waaaayyy over the boundaries, by lying to gain access.

Obviously, the op has a right to cut the woman out. This is true whether the woman did intentionally overstep the mark, or if it was a misunderstanding. I'm sure everyone would feel the same, if a friend/relation came in at that moment when you are most vulnerable.

It's more that the OP needs to get to the bottom of everything that happened, and it would be sad to lose a good friend over a misunderstanding.

"I have numerous serious MH issues"
Even without mental health issues, your horrid birth experience would have been hard to get over. I hope it gets better, and having a debrief sounds like a great idea.

And btw, birth and post natal wards are totally different. I can inagjne someone blagging their way into a post natal ward, but getting into a birthing room whilst a baby is in resus and the mother is bleeding out? No. Something went terribly wrong. You'll probably find there were a few fuck ups from the hospital that led to your friend being able to trample through your boundaries. But there's not a way that your friend didn't behave very oddly too, at best, and at worst shockingly badly.

I'd ask someone to speak to her or wrote to her to acknowledge what happened and how it made you feel, and then I'd be very clear that she needs to give you space and respect your boundaries properly (this time). And that you need that time to come to terms with what happened and won't be making any decisions about the friendship until you've had some time and space.

Then I'd focus on yourself, and when you feel able do get a hospital debrief and find out how a person (with good or bad intentions, whatever) could breech their security so easily.

And after that you may be in a better place to decide how you feel about your friend, separate her from the other awful things and decide whether the friendship is worth carrying on.

A truly good friend would understand how awful the birth and straight after was for you and understabd you need space to process it all. A good friend won't try and pursue satisfaction of her own needs and won't try and push you or guilt you into minimising your feelings and experience.

If she does keep on pushing your boundaries, that may tell you something. If she doesn't, that might tell you something too.

Thanks Miscellaneous, that was very kind and sort of where my head is at after this very very useful discussion. Forcing myself to think this through has raised quite a few things I hadn't considered before.

Thank you guys.

Sorry op wasn't trying to imply you weren't enjoying your baby (and really pleased he is ok :) ) just meant that I know I felt so vulnerable during and after giving birth that things that would normally bother me say 7/10 would bother me 1000/10!

I think in this case though you have every right to be extremely annoyed with her, what she did was insane. I think part of coming to terms with it may well be hearing her side, because if I were you I'd be wasting lots of time thinking 'but why?' 'how could she do that?' 'what was she thinking?' when actually you'll never know for sure unless you talk with her (if you want to know that is).

for you and your baby

The thing that strikes me is that in a true, authentic, equal friendship this would definitely have been talked about by now e.g. a frank conversation maybe prompted by her saying "God, I was shocked, I came into the room and you were there surrounded by doctors" etc. etc. - I'm not saying "have a laugh about it" but the silence around it but for her text "Glad to be there" strikes me as not good at all. Personally all kinds of alarm bells would be ringing for me if someone invaded my privacy in this way, I think the only thing you can do is clarify the situation for your peace of mind by asking her very straightforward questions, preferably face-to-face and not by email, i.e. (1) How did you know which ward I was on? (2) How did you get access to the ward so soon after my birth? (3) Why did you do that? And possibly tell her how it made you feel, but possibly unnecessary if you're not going to continue the friendship. I think at best your friend might have some sort of "saviour" mentality in relation to you and think she must be there (regardless of asking you, which is a violation of your boundaries). Worse case scenario she is actually more of a psycho and wanted to invade your privacy, most personal experience etc. Sadly such people do exist. I'd make it really clear if you have any thoughts it could be either of these scenarios on your medical notes etc. that she is not any kind of next-of-kin to you or your child, in case she tries to persuade medics otherwise in another medical emergency. Protect yourself.

Good point misc. The op definitely has every right to feel as she does. But if she's upset at being let down by someone she trusted I'm just saying there may be an explanation.
Op I'm glad your baby is ok now.

great posts miscellaneous and yes mumite in an authentic and healthy friendship this could have been raised and dealt with by now if it was a genuine misunderstanding or bad timing - "gosh I'm so sorry, I thought when they showed me in that you'd be snuggling baby in bed"

Not "I'm glad I was there for you" from someone who plainly was there for themselves.

Hey, op, sorry I haven't read all messages but did you discuss having her as a potential birthing partner?

Im sorry op but im going to go against the majority here...

I ve read this thread fully and spent 15 mins thinking about it afterwards and i think YABVU.

This lady has been a very good friend to you. Such a good friend that she helped massively with baby things during your pregnancy which you were more than happy to accept.

She is told you are in labour and thinks you would be very glad of the support so she finds out where you are.

She turns up and has to tell afew small lies to get past the staff to be there to support you.

She wasnt prepared for you to be having an awful time. Yes she stood there very shocked for awhile but i think she was probably very shocked at someone she was close to going through that when she hadnt prepared for it.

She waited outside for you which again shows you that you had support. You was happy for this woman to be a very good friend, but not happy for her to be at the birth,but would of been happy if another person would of turned up? It seems that you regard her as a friend when it suited you.

When i had my dd i had an horrendous time and ended up with an emergency c section. If a good friend of mine had of burst into the operating theatre i would of been so so grateful that she had come to support me!

It seems like you are looking for someone to blame for the traumatic birth that you had and unfortunately it appears that your friend is in the firing line.

I think you would be doing her a favour by breaking off the friendship.

No, I didn't discuss having her as a birth partner. I've wracked my brains trying to explain it this way, but I just didn't ever suggest that to her, because I didn't want her as a birth partner.

I've been judging her actions against what I would do in this situation. I wouldn't rock up at the hospital until I'd been invited. If I had found my way into the delivery room at such an inappropriate moment, I'd have turned on my heel and walked straight back out again, then apologised profusely and been very embarrassed. I just can't imagine feeling any other way, and can't understand why someone else would feel anything more than that would be appropriate?