Prolapse, episiotomy, nerve damage and really crap sex. Help!

[Verbena87]

I’m now 11 months post partum after my first baby. He was 10lb9oz and back to back, and I ended up with emergency forceps delivery requiring an extended episiotomy after 2 hours of pushing and a failed attempt to manually rotate him (next time I’m having a small, punctual, right-way-round baby ).

I’ve been left with a grade 2 cystocele, a slight uterine prolapse, internal scarring both where the episiotomy was and for 2 biggish tears down the anterior wall, and nerve damage.

I’ve been doing Pilates since 8 weeks with a postnatal specialist instructor who helps me modify for prolapse, and am doing physio and electrical stimulation under the hospital nurse too, with the result that although I’m still bulgy, I’ve had lots of improvement in terms of feeling heavy/draggy/awful, and can mostly get on with life without my prolapse bothering me.

However, sex is still utterly rubbish. I can orgasm through clitoral stimulation but it takes bloody ages and feels half-hearted compared to pre-baby, and penetrative sex is just numb and boring and sad. We’re in our early 30s, still fancy each other, and previously had a brilliant sex life that we both really enjoyed. I know I’m lucky to be continent and getting help managing day-to-day symptoms, but can’t help feeling really sad and tired of feeling like sex is never going to be satisfying again. It feels like such a long time since my injuries and surely if it was going to get any better it would have by now?! Anyone got any similar experience? When I’ve asked the gynae he brushed it off as if sex was a bit of an irrelevance so don’t really even know what to expect.

Anyone?

I can’t entirely relate to your story but I am 6 months pp and had a pretty traumatic birth an have been left with a fair amount of damage. Forcep delivery. Episiotomy and 3rd degree tear.

Things are different in that area due to the repair an has taken me a while to come to terms with it. Having issues with sex in terms of weak skin which split and deep pain. Hoping this issues can eventually be solved and will on at GP until they do something.

But totally understand your feelings on sadness on the sex life. I loved sex with DH before and we had a good exciting carefree sex life.

Now it is about finding worn arounds an none of it feels great for me. I hope it gets better. But wish I appreciated it more.

Or I wish I just wasn’t in this situation.

So hugs for you. It’s shit.

Oh hugs to you too - that sounds really tough as well. Losing the carefree-ness of things is exactly it - it’s nice not to feel so alone with it all so thanks for replying.

If it’s any help, I noticed quite a sudden significant improvement in terms of pain around 7 months. It coincided with really working on my pelvic floor exercises using the Squeezy app to nag me, and also with massaging the external episiotomy scar with unscented massage oil on the advice of a midwife friend - might have been those things, or might have been coincidence and just the passage of time. Anyway, the horrible blunt dragging pain when we caught the scar/got the angle wrong was much less, and has now totally gone, so fingers crossed for you too.

Writing that has helped me recognise things have improved for me, even if I’m not where I want to be yet.

It’s just so bloody boring and hard to carry on being brave all the time, isn’t it?!

It really is. I try tell myself it’s not everything an doesn’t really matter. But occasionally have a cry about it as I feel a bit broken down there. An then I try pull myself together. It’s a hard one to accept tbh isn’t it.

Weirdly enough I don’t seem to get many issues with my episiotomy. The actual entrance an where my scarring had doesn’t cause any pain as such. Although I did religiously massage it as soon as it had healed over to prevent that.

My physio said she found trigger points internally when examining me on my pelvic floor. So from constant pain after delivery with my severe tear my pelvic floor has tightened an like clenched up. An so when we have sex and it pushes on these muscles which are tight it’s like a pulled muscle so it hurts.
I’m hoping she can work on releasing me and eventually fix it!

An my skin splitting & being weak at the vaginal entrance is not random. As it’s not my actual episiotomy that splits. Regardless i will badger my GP until they hopefully find me a fix for that

😫😫😫 it’s just exhausting

I am thankful for my beautiful little girl. BUT it somehow doesn’t make up for feeling like your sex life is doomed forever. When so many other ppl seem to be fine....hmph

Very nice to speak to someone else in a similar situation though 💓 well not nice for you but you know what I mean lol. We are not alone!!

So sorry to hear you guys are in the same boat. I’m 12 months post partum. Had episiotomy that healed well but at 3 months pp got sciatica like pain radiating from scar when I walked. This went on for 2 months 😞 went to pelvic floor physio & exercises improved it. Unfortunately sex is still painful if Dh thrusts even the tiniest bit. I’m stil bf-Ing my little boy 1-2 short feeds a day (we combine fed) & still have bad vaginal dryness but using lots of lubricant so it can’t b that. Are you guys breast feeding? Pain is internal so can’t attribute pain to that.
My gp has referred me to gynecologist but appointment not till October 🙄. Trying to keep my squeezy app going but I have no issues around incontinence. It’s so sad as baby is sleeping through night most nights & we finally have a bit of extra energy & any time we try eg once a fortnight to see if there is any improvement there is no change. We had a great sex life even during the pregnancy. It would be lovely to have that again.
We have no social life/family or anybody who can babysit so it would b lovely to have that aspect of our lives back😞 will keep u posted re appointment

@august2017

Very sorry to hear this. I think breastfeeding. Can affect it. What sort of pain is it? Is it like dry sandpaper pain? Or deep pain? My little girl was bottle fed as I didn’t get any milk come in so can’t help with that.

But my deep pain with sex is because I have a hypertonic pelvic floor. So because of the trauma of childbirth my pelvic floor is on a bit too taut. My pelvic floor is strong an weakness is not an issue. But that’s why I have pain. So may be worth exploring

Have a very unMumsnetty hug. I had a traumatic birth too and suffered nerve damage. I fought and fought to see a specialist and when I got there she was off sick and a young male colleague was there who gave me the spiel about 'Enjoyinv my husband' and 'Not worrying too much if I didn't climax ever time ' (I couldn't climax at all, that was the problem). I burst into angry tears and asked him if he would tell a young man the same thing? He just sort of shifted in his seat a bit, looked uncomfortable and said he was going to take me off the waiting list as unless there was a prolapse, there was nothing they could do. I felt so utterly sad and humiliated. The way women are treated after birth just shows you how sexist society is.

The good news is, several years on, things are much better. They are, however, different and we have had to find new ways of having sex which are more enjoyable. If clitoral stimulation works for you, could you maybe introduce a vibe? Different ones work for different folks so you may need to try a few to get one that doesnt get in the way or make either of you numb. We eventually landed on the Wevibe Touch, but have a look around. There are now done great female bloggers who test sex toys and are a bit more detailed about functionality than "It has rabbit ears!"

I’m just popping back in case anyone stumbles on this late-night fed-up Googling.

Nerve damage took 18-20 months and then GOT BETTER. I thought I’d be numb forever. I am not numb. Sex is good again. I feel so grateful it makes me cry if I think about it too much. I think with nerve stuff you just have to wait and then wait some more.

I still have a prolapse but it’s not symptomatic. I use a ring pessary and compression shorts for running and last weekend did a 20 mile fell race with no problems (well, my quads ached like an absolute motherfucker, but pelvic stuff all good).

So if you’re reading this because you searched desperately for a bit of hope (been there), here some is. Might all go south again of course but for now all’s good.

@Verbena87 thanks so much for coming back to update!!! Seriously, you're a hero. Am googling around because I've got symptoms of a prolapse but according to gp it's "not a PROPER prolapse" (I don't know what she meant by that...) and I've been told to do kegel exercises for 6 weeks to see if there's any improvement. We'll see, but so nice to know that there's hope!!

Hi @Verbena87 I've been lurking around here for a while, this is my first post. Thanks for sending an update, I am in a very similar situation to you at 7pp. Your post gives me a lot of hope. I would like to be able to run again in the future. Why do you use a pessary? Is it just for comfort or to prevent things from getting worse?

This is many months later but I'm doing some 4.30am fed up googling looking for answers about pelvic nerve pain. Thanks for this message of hope. I'm going to leave my googling here and hopefully sleep now x