If birth has taught me anything, it’s that people have way too many ideas about how birth should be, rather than dealing with the way birth really is. I believe that no part of any woman’s birth should be treated as an isolated incident. The whole case needs to be looked at to see how certain things panned out the way they have, in order to understand them. For example, (some people) seem to think that the rate of cesarean births is alarming, or how many women do not breast feed their children. And some of these people think that these statistics are too high.. But according to what?
I think the death rate of women giving birth, or birth related complications, used to be quite high.
While being pregnant, I felt that statistics were jammed down my throat. This amount of women do this, this amount of women do that.. I’m not a statistic. Those women are not statistics. Why am I not being spoken to as if this was my own personal case?
My birth went very wrong. But I am beginning to wonder wether it could have gone a bit better. The whole experience left me utterly shattered for a while there.
My whole experience with midwives has been nothing but awful. My first midwife was never there, which resulted in me seeing a different midwife almost every time. Then she eventually just left. Some of the midwives I saw were ok, and some where very unprofessional. So I had no one keeping an eye on me. Those who did see me, were not familiar with my case at all. A nurse said to me when I was first pregnant that I would be kept an eye on as it was my first (and last) baby and that I was pretty small. They’d need to make sure the baby wasn’t too big. this never happened though. Why not?
I hated pregnancy enough, it was difficult, I felt sick all the time, but the worst was the last few weeks. I just got so big, it felt like my skin was tearing. I also got a different midwife in this time.
I went a week over my due date, before my waters broke around 4am on Saturday morning. Of course, when we called the hospital we got “So you think your waters broke”.. Yes, I’m pretty damn sure lady.
I was always told to call an ambulance if my waters broke as the baby would be at risk of infection. However, they sounded pretty casual and wanted me to stay at home until the contractions became regular.
Contractions started at 6am ish and they were pretty manageable. After a few hours I became a bit unsure and wanted to go to the hospital.
I got an unsure student midwife then, they examined me and I was only two centimeters and sent me home.
See, they have this thing here where they believe it to be better for the woman to be at home as long as she can as it will help labour progress faster.
Sure, for some people.
I got home and pretty soon the contractions became unmanageable. We went back and I was in agony. I got given pethidine. Which as a pain killer, is overrated. It just made me feel really, really wasted but I could still feel it all.
I don’t know how long this went on for. I was put in a birth pool to try and help ease the pain, but it didn’t.
By this time, midwives had changed shifts. I got a lady who I couldn’t even see her face as I was in so much pain. She gave me a second injection of pethidine, I threw up on her.
I told her the pain was still really bad.. Or maybe screamed it.. I asked for an epidural. She examined me but I had not progressed far enough.. I told her that I didn’t care.. I was not handling it.
She did go up and speak to the consultants, and I was taken off the midwife unit up to the consultant led unit (yes!) They had decided to give it to me as I was going to be induced in a few hours anyway, the contractions were not consistent enough.
Anyway, the doctor who administered the epidural was lovely. And the epidural, fucking amazing. I had always been so scared of an epidural.. Spinal injections, the risks, yadda yadda. But the pain I was in made me overcome all hesitations.
I then began to get to know the midwife, she was really good. I did end up throwing up on her again though.
I was hooked up on a machine to monitor the babies heart beat and my contractions. Also a drip to induce my baby.
It must have been a long time as shifts changed again.
I also went through this lady’s shift as well. Towards the end of it though, baby had moved down far enough for me to begin to push. I could still feel some things as I was meant to be able to feel when to push.
And push I did.
I pushed for over and hour and my baby was not coming. I’m not really sure what happened at this point.. The room filled up with various staff members..I know they did a maneuver to try and encourage her out.
(I later found out through Gene, that they had worked out at this point that she had not turned properly, so her head was resting on one part of my pelvis, and that is why I was in so much pain, her shoulders also got stuck)
They used forceps, which felt awful. The tugging was so painful. At this point I was also extremely hot and really beginning to feel that I was just not going to get through it. I just wanted to die.
(And later I was to find out, from Gene, that my temperature and heart rate had spiked)
At some point, a rather large baby was placed on my tummy. I remember feeling so stunned. She didn’t make much noise or movements. So she was taken away from me to receive some assistance. (I’m still not sure what any of it meant or how much assistance she needed.)
The doctor who had delivered my baby was still working on me. She was working on stitching up a rather large episiotomy, she said some things to me but I just can’t remember what. And who would at this point?
I had major blood loss to. I went down to 8.5, they do transfusions at 8.. That was icky to know. However, they didn’t work it out until the moved the bed and found all the blood.
Anyway. That was just the birth. There is a whole week of a fucking awful experience at the hospital. Which I am still trying to sort out in my head. I have been offered a debriefing session with some of the people involved with Anja’s delivery, which I plan to organize soon. But there are so many things that surround this that I am really not sure wether I received a good enough level of care. I also felt that no one knew what to really do with me when I was in labour. That was really scary. These peoples livelihood focus on birth, if they had no idea what to do with me, then who does?? I am also confused as to why no one sat down with me to explain what happened and why. I know this will probably happen at the debriefing session, but why do I have to ask for that kind of information, it should be volunteered to me!
Various midwives that I have had to deal with find it odd that I was never offered a cesarean. I find that there is too much inconsistency with the information and opinions I get. I also found out today that the hospital I gave birth in (The Heath hospital) have a high rate of forceps delivery over emergency cesarean. (When they deliver using forceps they usually have to do an episiotomy, which is a very difficult wound to have!)
This gets me thinking, why? Is it to keep their rates down? Is this all about statistics, and I just fell victim to some god awful trend? As the ideas on how to give birth and how to raise babies seem to be dramatically effected by trends.
I never wanted a cesarean, the idea terrifies me. However, looking at how things went, maybe it would have been better. It still would have hurt and been not the ideal experience. But the pros I see in it far outweigh the cons we went through. Anja wouldn’t have been so badly bruised (and therefor she may have not been jaundiced), Anja also wouldn’t have got an infection (from being inside even though the waters had broken for a very long time).
I’m not sure. Very unsure. I try to get advice, but I still seem to get conflicting opinions. I just know that I feel extremely unhappy about how things went.
One of the midwives said to me when I was in the recovery ward, “Well, she was worth it”. I’m not sure that was a really good thing to say at that point. But thanks, lady who clearly has never had a baby.
Very powerful piece. Really powerful and important for women to read, even though it’s very hard.
You are right on track for healing from a traumatic birth. It seems you are in the fact-finding mission part… asking questions of anyone who might know answers, even if they weren’t there, even if they don’t know anything about you and your experience. I encourage you to be *very* wary of *anyone* second-guessing your experience, even the midwives who were at your bedside. A care providers/midwife’s/docotor’s/partner’s/friend’s/etc.’s is *totally* different than yours was. And, to be perfectly honest, YOUR experience is the only valid one. Know that you may *never* have THE answer you are looking for, but each piece of information you gather becomes your story, the story you get to tell and share with your baby.
I’ve worked with many women who’ve had birth trauma and there seems to be a grieving process, much like the grieving process after a death. Women have told me this piece I wrote helped them so much to not feel so frustrated with their feelings, worries, fears and compulsive thoughts.
http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2008/2/11/the-gray-grey-messenger-recovery.html
But, all that said, it is really important to honor your heart and mind’s feelings and if they do become overwhelming, do not hesitate to get help from a kind counselor… those who work with postpartum depression have an insight into birth trauma, so that would be the first place to look.
Over the last 27 years of doing birth, I’ve heard almost every single woman, myself included, “wish” for something they could have/would have done differently at their births. When I heard a woman who’d had a perfect home, in front of the lit fireplace, midwife sitting aside while dad caught the baby say she wished… what she wished was irrelevant and I have no memory of what she said. Just that she said “I wish” and I accepted then that (almost) every single woman wishes her birth had been different than it was.
So, as you explore your own birth’s evolution and presentation, be gentle with yourself, knowing that we all do the best we can with what we had, even if what we had was trust in others.
Birth is a huge lesson for all of us, whether we like it or not. It transforms us, whether we like it or not. I know, because I’ve seen it every single time, that we learn so much information about ourselves as women and, subsequently, mothers, that if we *use* the newly gained knowledge, it can make us into fantastic parents! If we felt we didn’t take a strong enough stand during our own births, we learn to become howling bears of a mama for our kids. If we felt abandoned in labor, we remember, first-hand, not to do that to our children, but to *be* there, listen to them and help them become strong and independent adults. The “lessons” are infinite and each woman gets to have and learn from her own.
Nothing will fix your hurt and sadness, not even time. And you are absolutely right… “What’s the problem? You got a healthy baby out of it.” is a cruel and flippant thing to say to a traumatized mom. That you and the baby are alive is certainly important, but so are the memories, body and mind, of your pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum. They shape you. I’m proud of you for not beating yourself up about not being satisfied with that answer.
I’m going to send women here and hope others will share their stories with you. Know there are several on-line groups for birth traumatized women; you might look for them. (One hot-button word women use is “birthrape” –and while you might not identify with that word at all, it can help you find the groups that deal with birth trauma and birth abuse.)
You are not alone.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I think your post about the stages are very interesting, especially the anger part. I was angry there for a few days. That type of anger that is just so all consuming it makes your gut sore. But I got past that, thank heavens!
I do want to find the facts, but right now, I just needed to write it all down and let it be for a bit. I’m concentrating on getting my life back on track with my new baby girl.
It just overwhelms me that people can be so cold or so cruel.
Thanks again!
Hi Lily,
I am so sorry to hear about the trauma you suffered during the birth of Anja. I was crying as I was reading. It is so sad that there should be so much pain giving birth. When I gave birth to Gene they took him away and I demanded him to be given back to me – they wanted to clean him but I refused and held him on my chest for quite a long time – he was so cute and snuffled and yawned – my whole being filled with love and his father was overjoyed and kept saying Gene was beautiful and I was amazing.
I remember being quite hostile towards Gene’s father after getting home from hospital as he had not watered the orchard. It seems stupid now but I was angry that he did not do that when I had been through so much!
I don’t know what else to say other than my heart goes out to you Lily – I wish I was there to give you a hug – you did an incredible job.
All my love
Pamela Hammond
Hopefully you will be here soon!
Thank you Pamela!
So sorry to hear you had such a traumatic birth, and substandard care during your pregnancy. Take care x