i'm ready to make peace with my DD's birth...HELP!!

[La Que Sabe]

my daughter was born almost 6 months ago, and although after you read it you may go 'that's not so bad, mine was worse than that!' i would completely understand, but to me, it is traumatic.
and i'm having trouble 'getting over it' i try my hardest not to think about it, and i avoid any photos of the birth so as not to bring back memories and when people ask about it i answer them and then change the topic. if i think about it or read the birth story, i cry.
if you had a birth that you weren't happy with, how did you get over it?
you can read the birth story here:
http://www.homebirth.net.au/2008/04/katie-and-jonah-homebirth-to-surgery.html

it is a mix of both mine, my xdp, and my independent midwifes story.
i'm sort of not ready to get over it, but feel that i actually need to to enjoy being a mother and to move on and find a new partner and meet new people.

it doesn't say it in there that it was a horrific experience for me, but to me i feel traumatised that my DD was born into bright lights and unloving cold people, and not into our arms in the candle lit lounge room. it is not what i wanted, and i was not at all prepared for it.

please, i don't want any judgement, just support.

thank you. :)

i

[La Que Sabe]

oh thought i'd better add, the link to the birth story, has pictures of the c/section and may be a bit graphic =]

[NibbleCurlynBub]

It is devastating when something close to our hearts doesn't go according to plan.

I hope you are able to forgive yourself and anybody else and let go.

[La Que Sabe]

It is devastating when something close to our hearts doesn't go according to plan.

I hope you are able to forgive yourself and anybody else and let go.
i think i'm angry at the aneathetist [sp?] because he gave me morpheine with out asking me and it made me pass out, therefore i missed her 'birth' =[

[NibbleCurlynBub]

I would have been too.

It looks like by that time it might have been too difficult to get to the epidural catheter though.

Since you could feel the pain he had to do something.

It is a shame.

But you did stick with your guns as far as after-care was concerned and you laboured for over 24hours!

You certainly gave it one herculean effort.

Be proud that you went for over a whole day in labour with NO chemical pain relief. That's a huge accomplishment.

[naiwen]

Hi Evelyn,

I felt traumatised by Edwards birth for a long time,

It has been 14 months and I feel like I am finally over it now, I think I would have healed faster though if I had talked to an understanding friend or relative about it.

Not talked as in a conversation where they try and make you feel better but just have them listen with a sympathetic ear while I let it out kwim, I think that can be quite cathartic.

[joshcamgrandma]

Hi, i just want to respond to your asking about 'getting over it'. I have not had any bad experiences with my babies, i have not had any miscarriages, but I have had some bad times. some very sad times, with losing my mum, my dad, my grandmother. I just want to tell you, noone 'gets over it' . It becomes a part of you, a part of your nature, a part of your history, it enables you to have perhaps sympathy for others with similar experiences, perhaps greater understanding of human nature and that people do have bad things happen to them. I dont want you to think im not concerned that you have had this bad time, but please try to focus on the wonderful healthy baby you have, and enjoy all the future holds for you and your family. cheers marie.

[stellarella]

I just read a fair chunk of your story...I found the part about you feeling pain and being sedated instead of anesthetised extremely disturbing so I haven't been able to continue.

Your birth sounds intensely traumatic for soooo many reasons. On the one hand the emotional devastation of your birth dreams being shattered and the whole other aspect of the pain and surgery and the aftermath.

It sounds like you feel you should be getting over it. IMO this is a huge thing to get over and it will take a lot of time and healing.

My sons birth was no where near as invasive, painful or heartbreaking as yours and I am not close to getting over it.

Please feel free to let all this out....I am on MSN if you'd like to PM me. It really helps to purge it all.

Your feelings of trauma are very valid.

:hugs::hugs:

[V8]

I'm so sorry to hear of your experience, you tried absolutely tremendously hard to bring your baby into this world the way you wanted to, you are amazingly strong and such a loving mother, please talk about it and i hope that you can come to accept what happened in your own time, knowing that you probably couldn't do anything differently. :hugs::hugs:

[mytilly]

After reading through your experience i feel so bad that things had to happen that way for you! you were incredible.
The birth of my daughter was hard for me, although it probably doesnt sound that way to some, but it was hard.
For me, and maybe its silly, but i look at my baby girl, and i know, that for her, id go back and do it again, id do it harder for her. It wasnt what id wanted, it wasnt what id been preparing for or expecting, but id do it again.
Im also a believer in what doesnt kill us makes us stronger, and if we can take something positive from these situations, i think that can help.
I dont know if it will help but i hope so, if you want to talk more, just message me, im happy to talk or listen.
You have a beautiful baby girl, and shes lucky to have such a great mother!
Best wishes!

[Kazamataz]

I've read most of your story and will finish the rest in the morning.

I firstly wanted to give you big big :hugs:

Its awful when you plan something and you desire for something to be a certain way and it just doesn't work.

I have no "tips" on how to get over this but I hope you can move on and find peace with yourself.

[La Que Sabe]

thank you all for your replies.

mytilly - thank you for that =]

stella - 'I found the part about you feeling pain and being sedated instead of anesthetised extremely disturbing so I haven't been able to continue'
that is the main part i think too, as i was sedated instead i missed DD's birth.
i'm ok with the fact that i transferred to hospital, that's ok, i gave it a pretty good shot at home and i did need the hospital in this case, so that's ok, but i had not prepared for this kind of experience! i was like, yep, i'm having a homebirth and that's all good. and then i missed her 'birth' which i hardly call it that.

[delirium]

:hugs:I had a similar experience and felt the surgery too. I had to be knocked out, and after 4 years there are some days where I think I'm over my traumatic birth, other days I'm not. What has made it worse is that my 2nd birth, whilst a c/s, was really good from start to finish. I realised that the anesthetist stuffed up and that makes me mad :banghead: I asked to be sedated with my 2nd as I was so terrified of feeling it again. I now believe I have some mild post traumatic stress, and you may too.

You may be over it in a month, you may not in another year. There is no set time where you are required to no longer mourn the birth you lost. :hugs:

[La Que Sabe]

thanks delirium, i hope to be over it soon, i hate avoiding it so it doesn't make me cry.
:hugs: thank you for sharing!
i do think evenwhen i do 'get over it' there will be times when i still hate it.
but i'd liket o be able to talk about it and think about it with out bawling my eyes out and feeling like **** and hating every body involved.

[MountainGirl]

On the upside, you and your partner are very caring loving people. Gee your partner expresses himself well,..I 'enjoyed' (maybe the weong word?) reading your story,...it was written so very well.

[Sammilee]

Thank you for sharing your birth story, it was indeed a privilege to read it. Please do not apologise for posting your story and there will definitely be no judgement here. That's what BubHub is all about, an arena that gives you the chance to tell your story where others can 'listen' and offer whatever comfort and support they can. If you feel like it was a traumatic experience then it was, no-one can tell you otherwise.

The birth of your daughter may not have gone according to plan, and as hard as it seems right now, but please do not allow it to ruin your time and future with your daughter. Who knows, you may be able to 'get over' it in the future or you may not, but there is great power in acknowledging that this has happened and that it has affected you. Please be strong and enjoy your gorgeous bubba. Have you spoken to anyone, a counsellor? You may find that speaking to an independent third party has great healing powers.

Again I thank you for sharing your story and unfortunately I have no great words of wisdom, but I wish you all the happiness in the future with your daughter Reikaya :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:

[MyThreeCubs]

I just read your story and am I right in reading that your dp is now your ex dp? It's so hard to believe after reading that incredible story where the two of you seemed so united and so strong! Anyway, sorry, not the point of your post so I digress.....

I know what it is like to have a birth go horribly, horribly wrong. My 1st birth was awful and my 2nd a horrific experience which I have never even penned to paper because I just don't want to relive it. It was something that gave me nightmares and I honestly never ever thought I would make peace with.

The weird thing is, my closure came very strangly and unexpectedly in the form of my 3rd birth- strangely because my 3rd was actually a clinical ceaserean which I was knocked out for because the epidural did not take effect. However, It was controlled and everything went according to plan, I didn't die and neither did my daughter. I came through it with tremendous relief. My 2nd birth was a vaginal birth in which I heamorraged so severely that I was pinned down, catheterised forcibly against my will and eventually taken to theatre after being pumped full of every drug in the hospital. It was so incredibly traumatic that I wished I was dead. I'm not sure what the point is I'm getting at here but I think what I'm trying to say is that traumatic births can happen in any situation- you MAY have had a homebirth in which you nearly bled to death or the baby may have required resuscitation. (Unlikely, but possible.) You may have had a vaginal birth in the hospital that, like mine, went horribly wrong. i dont' think you should focus on the fact that you had to have the ceaserean over your home birth- the issue is that things went beyond your control, did not go to plan and scared the living daylights out of you. believe me, even though my bad birth was the vaginal one- I can so relate here.:hugs: After I had my dd by ceaserean I was able to shut the lid on my awful vaginal disaster. I had some closure. It was almost as though I was able to have a "do-over," lol. But at some point i just had to let go of the disaster that was my ds's birth. easier siad than done but all I can suggest is that if you can't do this perhaps you need some councelling- Post traumatic Stress Disorder is a very real thing and very common after a traumatic birth. don't be afraid to ask for help in dealing with it. You did not fail at birthing your daughter- it really was beyond your control and i have had to accept that while there is a special club of women that do vaginal births well, I'm not one of them and that's fine. it doesn't make me a failure. You may not have succedded this time- but you may the next and even if you don't, that doesn't make you a failure either. you are obviously a great mum and therefor you are succeeding right now at motherhood!:hugs:

Hope I haven't just rambled on **** and that I have said something useful, lol. Best of luck to you.

[2sweetgirls]

Oh Evelynn, You story was amazingly, well written, completely heart breaking, but there was so much love present from you and jonah.

I did not have a birth in anyway like yours. I dont have any advice for you.

But i hope that one day soon you can just be at peace with what happened, Leaving what happened in the past, and move on with strength.

Btw You are absoloutly Gorgeous, and your little baby girl.

[GeorgiaAnne]

:hugs: to you, that was very emotional reading your story. I also had a very unwanted c-section after a long labour that left me feeling very emotional / sad / disappointed.
From reading your story I can see that you really did try everything and the hospital did seem to also support that when you arrived so you should be very proud of yourselves to getting to the stage where NOTHING else could be done by the sounds, though i'm no medical expert.
For me, the crux of it was (ie the reason I was sad) was that it was more than "At least you got a healthy baby" which everyone said and never helped. I truly believe there is more to it than that.
The things that have helped me get through it have been:
1 - Time - sorry, it's boring but true
2 - Talking about it to people who don't just say "At least you got a healthy baby"
3 - Don't apoologise for feeling traumatised by what happened. Yes, there always is someone worse off than yourself but that doesn't change what you went through and how you are feeling.
4 - Kinesiology - I had one session and it made a huge difference for me especially as i'm pregnant now and felt I had to leave as much of my negative experience behind me as every time I thought about it I felt like crying/being sick.

:hugs: and best wishes to you for your healing.

[La Que Sabe]

4 - Kinesiology - I had one session and it made a huge difference for me especially as i'm pregnant now and felt I had to leave as much of my negative experience behind me as every time I thought about it I felt like crying/being sick.



thanks for all that info!!
and also, what is kinesiology?

[GeorgiaAnne]

It's one of those things that is quite hard to explain but it is an alternative medicine that is based on principles of chiropractics and acupuncture and works with muscle feedback, chi etc and can focus on your emotional and physical health. A lot of the focus of my session was on my physical memories of the birth experience like smells, noises, words that were said to me and the effect that they had on me at the time as well as the fact that they still felt very fresh 18 months on and were affecting my ability to have a positive approach to my impending birth, even though I was planning a vbac I was very scared.
I hope that helps and do feel free to pm me if you want anything else :)

[tomnabbysmum]

i know how hard it is to get over a tramatic birth (and the events that took place after her her birth caused by incompetent doctors ) my bub is nearly 1 and im still struggling to accept it i am currently getting help with post traumatic stress. i didnt have a cesarian so could not imagine how u felt but i some times get stuck on thinking if i could go back i could somehow change the whole experience keep talking about it let all your feelings out and you will find many other mums have had bad experiences too everyone has different ways on dealing with things good on you for writing it all down it is hard thing to go into detail :shakehands: