Hi
I have panic attacks!
Mostly when someone I don’t like holds my baby, and when I think about his birth.
I think it will help me if I share my story, jut typing it helps.
If anyone has any natural suggestions or remedies that helped them please pass them on, (don’t worry about liabilities, I read up on EVERYTHING before I take it and won’t hold you responsible)
It has been 10 months now since I had my DS. He’s everything I could dream of, and parenting is such a joy. Everything is as I had planed, except my birth. Everyone says it was better then most people can ask for, except it was in a hospital.
You see I was born at home. My first memories are of my sister being born in our family bed. Later I witnessed my brother being born under water. My whole family was homeschooled (UN-schooled) and attachment bonded down to the family bed. This is perfect for me.
Birth especially was something I was looking forward to, my initiation into motherhood.
I feel like I was robbed. I don’t know how else to say it, I had a wonderful pregnancy, my midwife is a long time family friend and delivered my younger siblings, everything was going perfectly until one night at 11:30pm my water broke, I was 35 weeks we still don’t know why.
Needless to say we ended up in the hospital ER and six hours later my son was born. With out much intervention (as little as can be demanded from a hospital), without drugs, with my family, midwife, and husband around me, and Libana music playing in the hospital tape player. During labor I was hooked up to the monitors, an IV in which they gave me antibiotics for a disease I didn’t have, and a blood pressure cuff, which would inflate automatically every 10-min. The nurse was worried because my blood pressure had risen, (you try having an ER doctor with size XL gloves check your dilation, then be wheeled around a hospital when you have never been admitted before) The doctor made me push. I tore, he sewed me up (which wasn’t necessary, and was done incorrectly I was told later).
There were lots of people in the room; everyone comes to hear the strange girl singing her birth song in a dark room. Not a hospital room anymore, but a sacred space where a girl forced to lay in a bed glowed, with a circle of close woman around,
protecting. A faint smell of lavender from her husband and Libana playing in the hospital tape player, songs those people had never heard before.
I grabbed my sons hands as he came out screaming, desperate to hold him and make the bad dream go away, but the nurse whisked him across the room to the testing area. It didn’t take long for everyone in the room to realize that he didn’t need their help He pushed away the Oxygen the person shoved in his face, Just hold him I plead to my mom, Just someone hold him I begged, while the doctor catheterized me. The nurse finishes bathing him and mummifies him in a blanket. “Take of your shirt honey, just put him skin to skin” I instinctively ordered, the nurse raised her eyebrows. They still won’t let me hold him; at least his papa has him now, safe. Finally the doctor finishes with me, and I shower. The staff is gone from the room, only the family is there. Quiet. Better. I held my perfect little 4lb baby, who “shouldn’t have been able to survive” without an incubator and the entire hook up, why? He lay in my arms nursing peacefully I had never seen a baby so small.
That’s when I started having panic attacks. My heart races, my blood pressure rises, and I don’t know why. We went home the next day, the panic attacks continued.
Hassles with a vaccine happy, throw the naked baby around like an inanimate object draw his blood with out gloves, anti breastfeeding pediatrician only makes things worse. Finally I transferred to my own family doctor, only to get threatening phone calls from the pediatrician. My panic attacks continued.
My doctor can only offer a prescription he knows won’t help.
Slowly they faded away.
My sister has a similar story, her baby girl born at 35 weeks, same weight perfect health, frank breach, luckily the Doctor she ended up with let her birth naturally, without a c-section. They both are fine. I still am not; I had to re-live it all over again. My panic attacks returned, then slowly diminished. I can’t think about this without my heart racing. I am so angry, even though everything turned out fine, why? Even now almost a year later my heart races just to right this. I am not depressed, but what am I?
Thank you for listening
Brightest Blessings
I have panic attacks!
Mostly when someone I don’t like holds my baby, and when I think about his birth.
I think it will help me if I share my story, jut typing it helps.
If anyone has any natural suggestions or remedies that helped them please pass them on, (don’t worry about liabilities, I read up on EVERYTHING before I take it and won’t hold you responsible)
It has been 10 months now since I had my DS. He’s everything I could dream of, and parenting is such a joy. Everything is as I had planed, except my birth. Everyone says it was better then most people can ask for, except it was in a hospital.
You see I was born at home. My first memories are of my sister being born in our family bed. Later I witnessed my brother being born under water. My whole family was homeschooled (UN-schooled) and attachment bonded down to the family bed. This is perfect for me.
Birth especially was something I was looking forward to, my initiation into motherhood.
I feel like I was robbed. I don’t know how else to say it, I had a wonderful pregnancy, my midwife is a long time family friend and delivered my younger siblings, everything was going perfectly until one night at 11:30pm my water broke, I was 35 weeks we still don’t know why.
Needless to say we ended up in the hospital ER and six hours later my son was born. With out much intervention (as little as can be demanded from a hospital), without drugs, with my family, midwife, and husband around me, and Libana music playing in the hospital tape player. During labor I was hooked up to the monitors, an IV in which they gave me antibiotics for a disease I didn’t have, and a blood pressure cuff, which would inflate automatically every 10-min. The nurse was worried because my blood pressure had risen, (you try having an ER doctor with size XL gloves check your dilation, then be wheeled around a hospital when you have never been admitted before) The doctor made me push. I tore, he sewed me up (which wasn’t necessary, and was done incorrectly I was told later).
There were lots of people in the room; everyone comes to hear the strange girl singing her birth song in a dark room. Not a hospital room anymore, but a sacred space where a girl forced to lay in a bed glowed, with a circle of close woman around,
protecting. A faint smell of lavender from her husband and Libana playing in the hospital tape player, songs those people had never heard before.I grabbed my sons hands as he came out screaming, desperate to hold him and make the bad dream go away, but the nurse whisked him across the room to the testing area. It didn’t take long for everyone in the room to realize that he didn’t need their help He pushed away the Oxygen the person shoved in his face, Just hold him I plead to my mom, Just someone hold him I begged, while the doctor catheterized me. The nurse finishes bathing him and mummifies him in a blanket. “Take of your shirt honey, just put him skin to skin” I instinctively ordered, the nurse raised her eyebrows. They still won’t let me hold him; at least his papa has him now, safe. Finally the doctor finishes with me, and I shower. The staff is gone from the room, only the family is there. Quiet. Better. I held my perfect little 4lb baby, who “shouldn’t have been able to survive” without an incubator and the entire hook up, why? He lay in my arms nursing peacefully I had never seen a baby so small.
That’s when I started having panic attacks. My heart races, my blood pressure rises, and I don’t know why. We went home the next day, the panic attacks continued.
Hassles with a vaccine happy, throw the naked baby around like an inanimate object draw his blood with out gloves, anti breastfeeding pediatrician only makes things worse. Finally I transferred to my own family doctor, only to get threatening phone calls from the pediatrician. My panic attacks continued.
My doctor can only offer a prescription he knows won’t help.
Slowly they faded away.
My sister has a similar story, her baby girl born at 35 weeks, same weight perfect health, frank breach, luckily the Doctor she ended up with let her birth naturally, without a c-section. They both are fine. I still am not; I had to re-live it all over again. My panic attacks returned, then slowly diminished. I can’t think about this without my heart racing. I am so angry, even though everything turned out fine, why? Even now almost a year later my heart races just to right this. I am not depressed, but what am I?
Thank you for listening
Brightest Blessings
.
as I sitting here reading your post. I also had a traumatic, stolen and hurtful hospital birth and postpartum experience wtih my first. I was in a grip of fear while time stood still for a week while my baby went from fair to critical and then back up to fair, and for the following two weeks got better a little bit each day, until we were finally home and I could begin my life again or so I thought.
Only time abated my panic attacks, I hope that there are things you can find to give you peace. Breastfeeding was something that helped me hang in there. My Dh, though clueless and not sure what to do with me, did stick by my side. Writing it out, even if in your own private journal does help. YOu have a right to be angry and to grieve (I waited nearly two years to start letting out my anger and realize my own feelings about what happened...When Ds came home @ 3 weeks I was so happy to have my baby home and start my life as a mommy I buried it all away. I sometimes think that it "came out" via attacks)
It is sad to hear that there are others out there that are also going through this, but good to know that you can get through it!
You are a strong woman! Thank you for sharing your story.
