I'm so glad this tribe is taking off. I didn't know if anyone would find it here on FYT.
I guess I should tell my story too. So sorry that this is so long, I tried to make it interesting
I think I'll just list the things that made it traumatic for me;
1. I had past unresolved trauma. At age 2.5 I had an operation on my bladder. I had memories of doctors, hospitals, nurses, and pain. I had body memories of pain in the same area of the body that labor and birth would affect.
2. I wanted a natural water birth, so I hired a doula (just one that someone recommended, I never did the interview thing) and I searched for a hospital that had both a birthing tub and midwives on staff. I chose one in the city 45 minutes away from home. It looked good on the web site, they had a wing of birthing suites complete with a soaking tub in each room, plus two water birth tubs that could be set up. The down side was the there were ten midwives on staff, and you could not choose who you would see for an appointment, or who you would have for the birth. When I arrived at the hospital, all the birthing rooms were full, I got a regular L&D room. I also got L&D nurses, who hate the midwife patients because they don't just lay in the bed and get an epidural right away. I did not get to use a tub, either a soaking tub in my room, or a birthing tub. I had to check into traige, remove my own clothes and change into a gown, was not allowed to use the bathroom and was forced to lay on my back for 20 minutes while they monitored the baby. I was then transferred to an L&D room, which was gross and dirty and small and had tons of medical equipment all over the place, not like the birthing rooms at all.
3. My labor was fast for a first time mother. Everyone told me it was gonna be long, because a first time mom always takes a long time. Umm, no. It was a total of 6 hours long, from the moment I woke up with my first contractions, to the moment my son was born. I was only in the hospital for 3 hours. I dilated from 3 - 8 in 1 hour
: and then from 8 -9.5 in 30 minutes, and then from 9.5 - 10 in another hour and then I pushed for 30 minutes. Yikes. I learned that fast labors are not fun. It was kind of like being hit by a freight train, and then having that freight train speed along at 100 miles an hour with you trying to hang onto it so you don't fall off. And then that freight train comes to a halting stop and you fly off of it and crash to the ground and your then expected to get up and walk away like nothing happened. And that was 6 hours, I can't imagine these 3, 2, or 1 hour
births that I read about on here!
4. The pain. Oh my God, the pain. It was unreal. My labor was fast, for me anyway, and the contractions were just piling on top of each other. The pain was horrendous. At a certain point it felt like the pain was not coming from my own body anymore, but it was just in the room and all around me, and I couldn't contain it, and it was absolutely terrifying. I started screaming, like really screaming at the top of my lungs. I had asked for nubain (even with pain like that I was afraid of the epidural because when I was 2.5 and in the hospital I was cathiterized and I was more terrified of that than the pain that was happening) and it took 45 minutes for them to get it into my vein. That's 45 minutes out of a 2.5 hour labor, and 30 minute pushing phase. That was a LONG time to be wating for meds. They could not hit a vein, it took 3 people several tries. My veins are slippery, deep, and burst when needles poke into them, so I had bruises up and down both arms for weeks after the birth.
5. The treatment by every single person I encountered at the hospital from the moment I walked into the emergency room doors, to the moment I left the L&D room of horrors. Every single receptionist, staff person, nurse, and midwife I encountered were mean, physically and verbally abusive to me, and treated me with hatred, contempt, or as if I were not even there in the room and was not worth talking to, making comfortable, or conferring with about my own care or my baby's care. My doula and Dh were treated with the utmost respect, and I was treated like an insane child who all the staff thought they had to keep scolding, condesending, ridiculing, or make decisions for. I labored very externally, I cried, yelled, vocalized, talked constantly, and screamed. They all hated this, and let me know it. The midwife I got stuck with challenged everything I said. She wouldn't just let me talk, she had to attempt to control me and shut me up. She kept telling everyone in the room how she couldn't control me, or couldn't communicate with me. She did several VE's without consent, after I said "no", or while I was screaming "no". She attempted to either manually dilate my cervix, or push back a "lip" (a lip noone would have known was there if she wasn't checking me every 5 minutes
: ) and I screamed at her to get out and she finally did, and was very mad at me for making her. She wanted total control and she did not like how vocal I was about what I did and didn't want. She manipulated me into breaking the water (and I had thought that ds would be born in the caul
) and she did an episiotomy against my screams of "no, I don't want it". Ds's heart rate was low, very low, and not bouncing back up, so the epi may have been warranted, but the way she did it was very disrespectful of me.
6. I panicked a few times. Ds's heart rate was a constant worry, and durring pushing it dropped down to the 60's and only bounced back up to the 90's. The midwife made me get on hands and knees and then hang onto the back of the bed, which was a great position to push in, but I hated being backwards and not in control or able to see what was happening. Because of the dropping heart rate, I was told to push hard durring contractions, so I couldn't just push with my urges as I had planned. I had to wear an oxygen mask and felt like I couldn't breath. I was then cut, and my son came sliding out. My worst fear for the birth was tearing, and I ended up with an epi and a third degree tear.
7. Ds's cord was cut before I even knew what was happening. I was in shock. I didn't see it, even though I was right there, and I feel really sad about that because it is a really significant moment. I had no say as to when they cut it. He was born with apgars of 8 and 9, yet they cut his cord a couple minutes after the birth. I just assumed that midwives would just leave it attached until I wanted it cut. Of course I know better now, but it was a shock then how unatural my natural birth was. They took Ds off the bed and across the room before I even got to touch him. He was over there for over 20 minutes, for no reason whatsoever, just so the nurses could do all the routine torture that they like to do to newborns. He layed there screaming for 20 minutes, and I still feel guilty about not saying anything and making them give him to me. At the time I was just in shock, and by then I thought I didn't have a voice anymore, so I just stopped using it.
8. Stitching. It sucked. It was worse than anything else because Ds was not in my arms and had not breastfed yet. I had gotten to hold him for 20 minutes, and then they took him again. I had to be numbed with shots twice because it took so long for the doctor who does the stitching to show up. She was mean too, just like everyone else, and chastized me the entire hour it took her to stitch me. She kept pushing my legs back. She gave me more nubain without my consent. She ordered morphine for me, but I talked her into not giving it to me. She finally realized I could feel the stitches, but was still mean to me anyway.
9. While I was being stitched up a nurse came and told me that they needed to take Ds away and put him in the nursery. I had only gotten to hold him for about 20 minutes, I desperately wanted to breastfeed him, and I was currently being chastized by the doctor who was in between my legs with a sharp needle. So I sort of got my voice back and told them no way are you taking my baby away, and they finally decided to transfer me to a midwife birthing room, because one just happened to open up at this time.
10. It took three hours before anyone on the hospital staff thought of helping me breastfeed. They never once put Ds on me skin to skin, and I was too out of it to remember to do it. They were obsessed with the baby warmer and kept putting him in it during his first few hours. He spent more time in it then with us. I even asked to warm him myself, but they left his clothes on so it didn't work, and they put him back in the wamer again. His breathing started getting too fast and I was told he had low blood sugar. I consented to formula, since he would not nurse at all, and then later I was told that his blood sugar was not low, it was just getting lower. They manipulated me into giving him more formula and taking him to the nursery one night so I could rest.
I feel the most guilt over the things that happened from the point he was born until we left the hospital. However, I know that I was not myself at the time, and everything happened so fast that it took me a long time to readjust. Once we got home breastfeeding went fine, and I never gave him formula again.
Three days after the birth it all hit me, and I became depressed, anxious, sad, guilty, and totally and completely obsessed with the birth. The birth just kept running through my mind over and over again, and I had endless questions for DH about it, and I thought of nothing else, and talked of nothing else. I was devestated. For those first few months, I had this irrational feeling like I could actually go back and change it. I wouldn't throw anything away from the hospital, and I didn't want Ds to grow, or his cord to fall off, or anything like that, because I felt like it would be harder to go back and change it then.
Four months after the birth I started to go to therapy, which has helped. I have a great therapist. I was diagnosed with PTSD, PPD, and Anxiety. I started zoloft one year after the birth and am still on it. I'm still also in therapy. I have to heal from the trauma from when I was 2.5, from the birth, and from being raised in and leaving (9 months ago) a very controlling and cultish (by some standards) religion.
So here I am. I have more to say about it all, but I don't want to hog the thread. I'm sad to read about everyone elses experiences. I know how it is, and when I read your stories I see a lot of guilt, which is something I struggle with too. I wish I knew then what I know now, but you just can't go back, so I guess you just have to accept that. It's really hard though.
Hugs to all the mommas!
Follow Mothering