2 Traumatic Births and What Next

[eastkygal]

I've just been wondering where to post about my feelings and then I see this. Great! DD1 was an unnecessarean, and DD2 was an attempted HBAC that ended as a hospital transfer and another c-section. I sooo wanted to give birth naturally. I wanted to push a baby out!!! Yes, DD2's birth was much better than DD1's, but I'm grieving it anyway. I won't be having any other children, but I have this feeling like I need to try again. Not for the need of another baby, but the need of a "normal" experience. Now, I'm having issues with my birth control and things just seem to be popping up no matter how hard I try to put it all behind me and move on. I'm just needing to vent.

Anyone who's interested can read Ivy's birth story that I posted in Birth Stories awhile ago.

[changingseasons]

Originally Posted by eastkygal

I won't be having any other children, but I have this feeling like I need to try again. Not for the need of another baby, but the need of a "normal" experience.

I know how you feel. I really want a 'do-over' so that I can have that perfect, special experience. I really feel like I was robbed.

[muttmom92]

I feel the exact same way. I wish I could go back in time. It is starting to get easier now that DS is nearing 2. The pain and desire were so raw in the beginning.

[eastkygal]

It's good to know that I'm not a nutcase. Wanting another pregnancy just for the being pregnant and getting to try birthing again. I know that that is not a healthy reason to even pursue another pregnancy. But, the thought is still there. I think too about how this has effected DH, and our family size. I wonder if I would have even had my second had I not been healing from the birth of my first. We just set out to have one child. I also wonder if we would have had more if DD2's birth had not been a surgery.

I still have the "Born at Home" birth certificate. I can't find the strength to throw it out. What am I still clinging to?

[Friday13th]

I totally get that...I always swore I wanted my kids at least 3 years apart but I'm feeling the urge to rush a second just to prove I can push out a baby as well as to experience the peaceful hands-off birth I wanted the first time.

[First Time Mama]

I totally get it too. After DS was born by very a very unwanted and unexpected c section I wanted to put him back inside so I could re-do the birth! I alternate between wanting to get pregnant so I can have another chance at having that empowering, beautiful homebirth that I wanted sooo badly this last time and being terrrified at trying again. Terrified that I will make all the right decisions again, and try my hardest, and end up with another traumatic birth. I really don't feel like it's that much to ask for what lots of other women get, a normal, natural birth, a baby born through my vagina like babies are meant to be. I have that desire too, but I'm not really ready for another child yet, so I need to hold off. Plus, my husband is going to go back to school, and we're really going to have a lot of change in our lives, and that would just such a stressful time to be pregnant again. I think I just need to reevaulate the desire periodically, until maybe I can feel when it will be the right time. I think there will still be fear though.

[jenneology]

One of my first responses (at 4 months postpartum) to the trauma of my son's birth was to want the do-over birth. As a way to say, look! I know better now. I can do it right next time.

Looking back that desire was still very premature. My learning and thought about birth has come along way since then. First, my body wasn't physically ready for another pregnancy--for that matter at 20 months postpartum, its still not or I'd be pregnant again. Also at that point, I hadn't yet learned that there is some trauma from birth that cannot be avoided (I'm just now getting to this point). I can make contingency plans all day long about the what if's but the fact still remains that there is some percentage of even doing "everything right" that trauma and extreme pain and complications can happen. I've had to accept that making all the right choices, finding all the right HCPs cannot prevent trauma in all cases, especially not with the climate in the United States of fear of liability.

I recently heard on NPR a story of an Iraqi war vet who returned with severe PTSD. He talked about joining the Muslim Student Union at his university as a form of invivo exposure therapy (that's not the term his therapist used, but its close) to get him over his fear and paranoia of Muslim and Iraqi people. I think that's mamas are unconsciously looking for healing from their trauma by exposing themselves to the trauma stimuli once more in hopes of dealing with it differently the next time. Yeah it is a form of treatment for PTSD, but it also one that I've decided not to try. I beleive, especially, when I was 4 months postpartum that I wasn't prepared for the similarities of experience, even though many things would have been different. In fact, I still fear that I'm not ready for the similiarities of the experiences even though I've accepted that I want to be pregnant as soon as its possible.

[eastkygal]

Jenneology- I completely agree here. I did do everything right and had a great birth team who was with me all the way the second time. I had definitely learned my lesson the first time. My second c-section was a necessary one on all fronts. I knew it. DD1 would not have had to be a c-section. Then, there is the past... my mom had 3 c-section births, and was told she could never birth naturally. I fought for myself. I'm not my mother. She could have birthed. I could birth. I wanted so bad to show them what's what. It just hurts my heart so, and I don't think anybody knows just how much. I want so bad to know exactly play-by-play what went wrong, and I'll be ordering my medical records soon from the hospital so I can see the docs point-of-view.