Ever feel like you're the only one who had a bad hospital birth?

[barefootpoetry]

I'm part of an IRL community of intelligent, enlightened women that are all passionate about birthing and parenting. Some have homebirthed, some have birthed with OBs, but the majority of them birthed with the hospital-based CNM group in this city. I did too with my first child. The difference between us, though, is that nearly all of them had positive, even wonderful, experiences with these CNMs at the hospital, and I did not. It pains me to hear them tell their birth stories and they say, "Oh yeah, So-and-So CNM was great, all the staff was so respectful, no one pushed drugs on me, I had an amazing natural birth, we got to hold her right away, they asked our permission for everything and didn't do anything without our consent...." etc. etc.

Whereas my birth was the polar opposite. So-and-So CNM was a cold, rude bitch, the staff either ignored me or treated me like an idiot, no one would stop talking about drugs even though I wanted a natural birth, no one listened to anything I said, I wound up with a C-section and had to beg a nurse to let me see my baby 4 hours later....it's a long story, but basically it was jsut a very humiliating, traumatic experience, and it's so difficult for me to hear that other women birthed with the same people at the same hospital and had such a great time. It makes me wonder why I didn't get all of that. Why were they so nice to these women and so condescending to me? Why did they respect their wishes but not mine? Was it because I was young (21 at the time)? Was it because I didn't do a good enough job asserting myself? What did I do wrong? Didn't I deserve a good birth too?

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Out of all the women in this community, I only know two others that didn't have good experiences with these CNMs at this hospital. All the other women couldn't be happier. It doesn't make sense to me. We all went in with the same wishes and desires, and out of all of us, just a very few were treated like crap. Why us? It's not fair.

[In Exile]

I hear you!

I gave birth with a midwife that everyone else seemed to love. They never had a problem getting their wishes respected, someone told me how great and supportive she was during the premature birth of their child I feel like I got the only "bad story" with a particular practice and midwife. And I will not set foot into their practice, that midwife still makes me mad, 19 months later.

I wrote it down here.
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=981803

So yes, I absolutely hear you.

[stormborn]

I suspect you might not be hearing the bad parts. While my hospital birth wasn't outright horrible it was bad enough to make me never want to go back. I'm sure it sounds pretty good to hear me tell it IRL because I'm ashamed that I allowed the midwife to pressure me into pitocin and staying for the full 2 days, etc., so I tend to skip over that part. I don't lie about it but neither do I go into how I wasn't strong enough to stand up for my own wishes or how I ended up with the one midwife in the practice who intimidated the hell out of me. It just sucks to admit to a weakness, that's all.

I'm sorry you didn't get the birth you deserved...you're not alone.

[claddaghmom]

Originally Posted by barefootpoetry

It makes me wonder why I didn't get all of that. Why were they so nice to these women and so condescending to me? Why did they respect their wishes but not mine? Was it because I was young (21 at the time)? Was it because I didn't do a good enough job asserting myself? What did I do wrong? Didn't I deserve a good birth too?

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Out of all the women in this community, I only know two others that didn't have good experiences with these CNMs at this hospital. All the other women couldn't be happier. It doesn't make sense to me. We all went in with the same wishes and desires, and out of all of us, just a very few were treated like crap. Why us? It's not fair.

It's not related to birth, but I have the same issue with my previous university.

I had some bizarre and traumatizing experiences (e.g. a university employee walked into my dorm while I was in the shower, rifled through my underwear, left porno dvds on my shoes)

But anytime I talk about what happened, I get "looks" as if I am the crazy one, because the university is very popular. No one I know who goes there has a complaint.

It's all surreal.

[RiverMamma]

I live in a tiny homebirth town w/ 2 MW's I'v herd great things about the one I din't use, & I also know that some poeple don't get allong with her at all. In fact, my MW used to work with her, but had to go solo cuz people didn't want to work with her. But Like I said, I know many women who have had beautifull wonderfull births with her.

Have you read Imaculate Deception by Suzane Arms?

[paintedbison]

I would bet part of it could have been your age and the fact that it was your first pregnancy (sounds like it was from your post). Part of it just could be personality as well. Ever known someone who everyone loves at work or wherever and you just couldn't figure out why? Sometimes we just don't click with the same people.

It could have been an off day for them as well. Maybe you got the worst midwife and worst nurse together on their worst day. Who knows? I don't think hearing how everyone else is happy lessens your problems.

I agree with another poster, though, there probably are others out there who have been less than thrilled as well. You just haven't heard from them.

[ShwarmaQueen]

Originally Posted by stormborn

I suspect you might not be hearing the bad parts.

This is exactly what I was thinking. I suspect that as long as your friends had a vaginal delivery, they're probably going to leave out the parts that disappointed them, or maybe they don't even remember them because their memory is skewed from happiness. KWIM? Of course since you didn't get the birth you wanted you remember all the bad parts!

[La Rune]

Similar.

I wanted a homebirth so badly, ended up transferring and in the end I would have given anything for *just* a vaginal birth. I had a cesarean which I now think was totally unnecessary. They refused to bring my baby to me for 6 hours. The pain of remembering is horrible but worse is, my SIL talks about her birth like it was nothing. And our LOs are only 3 weeks apart.

She was at the same hospital 3 weeks later and immediately got an epidural and pitocin. She laid flat on her back in bed and felt nothing. All the stuff I was terrified of having because I thought it would lead to more interventions, like the cesarean I was afraid of and ended up having anyway. But she had a painless vaginal birth. She lounged in bed all day with her DH holding her hand (they didn't let mine into the OR until after they started cutting me!) and people catering to her. Her baby was born after 8 hours of "labor", with only 2 pushes, and she got to hold her immediately.

[MeepyCat]

Barefootpoetry, how soon after birth are you talking to these women? And how many of them had doulas?

Both of these things will affect the quality of the *reported*, but not necessarily the actual, experience. It is genuinely possible that you were treated differently by the staff than they were, and that they are genuinely and reasonably happy with their experiences.

It's also possible that they haven't gotten to the point in processing where they can really express how they feel about their births. I had a sh!tty birth. For about a month afterwards, if asked, I would tell you how great the epidural was - and to put in perspective, my epidural FAILED during transition and could not be made to work again. It made me immobile, it didn't work, and I told people how much I loved it. I was so lucky, I said, that the epi allowed me to rest so that I'd have the energy for all that pushing I had to do. It wasn't until about eight weeks later that it started to occur to me that most of the problems I had were the direct result of stupid labor management choices, most of which were made by the hospital. That, for example, the five hours of purple pushing could possibly have been cut short by some adjustments to the bed. So keep that possibility in mind.

The other thing that happens on occasion, is that, by providing emotional support to maternity patients, doulas occasionally make those patients believe that their hospital experiences were good. A doula might describe a birth as awful - alarmist OB tries to demand ridiculous interventions, mother caves to pressure, bad staff, bad everything. But the mother who hired the doula won't see it that way - she'll think things started to go wrong, not what she wanted, but she got such wonderful support from doula in coping with it all, and then she was so glad she was in hospital to deal with what turned out to be a major (possibly avoidable) emergency...

And then, too, some hospitals treat patients with doulas better than patients without.

[barefootpoetry]

Originally Posted by RiverMamma

Have you read Imaculate Deception by Suzane Arms?

No, I haven't. I've heard about it, though. One of the women in our group has a lending library of birth-related books so I will see if she has it. I just borrowed Born In The USA from her and am almost finished.

Originally Posted by paintedbison

I would bet part of it could have been your age and the fact that it was your first pregnancy (sounds like it was from your post).

Yes, it was my first pregnancy. DH also speculates that I got treated like crap because I was on Medicaid. I know some people will swear up and down that these things don't affect how a patient is treated, and personally I doubt it had much to do with my experience, but I'm sure there are some who would be all too quick to look down on a young, unmarried mother on Medicaid.

Originally Posted by MeepyCat

Barefootpoetry, how soon after birth are you talking to these women? And how many of them had doulas?

At all stages, really. Some birthed years ago. Some birthed months ago. Some had several births with the same CNMs.

The doula thing is a good point, though. I didn't have a doula, I had no support person at all in fact. There are two women in our group who are student midwives and they do doula services for those of us who birth in the hospital. Almost all of us have had one or both of them as doulas. I'm sure that helped their birth experiences tremendously. I hadn't considered that before.

[angelpie545]

I wouldn't be surprised if you were treated badly because you were young and on Medicaid. I am so sorry that happened to you.

[magnoliasmama]

barefootpoetry, I feel your frustration. I hired a practice of homebirth midwives that are very well known in my area. Everyone absolutely raved about them. The most experienced midwife has been catching babies almost as long as I have been alive. During pregnancy I really trusted that they would be my advocate and much needed cheerleader in case of transport, but when things went terribly wrong I felt abandoned, confused, and left in the dark. The last thing I remember before being gassed for the c-section was the baby's heartbeat going dead. Not only were these women irresponsible with my maternity care (I had been showing signs of PIH and pre-e for weeks which eventually developed into HELLP), some of the things said postpartum were extremely insensitive.

After my birth, I really wondered why I seemed to be their only dissatisfied client. I sort of came to the conclusion that most women were happy with these midwives because most births are more or less normal. It's really easy to do and say the right things to a woman who has just had this picture perfect, beautiful birth. She's already happy (oxytocin overload). It's not so easy to be truly empathetic and compassionate towards women who have had births as complicated and diverse as ours (the traumatized).

Soon enough other dissatisfied clients started appearing. I didn't really even have to look for them. One at yoga class, one a friend of a friend, two on motheringdotcommune.

Personally, I think even midwives need better training for the emotional aspect of when things go wrong.

So barefootpoetry... I'm sure you're not the only one.

[MomtoXane]

I had a very similar experience! Everyone I talk to says this hospital and this midwife is the best for natural birth, but it's proven to be the opposite for me. So my birth story has two sides...

The first is that I went into labor naturally and had a wonderful successful vbac with a supportive OB and doula. I encourage other women to do the same.

On the other hand my labor and delivery was awful! My husband left me and went home to sleep. The nurse left me in triage for 8hrs after giving me a horrid sleeping pill. I had to call my doula three times before she showed up, just as I was getting my epideral. The epi only worked on one side and left the other side so completely numb it was useless. After 20hrs of active labor my OB still couldn't manage to make it for the delivery. I could not hold my baby right after because he had to be deep suctioned for meconium. I also had 14 stitches for minor tears (the OB said it was only 1cm, but I'm not sure why there were so many). And so much for my birth plan, it wasn't in my file and by the time the OB/Nurses were available I wasn't in any position to present it.

I thought that I had a great support system and a perfect plan (and back-up plan) to have an amazing birth experience. I'm still resentful that it didn't work out that way...

[hollycat]

i think the moral of the story is that birth is just a highly individual, and often unpredictable thing. and as much as we despretely want to control it, because its such an important life event, and because it is a bit scary and our reaction to anything scary is to try to control it, we cant always control it. sometimes we have to surrender to circumstances. and thats not always a bad thing.

and the other moral is there are many variables in the birth experience, and one of them is YOU!

while i think it is totally normal to be disappointed in a less than ideal birth, and normal to be jealous of others who had the birth they wanted or a wonderful birth wtih the same staff as you did....

i personally would stop at questioning if they were LYING about it. i think even when we're jealous of women, we are secretly happy that fellow women had good births, arent we?

[jenneology]

I don't get it either. A woman in my church gave birth at the same hospital with the same midwife that was so abusive towards me, the same day I was in labor. This woman's DD was born the day before my son who was born the next day after wicked witch was off shift. That mom had what I've heard is a great non-medicated birth with that midwife. Who probably at the same time, or later that day tried to undermine every one of my desires and wishes based on her desire to 1) put me out of my misery and 2) get me in and out of the birthing room. I don't get how two different women on the same day, with the same midwife could have so very different experiences. Of course, I haven't talked to this mother about her birth experience to know what she really experienced, but from what I've heard, she loved the experience. I don't get it.

I also understand feeling like no one else had a negative hospital experience. I was part of a community of women who all hospital birthed their babies, and they thought I was crazy for being upset with the care I received. Those moms thought there was something wrong with me for not bowing down to the "experts" and letting them do whatever was convenient for them. I eventually left that group of women and was part of creating Solace for Mothers Online Community because I didn't want any other mamas to feel so ostracized and without compassion after abusive, disappointing and traumatic birth experiences.

[jenneology]

Originally Posted by angelpie545

I wouldn't be surprised if you were treated badly because you were young and on Medicaid. I am so sorry that happened to you.

This might provide some insight into why the mom who birthed the day before me with the same midwife who was so abusive towards me at the same hospital was treated differently than I was. That mom would have been on medicaid (and around here nonmedicated vaginal births are more likely for people on medicaid) and I was on private insurance. Maybe it was a matter of I was in a different category of services because my insurance company would pay?

but ha! what a joke, it meant I would have paid 40% out of pocket of whatever uneccesary interventions they pushed on me. I should have been on medicaid too but was too proud.

It would have been related to age because this mom is the same age as me in pretty much the exact same circumstances. But it would have been that she was on Medicaid and I was on private insurance. It really makes me wonder if that's the difference in how we were treated?