Healing from disapointing\traumatic birth

[manou]

Hello beautiful mothers!
One of my very best friends recently gave birth to a beautiful boy. Her labour and birth though went very differently from what she had anticipated....she ended up being transfered to the hospital, baby delivered with forceps and baby had an apgar of 0. Baby had to be hospitalised for a week. She is very in tune with her body, natural health oriented so al this took her by surprise.
This made me reflect on birth a lot and I have decided not only to think about it, but to do some research on the subject for one of my class.
How does one heal from a birth that was disapointing\ traumatic?
HOw does this affect the desire for more children, the attachment to the baby?
What is the fathers role in all this? What ressources does a woman have to help her?
I know I have many questions ans I'm not looking for specific answers as I know it is different for every woman. If anyone has insights, wanted to share their story, their path to healing or feelings after birth.
Do you think just letting it go works or the body remembers and this issues needs to be delt with?
Thank you very, very much for your answers from the bottom of my heart. This subject is dear to me. I really want to help women in this lifetime...through the joys and the tears.

[Angierae]

I am sorry for your friend! My 1st birth was extremely traumatic, and it took a lot of getting over. For me, it didn't affect my feeling toward my baby, just my feelings about myself, and anger at what I felt was a botched birth by the assembled team. All of my mothering successes helped the healing along -- breastfeeding and slinging and responsive parenting made me a confident parent, and I began to detach fromt he birth some. Also talking about it a lot and researching what happened, and how things could have gone differently. I began to become more comfortable with certain interentions that truely were necessary (also more angry at the ones that weren't). The AWESOME birth of my second child reaffirmed my confidence in myself and the birth process.

I would let your friend talk talk talk as much as she is able. The more times I went over the events the more I began to accept it. Also praise the ehck out fo her for all the good decisions she made along the way and how awesome and strong she is for giving birth.

[ChattyCat]

I would say to find someone who has been there, done that in a similar circumstance and has similar views on childbirth. It can be very difficult to talk to others who don't value natural childbirth. Or even to talk to those who do value natural childbirth, if they have not been in a traumatic situation, because the things they say unintentionally can frequently make you feel worse.

It took me about 18 months to process my ds's birth. And, while I'm ok with it now, it still saddens me. Eventually, you just have to accept what has happened and the consequences it brings for the future. The hard part is getting to the stage of acceptance.

[bri276]

For me the labor and delivery in and of itself was okay- not what I really wanted- but okay besides question of meconium- however my baby was found to have a cleft palate and not breathing well immediately after delivery - that was the extent of the information I received at that time and she was whisked away after I held her for a very brief moment.
I was inconsolable and worse, no one, even my own mother or husband, tried to console me by saying anything like "she'll be ok" - after crying hysterically for what seemed like 45 minutes a voice within me told me she would be all right and I suddenly stopped crying. She spent 5 days in the NICU- after the first night there were no problems besides feedings and in that we are very lucky.
I know for so many ppl the L&D and NICU experiences were significantly more stressful than mine, but still compared to what I thought would happen it was traumatic. Six months later the scenes replay themselves in my mind.
Once my baby was home in my arms I felt much better. But this is likely my only child and therefore I feel I've been robbed of the birth experience I dreamed of. I can say very honestly it did not affect bonding/attachment, we are as attached as can possibly be. :) If anything, it made me *more* attached because I've not wanted to let her out of my sight since I got her home from the NICU. As far as my husband, I feel it was hard for him to try to be the strong one and did not know how to make me feel better, and bitter that his child is the one who had to have problems (he has since made comments when friends of ours had babies that they "get to be the lucky ones"- I discourage this attitude). I feel that no one can truly help anyone who is going thru this unless they have been thru it themselves- but validating and respecting the mother's feelings is important as is not downplaying it and expecting that she will just deal with it and get over it.
If there is a way to just let it go, I haven't found it yet. It doesn't rule my life but will creep up on me at unsuspecting times like in the car or shower when I'm not focused on something else. I don't think I will ever feel happy about the way things went. I can't imagine being at a place in my life where I can be at peace with having my baby ripped out of my arms and taken from me for the first precious days of her life- it was too awful. Could have been MUCH more awful, yes, but still, it will never feel right or okay.

[wombatclay]

I did everything right...years of yoga and bellydance and nutrition turned into months of sitting on birth balls and prenatal yoga and walking, I had a doula, a wonderful family practitioner with plenty of homebirth experience, I'd read every book and paper and was confident and strong....and I wound up with a c-section after 32+hours of active labor. Sometimes these things just happen and even now after almost 10 months I know I'm not completely healed emotionally and mentally from the experience.

I think birth trauma is hard to pin down since there is no clear cut definition...ie, no list of "Things that will Traumatize Mama" since each woman reacts to a situation differently.

How does one heal from a birth that was disapointing\ traumatic?
Support from family and friends can help, especially being able to talk with someone who has BTDT. Having people around you who will let you cry and scream and second guess and stamp your feet...without feeling like they have to tell you "it's okay" or "it's not your fault" or any other phrase that seems like it would help but really isn't what mama wants to hear. Being with people who will just hold you and tell you that you're loved but who wont try and force you to "cheer up...you have an adorable little baby".

HOw does this affect the desire for more children, the attachment to the baby?

For me at least, right off the bat, I felt like I'd failed. How could I, of all people, not have had a natural birth? My mother and female relatives all had natural deliveries of 10+lb babies, I was the natural birth advocate among my friends, I was the "crazy" woman who believed natural birth was not just possible but totally normal. And I had a c/s. My dh tells me that even in the OR I was apologizing for the c/s and asking when we could try again so I could "do it right". This was really hard for me to deal with...it wasn't so much that I wanted more children (which I did...I've always wanted 2 or 3) but that I wanted to be pregnant again so that I could "do" birth again and get it right the second time. My dh really helped me work through this and while we plan on ttc soon, it's because we're ready for another baby regardless of how they choose to arrive. (though honestly, I STILL dream of getting it right...I'm working on it...).

And for attachment, well, I was massively and amazingly attached to dd despite her birth situation...as if she and I had survived the same tragedy and still had each other, if that makes sense. She was the only good thing I was taking from that birth experience and as a result she meant the world to me. I know that some women feel the other way and just don't want to see the baby....and that they feel horribly guilty about this reaction!

What is the fathers role in all this? What ressources does a woman have to help her?

My dh was a rock....a real rock. He let me cry and he held me and he made the experience the best he could. I know he was scared and traumatized too (nothing like having your wife and child in surgery to scare the pants off a sleep deprived parent to be) and he was amazing. And for weeks he was dd's primary care giver since I reacted poorly to the surgery and could hardly walk for the first month, let alone carry dd up and down the stairs in our home or get into and out of bed easily. So a partner can play a really important role in helping a mama cope when her birth wasn't what she'd expected.

And as for resources...sadly, there aren't a lot. If you can't rely on your partner or your family, you could try to find a post-partum doula or home nurse, preferably one who is familiar with traumatic births or ppd and NFL or AP mamas. A therapist might help, but I personally had a terrible experience with a ppd therapist so I can't say that helped me. In general, a mama with a traumatic birth is on her own unless she developes some sort of medical complication (ptsd or ppd for example). Even within the generally supportive community of AP and NFL mamas there can be a lot of unintentionally hurtful comments or responses, and a BTDT mama is an essential support person...if there's anyone your friends can talk to who has had a similar birth experience, that would be the best!

Sorry to go on for so long, but I guess you pushed a button! I hope your friend finds a path to healing...

[manou]

Thank you very, very much....from the bottom of my heart. :heartbeat Thank you for sharing with me your stories, you path. I will make a copy of this thread for my friend as I'm pretty sure she would like to read others experience with this.
Maybe a big problem is that it is easier in our society it seems to ask: why? And not: How..how to I learn, deal, sit with this? How do I move forward.

Unfortunetly her partner's views on the situation in more a: let's not relieve the past approach!?
But I tend to think, as she does...that the body remembers, part of you remember even when you try to just push it away.....

[natashaccat]

In my mind there are two classes of traumatic birth:

1) where you do everything "right" education, support, etc. and something goes wrong.

2) You go in w/o a full edication/understanding of birth and birth interventions and subsequently make descisions the you wouldn't have had you understood their implications.

Not sure where I'm going with this but I think the road to healing may be different for different sorts of traumas? I know from experience that there's is tons of self blame that goes with the second class.

[Jasmyn's Mum]

I wrote my dr at the time a long letter that just poured out all of my feelings towards her and where I think she went wrong. I never heard anything back from her but that wasn't the point. I just needed to get it out of my system.

[PinkSunfish]

I definately agree that talking to people who have been through similar, especially when they also wanted as natuarl a birth as possible, is extremely helpful.

There is nothing worse than hearing "but all that matters is a healthy baby in the end" or "I think I must just ahve a higher pain threshold" from people who had good experiences.

My birth experience didn't affect my bonding with my baby but I had a lot of wonderful familial support in the first few weeks. It did make me feel very ambivalent about having a second child for wuite a long while and I would say it took at least a year for me to greive about it.

Now I can look forward to the birth of my second child. I have to say though, I don't know how I will react if I don't manage a VBAC. I know that one shouldn't look to another birth to heal you from the previous one but I also know I will be completely gutted never to experience a vaginal birth.

[jennica]

If anyone has insights, wanted to share their story, their path to healing or feelings after birth.

Eight months ago I gave birth to my first child. I was not uneducated about birth, but looking back I think I was naive, but that is something you can only know in retrospect. It was supposed to be a hospital water birth in a birthing room with midwives. When I got to the hospital I was treated rudely by everyone I encountered, put in a triage room and not allowed to use the bathroom until they were done monitoring the baby's heartrate, then put in a regular L&D room and told that I could not use the tub in this room. I was in very intense pain and I panicked and asked for drugs, nubain, and it took 45 minutes to get it injected. I was only in labor at the hospital for three hours (labor was a total of six hours, really fast for me since I was told that labor lasts a long time for first time mothers and there was no early labor phase for me to get used to things) and so 45 minutes was a huge chunk of that. I was given countless vaginal exams, including very forceful ones that I screamed for the midwife to "get out", I was scolded for screaming and talking which was my way of coping, I was manipulated into allowing my water to be broken (for no reason that I can figure out) and I was given an episiotomy against my screams of protest due to a dropping heartrate in the baby. The midwife was overheard saying "I can't control her" and she said many other rude things to me. The nurses absolutely hated me and were happy to show that fact to me throughout the labor. The fun did not end there as I was then punished for laboring the wrong way (in their eyes) and after my baby was born, though we were both perfectly fine, he was taken off the bed (I didn't even get to touch him) and put in the hospital bassinet while he was poked and prodded for 20 minutes by the mean nurses. They then handed my baby to my husband (whom they all showed ample respect to) who finally let me hold him a few minutes later. He was quickly taken away again as I needed to be stitched up and they wanted to bring the baby to the nursery even though I had been told that rooming in was the hospitals policy, it wasn't in the L&D rooms. So while I was being stitched up and yelled at to relax and given more nubain without consent and being threatened to give me morphine, I also had to fight the hospital staff so that they wouldn't take my baby, who I was hardly allowed to hold, out of my room. I won the fight and two and half hours after he was born we transferred to a birthing room and I was finally helped to breastfeed him, which no one made any attempt to help me with before this time.

The midwife wasn't satisfied with the level of trauma I received during the birth, so the day afterward she made sure to add insult to injury by coming into my room and waking me up to tell me that I labored abnormally and that it disturbed her and she had been thinking about it all night, and insisting I tell her where that was coming from. She basically shamed me at an extremely vulnerable time to make herself feel better.

I didn't have a birth plan, but my wishes were noted on my chart, they just didn't read that. I did have a doula, and she helped me immensely, though there were a few things that we probably weren't clear on that we should have been. I know now that there were things I could have done differently that may have helped, but at the time I didn't know any better and I thought I was doing so much to have the birth I wanted. I just assumed that midwives gave people respectful, natural, empowering births. I had no idea that was not always the case.

I'm curently in therapy with a very awesome therapist who has Mothering magazines in her waiting room, so she is very suportive of AP and knowledgable about natural birth and everything. I have PTSD from the birth (and a childhood trauma which the birth trigured).

HOw does this affect the desire for more children, the attachment to the baby?

I desire very much to have another birth, a homebirth this time with a hands-off midwife. I have the birthplan written and I think about it often. However that is seperate from wanting another baby, I'm not sure yet about that, I am really struggling right now with the one I have. I think it will happen but it may take a while.

I do have some problems with attachment. I am bonded to my baby and always have been, but the guilty feelings I have about the birth crop up in other aspects of parenting him all the time. I of course feel horrible that I exposed him to drugs when I didn't want to, that I didn't hold him right away or ever have any skin to skin contact in those first few days. I feel like a failure at motherhood because of those issues and that hinders attachment to my baby.

What is the fathers role in all this?

He was very supportive for about two weeks and then he decided it was time to move on. He fluctuates between being supportive and humoring my obsessive questioning about the birth, to being angry that that's all we ever talk about. When things are better for awhile he is glad and then when I go through a rough time he gets annoyed that things aren't getting better fast enough. He is also the object of my intense irritability and I harbor a lot of anger towards him for some things that happened during the birth and afterward. He is going through his own depression, and rightly so, as things were traumatic for him too and his expectations of life with a new baby are not what he was looking forward to at all.

What ressources does a woman have to help her?


Find a good therapist. Other than that, I never found anything very helpful. I told people, including a midwife at my six week check up (different one than the one at the birth) that I was depressed and she was very sympathetic, but didn't tell me what to do about it. I had to finally take care of it myself, but by then I had suffered for four months on my own. Friends and family were willing to talk to me about the birth for the first few weeks, but after that people didn't understand my need to discuss it.

Do you think just letting it go works or the body remembers and this issues needs to be delt with?

In my case, I think that trying to let it go would have led to serious consiquences. I know that my body remembers it because if I go to the doctors or dentist I panic. If I drive through the city that the hospital is in I panic.

Also;

In my mind there are two classes of traumatic birth:

1) where you do everything "right" education, support, etc. and something goes wrong.

2) You go in w/o a full edication/understanding of birth and birth interventions and subsequently make descisions the you wouldn't have had you understood their implications.



What about the class where you optimistically assume that things will work out the way you planned them, and not only are you faced with your plans falling apart, but you also are faced with the care providers who you thought would treat you respectfully actually treating you abusively? One just assumes that everyone in attendance at their birth will consider it an honor and treat you with the support that you need. Being met with people who where violating me and disempowering me at every turn was a huge shock and greatly added to feelings of trauma about the event.

[bri276]

In my mind there are two classes of traumatic birth:

1) where you do everything "right" education, support, etc. and something goes wrong.

2) You go in w/o a full edication/understanding of birth and birth interventions and subsequently make descisions the you wouldn't have had you understood their implications.

Not sure where I'm going with this but I think the road to healing may be different for different sorts of traumas? I know from experience that there's is tons of self blame that goes with the second class.
I do know what you're saying, but I think there are other classes as well. sometimes you can know everything and try to do everything "right", and still make descisions that you question later, plus have unexpected things go wrong, so sometimes there's a third class that combines the first two. even ppl who are totally educated and informed can't make perfect desicions all the time, because the implications aren't always cut and dry, ykwim?

[tracylhl]

My first birth was quite traumatic. The most difficult thing to me is that others didn't find it terribly traumatic. My mom was there and her answer was, "Well, if you had just taken the epi...." and "It doesn't hurt THAT bad, stop!" Stuff like that. I found that after the birth I felt cheated and shocked. I suffered w/ all the symptoms of post-traumatic-stress-disorder: cold sweats in the middle of the night, night terrors, flashbacks, fearing my dh touching me or trying to have sex... What helped originally was talking to those who did understand - my midwife and other moms w/ traumatic births. What truly healed me was having an amazing delivery w/ my ds#2. Not everyone has that opportunity, though. It is so very hard. It is also why, as I prepare for my 4th and final live birth, I DESPERATELY want to get it right this time! I am doing all I can to find someone who will help me w/ a home birth and trying to finally live out the dream that I have for a wonderful delivery. Obviously, things can always go wrong and there are always surprises, but I want to have done all I can to "get it right".

[anonymommy]

What about the class where you optimistically assume that things will work out the way you planned them, and not only are you faced with your plans falling apart, but you also are faced with the care providers who you thought would treat you respectfully actually treating you abusively? One just assumes that everyone in attendance at their birth will consider it an honor and treat you with the support that you need. Being met with people who where violating me and disempowering me at every turn was a huge shock and greatly added to feelings of trauma about the event.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I hear and I understand.

I felt better a little under two years after the bad birth, about eight months after my UC. But it's still a shock to remember the bad birth. It still doesn't make any sense, but more sense than it did.

Truth: people can be ugly and false sometimes, and being around someone vulnerable tends to bring it out.

I hope you feel much better soon.

[faithfulmama]

Quick background: after a very healthy "textbook" pregnancy, and a planned homebirth, ( I was training to be a midwife at the time), I had an unexpectedly painful and hard to handle labor, and when my ds was born he made no respiratory efforts, he had an unusual amount of head molding, and after ems was able to resuscitate him he was transported to a nearby nicu where he spent his first 17 days. I had a 3rd degree tear, and pinched a nerve during the delivery so I was basically wheel-chair bound for the first 2 weeks. I saw him as much as was physically possible for me, and as a result we had a terrible time with breastfeeding, it took 3 months to get him actually nursing. Because he suffered from hypoxia at birth he was medicated with an anticonvulsant the first 6 months of life, and just recently was released from the pediatric neurologists care.

How does one heal from a birth that was disapointing\ traumatic?
It is a process. I am still healing, time has been a huge factor, and accepting that I am not personally guilty for what happened to him. ( I am a small woman and he was a largish baby, and family and some docs have stated that such a babe should have been born via c-section). I made what I still consider the best decisions regarding his birth, and I was looking out for his health. It has forced me to check what I supposedly believe and know about birth. Also I have been so blessed to have a healthy baby. Despite his rough entry he is totally okay.

HOw does this affect the desire for more children, the attachment to the baby?
I am definitely more hesitant to get pregnant again. Perhaps some fear still there, not knowing quite what went wrong last time. Not wanting a repeat. Also ds has been a very intense baby from the beginning. In terms of attachment, as soon as he was home from the hospital we have made every effort to resume the normal attachment as if it had never been interrupted. Establishing breastfeeding has been a HUGE tool in that. I am so greatful that I had the support to persevere when he WOULD NOT nurse. He is 18 months now and still going strong, and is definitely a mama's boy!

What is the fathers role in all this?
Well, DH was there from the beginning, the birth partner, major supporter in getting ds nursing. Just shared in the joys, pains, fears, sleep issues, etc.

What ressources does a woman have to help her?
Unfortunately, when things were the hardest for me, I wasn't aware of the resources available. I did use a private lactation consultant, which was a lifesaver, for encouragement, if nothing else. Since the birth I have found some NICU/preemie forums to connect with other moms. My family and DH have been very supportive, but I don't know anyone else IRL who has had a similar experience.

Do you think just letting it go works or the body remembers and this issues needs to be delt with?

I think in terms of getting past the experience, letting go does a lot. Purposefully not holding on to resentment you know? I can't resent that my birth didn't go as planned or that my child was sick, and I certainly can't resent people whose births/children are normal. I know I still have some fear in there, and I suspect that a lot of healing will come with a subsequent birth.

Anyway, I got a little carried away there, but it was probably therapeutic for me :)

[jennica]

Yes. Yes. Yes. I hear and I understand.

I felt better a little under two years after the bad birth, about eight months after my UC. But it's still a shock to remember the bad birth. It still doesn't make any sense, but more sense than it did.

Truth: people can be ugly and false sometimes, and being around someone vulnerable tends to bring it out.

I hope you feel much better soon.

Thank you.

[3ncountin]

My first birth was horrible and traumatic for many reasons but I think that my healing really began after the subsequent birth of my second child .But, my healing was not complete until the birth of my last baby which could have turned into a nightmare but didnt ,partly becuase of my belief in knowing what my body was telling me to do and partly because of a wonderful gentle and skilled midwife .I think it is so inportant to allow oneself to grieve over the traumatic birth and not let others put you down because you need that grieving process.