[Azreial]

I'm having a very hard time after my c/s. My twins were born at 34wk so they had to go right to the nicu. I got to seem them quickly after the c/s and then kinda for 10 minutes when they brought me up from recovery, the spinal hadn't worn off at all so I couldn't see much of anything. I didn't get to hold D for 18 hours and could only touch A's foot then. It wasn't for two more days that I could hold A and even then it wasn't for that long.

DH had the tv on and was flipping through the guide and the show that was on was a woman in labor and it didn't look good, lots of yelling (it might have been a repeat of the grey anotamy show, we don't watch it but I've scene commercials and it looked like the people). I saw maybe 3 minutes in a small box in the corner of the tv and I had wake up screaming nightmares for days afterwards, that was through a very drugged sleep.

It was a hard pg with a few ptl labor scares, one very tramatic. Now almost 6mths later I can't take the kids to the dr's myself because I have to take klonopin just to make it through without panicing, so I can't drive. For my pp exam (9weeks after) I was crying and shaking with the thought of going in the office. My dh had to drive around and talk me down for almost 15 minutes, that was after the klonopin.

I just been so aweful. I knew I had a 98% chance of having a c/s, baby A was transverse and had been since 20-something weeks. The c/s it self wasn't so bad. I went into labor on my own, labored at home for 6hrs with my doula trying to get him to turn. Everyone knew I was already very nervous in hospitals and kept things fairly calm. DH and my doula helped a lot too. The first few weeks I thought I was ok with it, dissapointed but ok but after the babies came home and I starting having time to process things it all came flooding out.

Things have to get better at some point right?

 

[doula mary]

YES!

Your birth was traumatic, in time.....you will accept this..always be a bit sad, but accept your birth.

I had a very very truamtic c-birth with my second child, thought....I was crazy afterwards.....really started gettting freaky when DH and I started talking about baby # 3.

What helped heal me, was becoming a doula......AND having a beautiful birth for # 3.

Mary

 

[Omsmom]

I have been avoiding this forum but finally got the courage today. I gave birth a year ago. I had wanted so much to give birth naturally and was really looking forward to the entire birthing experience but ended up having a c-section. After nearly 40 hours in labor, I was told that I wasn't dilating enough and the baby needed to come out so I had to undergo c-section. At my PP visit the OB told me I was too small and next time around I should just schedule a C-section

. I told him - no way!

Things were very rough after the baby's birth - my baby was born with a severe heart defect and underwent surgery when he was 5 weeks old. Of the first 8 weeks of his life, he spent nearly 4 weeks in the hospital and after that he had a whole range of other related issues and we had to keep going back to the hospital until he was 8 mo. As you may imagine, things were so rough that I never really had any time to recover or grieve. My baby needed me, I was trying to BF and pump to keep my supply when he was in the NICU. Despite my best efforts he stopped breastfeeding when he was a few weeks old because of his breathing difficulties but I continued to pump and kept giving him EBM until he was 8 mo old.

Over the last few months as my baby's health improved, I seem to keep going back to my own experience. I remember the whole c-section experience and feel like crying whenever I think of it. The memory that haunts me most is the nurse wheeling my baby away when he was less than 24 hrs old because he had fever. No one explained to me what was happening and I remember being so angry, shell-shocked that they could do this - take my baby away without explaining anything. After a lot of badgering, the neonatologist told my husband that this was routine. Whenever a NB gets fever they take him to the NICU immediately. By the time, I got down there, they had stuck a needle in him and done a spinal tap. I remember being so numb. I can't even think about it today without crying. But the worst was still to come because during the course of the night we found out the DS had a heart condition and the nightmare was just beginning....

I can completely associate with the PP of being in a constant state of grieving. I love my baby and have no negative feelings towards him but I wish I could change the way I gave birth. I feel like I failed in many ways - I couldn't give birth naturally and then after the first few weeks my baby stopped breast feeding. DH is very supportive and tells me I did my best still I feel like I've somehow failed. I keep wondering if I could have done something differently. I try to remind myself that I can't change what happened but I'm determined that my next birth experience (whenever that is) will be different.

Thanks for listening.

 

[kibba]

I'm so glad someone directed me to thirs thed. I have had a huge amount of guilt and sadness over my recent csection. I wanted a natural vag birth. I wanted to work hard and push, I wanted to have my baby the way woman have for hundreds of years. I'm not sure if I will ever "get over" this. I've been told I will have more children and my chance for a vagnatural birth..but honestly it's not the same as having all my children, or my first child that way. I'm just so upset. My baby is about 12 days old, and I just wonder if time can heal this pain I'm dealing with. I've dealt with it since before she was born when I knew I would need a csection. I just hate that I was 'handed' my baby. I hate that I didn't get to work hard to bring her into this world.

 

[veebee]

Oh...
mama...

I feel for you.

You are grieving and you have every right to be doing so.
You are freshly newly born yourself--you have just been born as a mother. And this can be a raw, vulnerable place. Let it be that way...feel what is there.... in every shade and color it is. Don't feel like you have to change it, or "heal" or anything else ...in this moment.

Time will bring you new ways of thinking about it. New ways of seeing yourself as a mother, as a woman.

These words of yours particularly touched me:

"I just hate that I was 'handed' my baby. I hate that I didn't get to work hard to bring her into this world."

Don't you see? You HAVE worked hard!! You fed yourself what you needed to , in order to grow your baby. You took care of yourself--and your baby--all those long months when she was growing inside you. And you continue to do so---there ain't no-one doing it for you!

You are being born through the initiation of birth--cesarean birth. No, it is not the way you hoped and imagined. Your trial and challenge is not through the intensity of labor and pushing with your body....your trial is NOW, how you are moving into motherhood. Yes?

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise--the hard work is only beginning! You have already tasted what it is to do the "next best thing".

You are a Birth Warrior--your battle was not what you expected...you have walked away with scars that you didn't want, that you didn't ask for.

But mama...you are a Warrior.

What does a warrior do best?

She keeps on going...she loves herself...she knows that her power and beauty do not come from what her birth looks like on paper, it comes from her essence---that willingness to keep on going and DOING WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE NEXT, even when that thing is what she absolutely DOES NOT WANT.

A true heroine you are--and all of you on this thread who have given birth through cesarean...

Don't give up your warrior glory!

~Virginia

 

[ccorrell]

virginia, thank you so much.

love, courtney

 

[jennkraig]

My baby is three months old now. I felt better for a while but I think I was just ignoring. Lately the trauma will peek out and make me take notice at odd times. I have seen a thrapist a couple of times and it is helping. I wish I could afford to go every week, I could certainly use it.
I do feel like a failure.
I hate to fail.
To me, not being the best is failing. I know that is crazy and wrong. I am trying to deal with it.
So I am here at the bastion of perfect mothers and perfect home, natural birthing, breastfeeding, organic cooking moms who practically glow with contentment and I didn't even push my baby out. My therapist asked me why I come to these boards if it hurts so much. I don't really have an answer. I guess I don't want to have failed. I want to still belong here, even though I feel like a flunky.
I still wish I could have the childbirth I wanted to have and now never will. I secretly think about having another kid. It won't happen cause five will be way too many and I just can't handle being pregnant again, but I fantasize about it.

The toll the c/s took on my body is hard to deal with too. I don't know if I will ever be happy with my body again. I even joined a gym recently. I haven't worked out since college. I suppose that is a good thing that has come from all this, better cardiovascular health. haha
How to love myself again? I don't know. I hope some of you have some advice on all of that. Sorry for the rambling post.

 

[Pam England]

Hi Jennifer,
I read your post today, along with many others. I am deeply moved by your post, your grief, and your question, How do I love myself again?

After my unexpected cesarean (by the way, I too was into natural living and even a homebirth midwife at the time), I could not love myself for a long time.
And, at the time, being in the natural birth community, every time I heard or saw a natural birth, it was like salt in a wound; it was bittersweet, because I wanted it for other women, but I grieved that I could not have it.

I too thought my body had failed me, I was ashamed of my scar. I kept examining my beliefs around cesarean birth, around my birth--until one day, years later, I could finally tell my very disappointed and angy inner-Child, the part of me that felt victimized and ashamed, that it was not my "fault" It is not your fault, either Jennifer. Bodies are fallible, they do things we cannot control. My body did the best it could; it usually functions pretty well, it grew my baby, but for reasons beyond my knowing, in spite of my determination and effot, it could not release that baby. It wasn't my fault. I really did everything in my power to birth normally.

And I am as worthy and loveable as any mother, and so are you. We do not need to "send our inner-Child to her room" until she can birth right! We do not have to have another baby and birth normally to redeem or prove ourselves.

My heart feels your heart. It is challenging to reach out, when feeling so much depth, in an email.

I suppose we can say, even have to say, in having a cesarean we "failed" to have a natural birth. But for me, I eventually succeeded at something else in the long run, and that was in not continuing to judge and abandon myself for being human, for not achieving an ideal. I succeeded in loving myself as a mom, a cesarean mom, and my body just as it is. And that task was harder, much harder for me, than my difficult labor!

I send you my most compassionate greetings,
from a cesarean-sister,

Pam England

 

[mum5]

I just saw this thread and could not help but reply to it.
Just want you all to know that you are all warriors and fantastic mothers , and I am sorry for your pain.

 

[chiromama]

thanks for your thoughts, Pam. They were touching, and felt very true to me. As a mother, I feel like I'm really not only doing the best I can, but really doing a GREAT job at it. I love being a mama to my baby, and know she loves being mothered by me. It doesn't completely take away the sting of the c-section birth, but I don't feel like a failure as a mother.
Thanks

 

[BathrobeGoddess]

I am still so pissed off at the universe!!!!!!!!!!!!! It comes and goes but tomorrow will be 3 months since my homebirth "went bad." I find myself reliving the entire traumatic event. I was sitting on the toilet today which is where it all went bad and I was just so mad. I am now second guessing myself...if only I had broken my water when I had wanted to with my finger maybe her cord wouldn't have rushed forward with the gush. If only I hadn't pushed so hard her sord wouldn't have rushed forward with the gush. If only I had been able to push her out in one push before the paramedics arrived...my labor was so damn great why couldn't my birth have gone perfect too??? I am so damn angry...stupid things like I want to buy my dd a homebirth advocacy tshirt but I feel like I don't "have the right" to do so because she wasn't actually born at home. I am also feeling guilty about my feelings because another mother in my ddc lost her baby to the same, rare complication...I have my dd...she isn't dead...I should be happy...

 

[Shazer]

I was directed here by a kind mother after I posted my own story in the homebirth forum. I had a c-section just over two weeks ago after an attempted homebirth and it was/is devastating for me. It helps, although it is heartbreaking, to read stories from others and to realize that it is going to take time to heal from this. When people tell me that I should be happy I have a healthy baby and to nullify my own disappointments and regrets, it is perhaps what bothers me the most.

 

[Birth Junky]

BathrobeGoddess, shazer, welcome to the thread, although I suppose it's not such a happy place to find yourself.

I am glad, though, that we can offer each other support and encouragement.

 

[Omsmom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shazer When people tell me that I should be happy I have a healthy baby and to nullify my own disappointments and regrets, it is perhaps what bothers me the most.

I can totally relate with how feel when people tell us to feel happy that we have a healthy baby. I'm a teacher and I always tell my students the ends aren't the most important thing, its the process that matters. Yet, in my own life I have to somehow accept that the end (my happy, healthy baby) should somehow be enough to make me forget my horrible birth experience. How can I ever accept that I did not give birth the way I wanted to?

 

[jennkraig]

Pam
Thank you. I feel that you hear and understand. I have found through my therapy appointments that the c/s (although it was awful) is not really the source of my problems with the birth. It is my own distorted view of perfection and control and my self worth. Coming to terms with those things are going to be difficult. I understand all of it in my head, but letting go of my expectations for myself and my own perceived inadequacies is not something I know how to do. I don't even know if I want to. I sometimes feel that if I "get over it" that will invalidate the pain I am feeling right now.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger I guess.
Someday I will get there.

Thank you all for sharing your stories. I appreciate everyones willingness to share. I don't feel so alone and that makes a difference.

 

[Shazer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jennkraig Pam I have found through my therapy appointments that the c/s (although it was awful) is not really the source of my problems with the birth. It is my own distorted view of perfection and control and my self worth. Coming to terms with those things are going to be difficult. I understand all of it in my head, but letting go of my expectations for myself and my own perceived inadequacies is not something I know how to do. I don't even know if I want to.

Wow, there is so much truth in those words for me, too. Isn't it amazing how we all dreamed and planned our perfect births and then when they didn't happen it felt as if our worlds collapsed? I'm a control freak by nature. During pregnancy, I read Henci Goer's Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, but I didn't pay much mind to all of her words about interventions. I thought it would never apply to me because under no uncertain terms, I was going to have an unmedicated water birth at home. I wish I would have paid attention better.