Recovering from a difficult birth experience

by Jen Creer (Subscribe to Jen Creer's posts) Jun 14th 2007 8:01AM

Categories: Pregnancy & Birth, Medical Conditions

A dear friend of mine had her first baby last week. As I slowly started to get the details of the birth from her husband in hurried conversations while they were in the hospital, I started to realize that this was an enormously difficult birth experience all the way around.

Everything that happened was punctuated by the fact that they had originally hoped for a home birth. My friend was raised Sikh, and she wanted as pure, as non-invasive a pregnancy and birth experience as possible. And she knew that this might not be possible. She was realistic about that. But what ultimately happened was a brutal way to bring a child into the world. And I know this because almost the same experiences happened to me with my first child--only hers was just a little bit worse.

When I tell people about her experience, because our friends have moved now and told me I can fill people in here, they have been remarkably unsympathetic. "Well, they're okay, right? That's the most important thing." "Well, things don't always go as planned." Yes, it is. And we all know that. But that doesn't change the fact that a joyous outcome is paired with exhaustion and disppointment, and yes, violation. It makes the recovery that much more difficult. It makes your first days with your baby tremulous and more fearful and more painful.

Here is the story: The baby was breech. The mama blood pressure was high. The mucous plug came out. Contractions were five minutes apart for 24 hours. An epidural was given, and doctors tried to turn the baby. It was immensely painful. The mama was rushed into surgery, whilst telling the doctors, "I can still feel things. I can still feel pain." Fortunately, she didn't feel the incision-- just every stitch when they were stitching her up...

Her brand new baby girl was taken immediately to a NICU with low blood sugar. When the 23-year-old mama finally got to see her baby, hours later, when her hospital bed was wheeled up, the NICU nurse told her not to try to breastfeed, and after ten minutes, told the mama to leave because she was overstimulating her baby. She was basically told that every instinct she had as a new mother was bad for her baby.

Maybe this doesn't sound very traumatic in quiet black and white. But I've been there, and it is very traumatic. It's frightening and painful and invasive and horrible. It will take some time to recover. Time, and their beautiful baby girl. You can read the father's firsthand account of the experience here. How did you recover from your awful birth experience?

Comments (27)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Michelle 6-14-2007 @ 8:25AM

OMG Why do the doctors not listen to us? I, too felt everything from the first cut to the last stitch with my first. I don't think they totally believed me, I think they thought that because I had had such a difficult pregnancy and a long and difficult labor, including 2 1/2 hrs pushing culminating in crowning, that I was just freaking out about the rushed c-section. Yes, I was exhausted and starving and scared out of my mind. But, when I tell you I can feel the scalpel, it's not because I haven't slept or eaten in 2 days!

With my second, they kept pushing the epidural until I could feel nothing. I was still freaking out about the c-sec, but only because I was only 25 weeks.

Crystal 6-14-2007 @ 8:45AM

I, also, felt just about everything when I had my section. The anesthesiologist kept putting an alcohol pad on my abdomen, and I kept telling him I could feel it...He seemed annoyed with me, and told the drs I was fine and they could proceed. I ended up screaming in pain, and was knocked out. Thankfully they brought me back just as my son cried his first time.
With my first I had the epidural drip. With my second I had just the one time dose of the epidural. (my second section was planned.) The second time I felt nothing, and it was a much better experience.
I wonder if the different types of epidurals had anything to do with it...

tuliptoe 6-14-2007 @ 8:55AM

I didn't end up with a C-section but I couldn't stop bleeding after my daughter was born. My blood pressure bottomed out at 65/35 and the threat of death was really there. My husband actually had a worse mental time of it since he was witness to the whole trauma and surgeons etc... I was sort of in and out. Luckily 2 blood transfusions and 24 hours and I was ok. I didn't see my daughter for those 24 hours but my husband did get to feed her and luckily we didn't have any problems with breastfeeding once I did have her.
We had a lot of sympathy and love from our family and friends which really helped us to get over the fact that our joyous birth was overshadowed by the very real possibility of my death. We give blood throughout the year but especially near her birthday to make sure we remember that it can save a life.
So give blood everybody!! I'm grateful for the person who did so I could still be here!! :)

rebecca Biernesser 6-14-2007 @ 9:12AM

I'm glad that she and the baby are doing fine now, but that doesn't do away with what happened during the birth b/c you can't have those memories changed or given back and it will stick with her thoughout her life.

After I had my 2nd son, they wouldn't let me hold him in recovery b/c of my IV's (which is a bunch of bs). After recovery the moved the baby to the nursey for test and to finish cleaning him, etc. I had him at 1 in the morning and at 11 when I had seen him and had asked for him countless times, my ped. came in and I told him what was going on. He buzzed the nurses station and told them not so nicely to have the baby ready he was coming to get him. HE had ready seen the baby and knew there were not any problems. I had my baby within 5 mins.

I have a great group of doctors and I would strongly recommend sying something to them before your birth so everyone is on the same page, talk during, and voice any problems afterwards esp. about problems and/or pains

Ethel 6-14-2007 @ 9:25AM

What a horrible experience! And what the hell is wrong with the nurses? Overstimulating your own baby? I can understand the doctors rushing the surgery, a little, they might have felt her life and the babies were at risk and couldn't wait for adequate pain relief - but I bet if her pain had been relieved her blood pressure would not have been quite so high. Ugh. I'd be calling the hospital and telling them about their staff right now, she deserves at least an apology.

And I can't believe you used the word "whilst".

Kate P 6-14-2007 @ 9:42AM

I think an additional trauma that added to the nightmare of this experience, as well as others, is that the families expectations weren't met. Going from expecting an unitervened home birth to having a full on surgical experience is scary, and disappointing.

mamaloo 6-14-2007 @ 9:48AM

I hate to hear such things. A client of mine this year was bullied by NICU and given horrible advice. Even the hospital employed LC gave bad advice (don't nurse overnight, only touch twin boys during the feeding period, keep the twin boys in separate isolettes, told mom two days in a row at 7am during feeding that mum was being discharged that day and twins were being shipped to a different hospital 40 mins away, NICU kept boys on tubes to feed formula and would feed boys against mothers wishes and without her knowledge...).

My job as a birth doula became focused on helping mum and dad cope with what was happening post partum and to help them formulate a plan of action that would get the boys out of NICU. Each day I would come see mum and she'd be frantic about what was happening, feeling completely powerless in the face of the "experts" told what she could and couldn't do with her own children, who were not actually sick and not even preemies, must under observation due to being small and a touch early.

So, while I've never been in that situation myself, I've worked with women who have been abused by the medical establishment. While there are many good OBs and many wonder nurses, my experiences make me very skeptical about their priorities and true interests.

The best thing you can do for your friend, Jen, is to encourage her to talk about the experience so that she can process it and get it out of her system. Also, I strongly advise that your friend write down her objections to specific care incidents and send it to every party involved at the hospital. It won't be until we've all complained about the quality of care we receive that anything will ever get done about it.

Madison 6-14-2007 @ 12:42PM

Someone always has a more difficult experience. I had preemie twins 9 1/2 weeks early. I had a fairly easy labor but felt guilty that my body couldn't keep them in any longer. No one congradulated me. Everyone was upset. Giving birth is supposed to be an amazing experience and it wasn't for me.

Thank god during their stay in the NICU the staff was very supportive. The boys were being fed my breast milk through a feeding tube within a few days. But I was told to limit contact so I wouldn't overstimulate them

At least now I have two healthy boys. And because of this I will always feel blessed. I won't complain about my birthing experience or the months my boys spent at the hospital because that is not what is important. Having happy, healthy children is what is important.

leian 6-14-2007 @ 10:36AM

This sounds awful. As you know, I am due in 3 weeks, so I don't know if I should be reading stuff like this... On the other hand, I think reading such stories reminds me that, God forbid, if things go awry, or even if someone tries to get me to go against my instinct, that I have to be firm in my resolve to be a mother to MY CHILD. Thankfully this is not my first, and with my first the worst I had to go through was a 3rd-degree episiotomy - nothing that prevented me from mothering or made the nurses try to prevent it. But I went through a lot of foolishness with an awful pediatrician who always belittled my instincts and I hate the fact that people take advantage of women when they are so vulnerable as first-time moms.

I feel terrible for your friend. She was OVERSTIMULATING THE BABY? I can't even start on that here, that just infuriates me.

I agree with mamaloo that, when she's up to it, she should write. At the least, it may make her feel better. But the medical establishment needs to understand that they cannot constantly override her desires and instincts. God help them if any nurse tells me I'm overstimulating my child merely by observing him. Maybe the baby was responding to her mother's presence precisely BECAUSE she IS her mother and baby wanted her.

If they're home, encourage your friend to just revel in baby's safe arrival and presence. That is of the ultimate importance. But she should complain to the hospital staff - as mamaloo said, if we continue to sit silently, both during and after, they will never get that we have rights that we intend to exercise.

Miss 6-14-2007 @ 11:40AM

Those so vocally critical of the "medical establishment" and its decision-making processes seem the ones who will bring a med mal claim when the doctor DOES listen to the birthing mother with bad result. You cannot have it both ways: Either the doctor must do as his judgment suggests in EVERY situation, or else he defers to the mother in most situations. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to deference to the mother during birth. But if you want it that way, you can't bring med mal claims against the doctor when he does defer to the mother and something goes wrong.

M4Mommy 6-14-2007 @ 12:15PM

she is lucky she did have the medical professionals there to save her daughters, and possibly even her own, life.

Sorry that it didnt work out to what they expected or wanted. But seriously now. If she had not had those experienced professionals there to deliver a breech baby, being carried by a preemclampsic mom. dad may have very well been planning and burying both his wife and child.

Sorry, life happens. You have to remember that when going into child birth. Also, emotions were running very high. And it is not easy for the NICU staff or OBG staff to "distance" themselves from each mom and baby that comes in. They too have feelings, worries and concerns. Maybe mom and dad were running on emotions and taking things that were said and done the wrong way.

That said. Congratulations to them on the birth of their healthy daughter. Love her and enjoy her and be prepared for the unexpected that life tends to throw at you

Laura 6-14-2007 @ 1:21PM

I had a horrible birth experience too and I won't go into details because..I'm lazy ok? But I would like to know how one recovers from this trauma? My son is 4 years old now and I'm still not over it. We want another baby but I'm already terrified of going thru the delivery again!!! The real issue was with the dr who delivered my son and not much else. She was brutal and inhumane and I feel like I should have done something when it happened but I didn't. I'm not in the USA by the way!

anderson_michelle_lee 6-14-2007 @ 3:54PM

I would have to say that my birth experience with my first son was something that I will never forget. It was horrible, the first thing that made it horrible was the fact that I was a week late. I told the doctors when I went into premature labor the month before that there was something not right, that my son was “too big to be in there”. But of course they did not listen. I was 19 and didn’t know what I was talking about right?? They found out on the day that I was induced that I might have been right. For anyone that has been induced you know what a roller coaster it can be. They had to keep turning the medicine up and down due to my son’s heart rate dropping while it was up, but the contractions would stop when they turned it down. I started pushing at 9 am (a time I will never forget) and did not deliver until 12:20 pm (with much assistance). At around 9:45 the nurse told me to stop pushing, and that they had called another doctor in to do a c-section. My body said no. So I continued to push, and push and was so exhausted. My birth became a teaching birth for a class full of nurses (about 4) my son’s father was there, my mother, my step mother, my sister, the nurse the doctor and a partridge in a pear tree. I had people holding my legs people holding my back, and people staring at me in disbelief. It turned out he was O.P., and finally I got him down far enough to deliver him. The doctor tried to help by using forceps (he is lucky I did not kick him in the head, side note, if there is not enough room to get the kid out, how do they think there will be enough room to get something else in?) Finally I delivered my beautiful (lopsided head bruised from forceps, completely swollen) baby. I Had 155 stitches you know where, the epidural wore off during the end and I felt the tear and every stitch. I was so tired that I held my son for 30 seconds and said I need someone to take him. I begged for water, but they thought that I would puke, so that was a no. And bonus my dad walked in while they were stitching me up. I was in the hospital three days to make sure that I was not going to develop an infection. I vowed that day I was never going to do that again. I lied, but it did take me 5 years to muster up enough courage. And the next delivery was 10 pushes and here he is.  I was thankful for that.

mamaloo 6-14-2007 @ 4:08PM

Miss and M4Mommy, I think it is a disservice to women to tell a woman who has been abused by people in authority (not listened to when she spoke up about being inadequately anesthetized, being told by NICU not to mother and nourish a healthy term baby under observation for low blood sugar - which is best treated by nursing immediately and often if a mother intends to nurse) that she should be thankful for her bad treatment because she and/or her daughter isn't dead.

That's absolutely ridiculous. Providing good and nurturing care to patients in hospital, obstetric, neonatal or otherwise, is not an either or proposition. It is possible to make good calls AND respect the patient.

The point isn't that she could be dead and so should be thankful her life was saved. The point is the doctors and nurses treated mother and baby like objects. They are people. In fact, mother and baby are a bonded pair whose needs are inter-related. Their welfare and recovery are dependent on each other and that should be recognised and honoured.

A massive study was recently done in my province that found that mothers and babies were treated worse at tertiary care hospitals than at primary and secondary care hospitals. So, while we can all be thankful for modern medicine for saving those who need saving, those who serve the highest risk populations give the best technical care while providing the worst quality of care.

Why wouldn't everyone support the mother, obviously in a terribly vulnerable and traumatic situation? Why protect the med staff who are acting callously and, in the case of the inadequate anesthesia, dangerously? Those docs aren't going anywhere. If we don't speak up, they'll just keep treating other mothers and infants like this. Doctors aren't gods. We, as consumers of health care, employ them to perform a specific job. If this were a different profession, none of us would put up with that kind of treatment. We be speaking to managers, telling everyone we knew and taking our business elsewhere.

Miss 6-14-2007 @ 6:53PM

Mamaloo - I'd like for you to point out where in my post I said anything about mothers being thankful their kids "is not dead." I simply pointed out the fact that one cannot have the birthing process both ways. Indeed, I DON'T think parents should take "abuse" from medical professionals.

M4Mommy 6-14-2007 @ 6:55PM

Uhm
Maybe being your OWN ADVOCATE is the way one should go.

I told my OBGYN the day I MET her that I was going to have a c sect. She told me "We will see"

As my pregnancy went on it became more and more obvious that a scheduled c sect was going to happen. I asked questions of her and her staff and the staff at the hospital where I would be delivering. If I felt something was "off" about my baby I called and went to see her. If I was told something I wasnt sure of. I called and asked.

Again. The mom is dam lucky to have had doctors available to deliver her baby. Maybe she should have had an open mind and looked at ALL THE POSSIBILITIES before deciding on a home birth and doing no further research. A breech baby could have been cuahgt earlier than that as well. My best friends son was breech. They turned him while in the womb and she had a successful delivery. Why? because she asked questions and took charge of her body and that of her sons.

No one else is going to do it for you. And no one else will do it for your child.

M4Mommy 6-14-2007 @ 6:59PM

Maybe they werent callous. Maybe mom and dad were a BIT emotional and were taking things the wrong way. I am sure that the hospital staff was doing what THEY had been taught to do with a newborn in that situation. Maybe the baby HAD TO COME OUT RIGHT THEN!

They are the ones with the education and experience. Not us and it certainly doesnt sound like the parents did

Sandyone 6-14-2007 @ 7:26PM

There are support groups for traumatic births. I don't know a lot about them, as I have been blessed by two good hospital births and a not-so-good hospital birth that led me to choose homebirth for two other births. I think the support groups are mostly going to be online.

Try searching the DONA website...Doulas of NOrth America. There are lots of message boards about birth. I'm sure google will find something good!

I'm sorry your friend suffered this. It's nearly impossible to be an advocate for yourself during birth once something goes wrong. It sets you off balance and puts you out of your area of expertise. My sister 'advocated' for herself during one of her labors. The stress of the fight with the technician to not have an IV (her doctor had ordered just a hep-lock) affected her labor in a negative way. I'm a big fan of a doula and I think I'll be getting one next time. Too bad they can't advocate for you!

Husbands are worse than useless in a labor gone bad. The control freaks in the hospitals hit on a real goldmine when husbands started coming to labors. Dad doesn't want to see his woman suffering, so anything the establishment says will 'make her better/ease her pain/move things along', he's willing to go along with. Few husbands have very strong feelings about natural childbirth.

I am always so happy when I hear of doctors and nurses who actually are good at caring for the laboring mother. Maybe there are more out there than we hear about, but there are still too many of the others.

Sandyone 6-14-2007 @ 8:46PM

I forgot to mention this, too. I am quite certain that there is a book out there that focuses on recovering from a traumatic birth. Unfortunately, I have no other details than "I think I heard about it sometime in the past 5 years or so."

There is a future 'good birth' out there for her. It's certainly possible and attitude has a tremendous amount of power. It can take years to grieve a birth experience, but that doesn't mean she'll be miserable for all that time. She'll be all wrapped up in being a new mom for awhile and then she can start working through it. She's spiritual, so she has an advantage for healing.

Tommy Estlund 6-14-2007 @ 9:18PM

Hello! I'd like to thank Jen for having written this article, and for all of you for reading and for expressing your opinions and your thoughts. Freedom of expression is truly a beautiful thing.

I would like to specifically address one of the issues that has been raised; whether or not my wife and I took the time to educate ourselves during the pregnancy. While our conclusions may be different than what some would have come to, we indeed did do extensive research into the healthiest and most harmonious possible birthing scenarios.

We looked carefully before selcting our midwife, we researched the hospitals that were in our area, and we carefully researched each of the individual aspects of the birth plan that my wife wrote. (When to cut the cord, whether or not to wash off the vernix, water birth, etc.)

And, finally, I would like to highlight, as I think Jen did a fine job of pointing out, that we were in no way dissatisfied with the result. Our beautiful baby is a Godsend, and a constant joy; however, it should NOT be too much to ask for respectful treatment by doctors and other medical professionals, as these two are NOT mutually exclusive. If you have not already, I would recommend reading the full story of our daughter's birth over at my blog, the link is above in Jen's article.

Thank you Jen, and thank you to all of the other writers and readers at ParentDish.

Tommy Estlund
tommy.estlund@gmail.com