Traumatic birth experience. How long to feel ok?

[Peridot]

Glad to hear you have got that referal :)
I was thinking about this the other day and just wanted to share with you something that helped me! As I've said when I think of Oscars birth I think of it as one of the happiest days of my life etc etc and that is one of thethings I felt I really missed with thomas's birth but then I was thinking of the day I came out of hospital with oscar and how I was in so much pain and just felt dreadful and got home and just wanted to crawl into bed and forget about it all. I compare that with the day I brought Thomas home which was just amazing... I wasn't expecting to be discharged so was so excited when we were, I remember me and dh sitting in our frontroom with our newbaby in his Moses basket whilst we had some pizza and a glass of wine and it was just blissful! It's really helped me to hold on to positives like that!
Hope you're doing okay

[L66TTY]

Another one that had a bad experience 2nd time around. I can really relate to the feeling of been unable to do the most simple of task like nappy changing or even just picking up my new baby.

At the time I think I even wrote my Birth story as a Positive Emergency CSec. Well it wasn't bloody positive it was hell.

I did birth reflections too but later than 6 weeks that was brilliant as it was with a midwife and explained why it had happened. I was also having councilling but that was a bit pants to be honest it was a pain to get to and was with a trainee and she just sat there taking notes while I rambled and waffled about any crap in my head. It wasn't dealing with the big effing issue of why me?

It is getting a lot better 19 months on but small things can set me off all my antenatal chums having better 2nd experiences than 1st's. Applying for his passport and having to place of birth hospital rather than home like his brother.

I often think I have failed him and CONSTANTLY think what could I of done/not done to change the outcome.

I needed and still need from time to time to talk about it and DS1's birth, although his was great the stitching up after was very traumatising and I had a lot of flash backs, the more I talk the more it helps.

Huge Hugs though and do talk even if its just on here.

His first birthday was actually fine but I didn't really see it as the anniversary of when that really sh1t thing happened to me more as a celebration of the first year of his life. That is how I am over most sad things though. Its just 365 days since it happened which helped me put it in perspective, and concentrate on him.

[Shoppie]

I had my first by crash c-section, and my second in NICU within hours of a elective c-section birth. Honestly, I'm not 100% over either. Like Lotty, both are much, much better, but I still feel a quick stab of jealousy when I hear of trouble-free deliveries, especially one where they get to take their baby straight home I do think counselling helped me and will be using some to cope in this pregnancy (), but what has heped me is hat the birth is only one part of mothering. Othe people have the 'perfect' birth but can't feed as they want to, or can do those bu then the child gets ill, or they can't get pregnant with a second at all whatever they do etc etc - no-one gets everything.

I would def recommend counselling and I hope it helps you to move on - but I'd have realistic expectations that it will help you to come to terms with it, not (for me) help you to stop wishing things could have been different, or stop the odd very painful reminder.

[mrsdunny207]

I had a completely rubbish labour experience with Sam and I do think about it more than I should but it's done and there is nothing I can do about how it went. However I'm not planning any more so in my mind I can 'write off' the experience and make the most of the result (iykwim). If I was having more then it would be a different deal and I'd be booked a planned section and probably going for some counselling.

Take care!
x

[WoollyNewty]

Jubie my love - I'm so late to this but I'm so glad you have a referral.

It's very hard (for that read impossible) to access the good stuff without going through psych services so if needs must then do it.

As other (very lovely) people have said I did and it made the world of difference to me.

It makes harder before it makes it better and you have to live it but it's worth it if you get the right person 'taking' you there.

You will never 'get over' it but if it's PTSD (which it very much sound like it is) then at the moment you are CONSTANTLY living it. It's the 'here and present' of your life. You are constantly sort of under attack and in 'danger' because your mind and body are programmed to feel that way (it makes evolutionary sense).

We feel stupidly bad for that - we feel 'but I'm ALIVE, my baby is ALIVE, we are so lucky, we must just be happy and get on with our lucky lives.....' but as my counsellor said to me 'who do you think you are? A James Bond villan? You don't go through that kind of stuff and just walk away and keep on doing what you do - we are not designed to do that'.

That made sense.

When they took me back I realised I was even freaking out when I saw dark-forest-green because it was the colour of the paramedics uniforms.

Before all this I'd been 'mad' and got better but it was when I got 'better' that I realised that I thought about 'it' every single, ****ing day.

EVERY day. Year in year out. That gets kind of tiring.

I did Pilates and at the end when you were supposed to lie down and relax I would stare at the ceiling tiles and find bit fat tears rolling down my cheeks and I couldn't hold it back. Because I was 'back'. I was back on my back, crucified on a bed, being kept alive on machines, with everyone I loved miles away and my baby being fed by strangers. And the ceiling tiles were the same. They were the same in the council gym and they were in the hospital. And in that moment I was dying.

I told the pyschiatrist (what a joke that guy was!) and he said I was just someone who took a long time to 'get over' stuff....... ().

I told my GP and she said 'I want to help you so much but there is nothing I can access' but then she did (big up the people that change people's worlds!).

None of this happened until Spuddy was about 18 months old. I'd already lived through his first birthday. I was dreading it SO much but my first son's birthday had kind of taught me what I didn't need.

I didn't need to be at home.

I didn't need a lot of people there.

I chose one special friend and we all went out of for the day to Willows Farm.

The day was great and I felt shockingly free. And then my friend and all the kids went off on a tractor ride and I was left with Spuds asleep in pushchair and the sky cracked open and the biggest lightening storm you've ever seen broke over the town I was taken too after he was born.



That kind of broke me open - in a good way .

That's what it feels like - all the time when you're living with PTSD - a lightening storm about to break. The humidity is constantly at breaking point.

I don't know what to say but feel what you feel, live it because it's part of you and take all the help you can. Don't let it destroy you because it won't. It sounds crass but it will make you what you become, which is better.

What you went through is not 'normal'.

We are not designed to cope with it - the fact we live is 'not normal' (does that makes sense?).

So many women have to live this and can't get help and my heart goes out to all the amazing strong women on here who keep going and help others (and the birth partners - be they dads, mums whatever who are left in the shadows by it all).

Giving birth (however you do it) is a fundamental and very basic, deep part of our life experience and yet society brushes it aside and reduces it to 'well you're alive aren't you?'. Yes I am and I'm eternally grateful for that, but it doesn't mean I don't have baggage from the journey......

Love you loads and honestly - mail me if you need to rant - and not just you - anyone who wants to say 'hey man, this is really affecting me but I don't feel able to say it....'.

My sweet - you have the rest of your life out there waiting for you and your girls but for now you need to deal with this really massive, enormous thing.


Big love,

xxx

[jubiedoo16]

Wow sorry, I have been away over the weekend and missed the later replies. Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and advising. Peridot you have been amazing sharing and keep coming back to this thread so thank you so so much.
Wooly as ever you have had me in tears, but in a good way. You all help me validate my feelings and know this is not normal, the experience was anything but normal and its ok not to feel "hey I'm alive its great" all the time. On the whole I do feel great, but I do still think about the birth every single day (even if its only for a minute) Eastenders set me off last night as they said Stacey was losing blood and she passed out....I haven't watched it for ages yet manage to catch this bloody episode. Like you wooly anything cans et me off, driving past the hospital being one of them, or visiting it is even worse, but as i go in through different doors to any appoinments I can handle it (bizarre i know!!!)

I had my assesment last week and the woman was berluddy useless if I am honest, it felt like she was trying to convince me I had PND, I haven't, I know for a fact I haven't, i lived through it before and don't feel anywhere like that, I just have an unhealthy obsession with my birth, and other peoples births, especially if they are particularly traumatic, or if they are completely perfect births i feel insanely jealous, you know, no induction, no c-section, just birth (as I had with my first, by god I was smug, giving birth was a doddle, I would do it again and again!!!!!), but anyone that has that birth now I feel incredibly jealous, as it happens the only people to give birth after me have had inductions or c-sections, so they don't trigger me as much. APart from being nervous wreck for my friends elective section.
I just have this awful feeling that I want to put it right, to prove I can do it, which is insane really, as we are not having anymore, and even if we did I would never allow myself to have a natural birth as I would be too scared. Its like I want a time machine to go back and give it another go.

The counsellor is ringing me again on monday and has sent me another PND questionaire to fill in for then so I am going to try and explain again that I am not depressed.

I don't actually know what anyone can do, tbh just talking about it to DH or on here, or to my friends (they let me waffle on whenever i need to) does seem to help, I am currently not feeling too bad about the birthday, and like you wooly just want a quiet affair with just DH and the girls, maybe go out for the day somewhere away from here.

[L66TTY]

I so get that time machine feeling. I really feel that if I had done this that the other then I would of had another home birth. It doesn't help that my hospital has one of the highest CSec rates in the country...

Hope you mange to put the feelings aside for his birthday we had a big bash at home and I really glammed myself up and put myself as far away as possible from the woman on the hospital bed helped me a lot!

[martha]

etime. On the whole I do feel great, but I do still think about the birth every single day (even if its only for a minute) Eastenders set me off last night as they said Stacey was losing blood and she passed out....I haven't watched it for ages yet manage to catch this bloody episode. Like you wooly anything cans et me off, driving past the hospital being one of them, or visiting it is even worse, but as i go in through different doors to any appoinments I can handle it (bizarre i know!!!)

It's 5.5 hrs years since for me and I still get this to a certain extent. I don't think about it EVERYday anymore and it doesn't hurt/panic/upset me anymore like it used to. I used to feel really sick and panicky if something reminded me of it, Athlete's Wires for example or even the mention of blood, but now I can kind of take a deep breath and think " well it happened and I got through it" (I know that's THE cliche!- I survived! but it does help me now)

I've had another baby since (a happy birth) which has helped a lot but i think it will always be with me, if that makes sense. I tend to avoid Casualty and A&E stuff on the telly 'cos I know it will make me dwell on it to much and like others say I can get a bit too obsessive about other people's births. It doesn't upset me anymore though.

Second time around I got to talk to my consultant and midwives at length, they acknowledged the severity of the situation I had been in and also that my care was somewhat lacking and that it shouldn't have happened! That validation of my feelings REALLY helped - much more than the "you're alive and you've got a healthy baby" stuff.

I can remember dreading my DD's first birthday like it was another ordeal to get through. It WAS a tough day but it was a happy day too. And I didn't get upset like I thought I would.

I hope you can enjoy your little one's first birthday too.

HTH in some small way.