Traumatic Birth

It’s been 7 weeks since I gave birth and I’m ready to share my daughters birth story. It took me a bit of time to accept what happened while giving birth.

This is my fourth baby. My first was a csection and second and third were successful VBACs however I was induced for both and labor lasted about 7 hours for both.

With this pregnancy I already knew that there was a chance I was going to be induced early. I had GD as well as 2 vessel umbilical cord. My doctor and specialist had told me that I would not be going past 39 weeks. I ended up being induced on September 7. We had an appointment at 9 at the hospital. Once we arrive we get checked in and by 11 I’m hooked up to pitocin. The doctor checks me and says I’m 2 cm and that he’ll come back to check on me.

This is my 3rd time being induced so I wasn’t worried. I sat in the bed and read a book and shopped for school uniforms for my kids. They kept raising the dosage every hour and the pain was manageable. At 4:30 the doctor comes in and checks me and tells me I’m still at 2 cms. At that point I’m confused and have a feeling that something is not right. In my mind i try to not think and compare this labor to my others. The amount of contractions that I was getting and the pain didn’t add up to me being 2 cm. After he left the room I looked at my husband and started to cry telling him this is not normal. He tried to calm and comfort me saying that maybe it’s going to be a longer labor.

At that point my mom joined us in the labor room. The doctor came in and introduced us to the doctor that was taking over for him and told us that he would come in to check on me later. A few minutes later my water breaks and my contractions start coming back to back and painful. At 6, I ask for the epidural because I was worried between the transition of the doctors. Around 6:45 the anesthesiologist comes in and it was the most painful experience. I felt the tube going into my back piece by piece. In my mind I’m thinking that this is not going right. The doctor comes in once the epidural is inserted and asks to check me. I told him I was feeling a lot of pressure and a weird pain. He gets excited and says maybe your ready to push. He sits on the bed and checks me then quickly stands up. He tells me that my daughters hand is coming down first and that he needs to push it back in or else we’re doing a csection. He tries to pinch my daughters fingers in hopes that she pulls her arm back but she doesn’t respond. He puts his hand and say I’m going to try to push her back in a bit. It was one of the most painful experiences. I start crying because of how painful it was. I remember telling my husband and mom that it felt like he was pushing my daughter into my butt. The doctor was getting frustrated because I wasn’t cooperating. He stands up and calls the anesthesiologist and asks her to give me a stronger medication. He tells me that he’s going to try again in a few minutes. He explains what’s going on and tells us all the possible side effects of pushing my doctor back in like breaking her shoulder or hand, uterine rupture, etc. As I’m hearing all of that I start crying out loud. He then proceeds to tilt the bed so that my head is going down and my legs are up. He tries again and was able to push my daughter in. I immediately tell him that she moved. The doctor doesn’t look at me. I hear him telling the nurses to prep the OR quickly. He looks at my husband and my mom and says the baby’s heart rate is going down we are going to do a csection quickly. Within a few minutes I was wheeled into the OR. A few minutes later my daughter was born.

The doctor came and talked to me after and was mentioning that when he pushed my daughter it caused an umbilical cord prolapse.

It was definitely the most traumatic birth experience thus far. Thankfully we are both doing well! I want it to write it out to be able to better understand the birth and to realize it’s ok.