Advice for when your upset with how your labour went????

Question

Anyone upset with there labour? I struggle with how it all happened. Short version, It was a 27 hr labour. I actually made it to 9 1/2 cm but i wouldnt dilate anymore but i wasnt thinning. I got an epidural about 14 hrs in. She was postterior position making it harder for her to come out (she got stuck) so off i went for a c section (i cried after all that to end in a c section) the epidural didnt completly work either so i could feel them cutting me on 1 side so i was in a panic & felt pain which resulted in getting knocked out! Hubby left the room & i saw my daughter hrs later. I missed that moment, her first cry, seeing her & holding her first. Shes 11 weeks old now & to top it off she has colic so i didnt bond with her & enjoy motherhood till about 3 wks ago (she wld have been 9 weeks)

I really thought i wouldnt be like this as she came out healthy & thats the main thing, ive lost a baby nephew so its very close to my heart to lose a baby in the family but regardless i still feel upset about it all & im traumatized from what i went through. I find i get jealous of my friends who had a natural. I had so much happening. She was postanteriror, i had antibiotics & fluid, I needed the drip to bring on contractions coz when my water broke she had done a poo. Then had a c section & cld feel it and got knocked out and was completly out of it when i did see her. It really effected how i bonded with her.

Answer

I'm sorry to hear about how you feel with al of that. Feeling traumatized or disappointed after labor is extremely common I just don't think people talk about it as much. My story is different from yours but to sum it up I had an Aweful recovery and I struggled the first 7 weeks I wold say and didn't enjoy motherhood until then either. I cried to many people and found that I wasn't alone and many other women also were upset with labor or recovery and had feelings of disappointment in some way too. So u r not alone and it really is a shitty feeling but you did nothing wrong u carried and birth a human being, that is not easy to do at all and it doesn't matter how they came out of us bc we still did a great job providing them a cozy home inside of us and even if we didn't enjoy the first weeks of motherhood we still did s good job and have plenty of time to soak it all in. Try not to be hard on yourself and know what you are feeling is common. The more you talk about it the better you will feel. Atleast that really worked for me.

Answer

Yes I have 3 kids and none of them did I go into labor on my own, one of them ended in a level 4 tear which was incredibly painful, and one in an emergency c section due to preeclampsia, my husband got to hang out with her first and I didn't get to see her at all for quite awhile because she kept having excess meconium for a good 20 minutes then I had to have a magnesium drip for 24 hrs which made me so sick I could barely hold her on her first and second days. It sucked and yes it took time to bond meanwhile she and my husband bonded without me. Not fun after I did all the work having her!   But I try to think of it that I'm a warrior for going through all that I have and then I'm brave enough to have another. That's awesome and you're amazing for doing what you did. If men had to go through anything like this, I think the human race would be close to extinction lol.

Answer

It took me a few weeks to accept the fact that I had an emergency c section. Every time I thought or spoke about it I would cry with disappointment. I pushed for 3 hours and because he was posterior it was hell. I felt everything even with the epidural. He ended up pooping in me at the 3 hour mark and I then requested the c section. I didn't want to risk asperation and then a nicu situation. Once my water broke and I didn't progress fast enough they started the pitocin. I then had a fever the entire time I was in labor and after during my recovery. Even a week after his birth my fever had spiked and I was readmitted overnight for an infection and was given more antibiotics. I threw up the entire time I was in labor and even while pushing. I lost so much blood I needed 2blood transfusions. I was healing both vaginally and from my incision. My incision then had fluid in it and had to be drained at 2 weeks pp. I had to have a nurse come to my house to check my incision. I'm still in pain some days. I keep hearing in my head my OBGYN saying I wouldn't have been able to push my son out anyway since he was so big and I'm so small in stature. I cried a lot out of frustration but I got to breastfeed without any real problems. I think that's what saved me. My husband took a picture of my sister holding my son up to my breast to feed while I have my arm extended getting the blood transfusion. I look at it to remind me how much of a warrior I am and was. It's been almost 12 weeks and I've come around to accepting it. I still don't know if I'll have another child. I want to but the thought of putting my body through all that again is terrifying. We're all amazing mothers, we fight to give life to these angels no matter how they come into this world. I know I made the right decision and it could've gone so much worse had I not. Please, don't beat yourself up over it. You have a lifetime to bond with your child too. And NO ONE can replace mom. Not even your husband lol ❤️

Answer

I won't go into my labor/delivery experience. But I will say, it was traumatic for me and every time I think about it or tell people, I get very emotional and depressed. I kept reliving it over and over in my mind for weeks and would just cry when I would think about it. I was also upset because my milk supply never increased and ended up mostly formula feeding her. That was devastating too. I felt like a failure. But once I started telling myself that she was healthy and happy and we were safe and I was feeling better from my emergency c section, I was able to accept what we went through. Some people need to talk it out, not me. I focused my energy and thoughts on my baby girl and realized that I'm just happy she is here with me. It doesnt matter how she got here, she's here and she's well and that's the important thing. I'm still dealing with issues from my c section and I'm honestly not sure I could ever let myself have another child because of how traumatic it was. But my little girl is a blessing. After 5 years of trying, having a miscarriage and getting pregnant just 6 weeks later, I remind myself of how blessed I am to have her and that helps me cope with the disappointment of my labor/delivery experience.

Answer

Not necessary upset with delivery but definelty with the recovery. Stitches hurt like hell, bed so so heavily, couldn't walk with swollen legs and feet and didn't have any sleep what so ever for 4 days. When I came out of hospital everyone wanted to visit the first day. We said no and only had grandparents the first day. We then waited a week until stitches healed. I got abusive messages from people (family) because they didn't get to come over in the first week. Now 12 weeks later they want nothing to do with us or baby because they couldn't visit that first day. Begged for them to come round and forget it but they won't. Fuming.

Answer

What I've learned in therapy, identify what makes you upset about the situation, realize your feelings are justified and normal. Realize you can't change it, and although you never have to "get over it" you need to learn how to have the feelings you have but "put them away" in order to function. I had a very traumatic childhood and this helped me a lot. Maybe try speaking to a counselor or therapist

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I had hoped for a totally natural birth, including going in to labor naturally, but... I had gestational diabetes, so I was lucky my OB let me go to 40 weeks, but I had NSTs weekly for 2 months and that all went well, and baby girl was measuring in the 65tg percentile, so she was willing to let me go to 40 weeks instead of inducing at 39 weeks. At 40 weeks, my OB did an ultrasound and said my fluid was getting low and wanted me to go to the hospital for a more detailed ultrasound. While at the hospital for that, my blood pressure went up from the stress, so the nurse was insisting that I was lying about what my blood pressure was just that morning, and that I must have preeclampsia (which I didn't). At any rate, the hospital OB on call basically insisted that baby was going to be too high risk for the birthing center because of the diabetes and low fluid and said I needed to be admitted to the hospital right away. So that was July 28... I started cervadil that night and then a second round of cervadil in the morning. Pitocin all the next night and I still wasn't dilated more than 1cm, so they used a foley balloon to manually dilate cervix to 4cm... then back on pitocin that night, and finally started to get strong contractions around 4 am on July 31, water broke at 6am and baby girl was born at 9:41 am. My placenta didn't want to detach and I started hemorrhaging badly, lost 2 liters of blood, came close to dying my husband says. But, my baby girl was perfect, had no problems. So, while I was really upset and disappointed to not be at the birthing center, I was in the right place, though it wasn't my baby that needed the extra care, it was me. So, while I was disappointed, ultimately I was glad to have had my delivery plans changed by the doctor or I might not be here to tell the story of it.

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You are not alone--I literally just posted to see if anyone else had a traumatic birth story that they weren't able to get off their minds. I can't seem to write about it.

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I honestly thought my labour would be like this: water breaks in the middle of the night. Off to midwife birthing centre have baby naturally early hours in morning, home by teatime. But no I had to be induced due to olyhydromnios. 3 nights in hospital, forceps, cord wrapped around her neck then couldn't come home because my pulse was dangerously high. But just got to look forward and try to forget it.

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Also i find the only thing that is helping me move forward and not be so hurt by it is that im enjoying motherhood now. Shes settled down a little and isnt crying hours on end. Maybe things would have been different if she didnt have colic and was easier but thats what i find helps. The relationship that is forming is outweighing how hurt i was by those moments i didtn get or the first weeks that were hell!

Advice for when your upset with how your labour went????

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