have you had a terrible birth experience

Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience that
followed the bad experience?

April

--
www.freewebs.com/lastchancerabbitrescue

april & co wrote:
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience that
followed the bad experience?

I haven't personally, but of the folks I know, many had
better experiences the next time around. I think things tended
to improve both because first births tend to be the most difficult
and also because they learned some lessons from the first birth
and did things differently the next time. I'm sure that to some
extent, it depends on what went wrong the first time. Some
things you might not be able to do much about, but often you
can change care providers, birth locations, or other things
to get a better experience.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"april & co" wrote in message
...
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience
that followed the bad experience?

April

Hi April!
Good to see you again.
#1's birth was not a good experience. It was a hard labour and ended with an
episiotomy. It took me nearly 2 years before I could contemplate a second.
#2 and #3 were much easier and it's mostly the thought of pregnancy rather
than labour that puts me off another.
Debbie

On Aug 6, 8:44 am, "april & co"
wrote:
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience that
followed the bad experience?

I had a terrible first birth experience. With different preparation
and care, I think it could have been fine. If you don't want to read
the details, just jump to the last 2 paragraphs. I was new to the
area and wanted a midwife, but couldn't find one. Near the end of the
pregnancy, my doctor (the one in town most known for natural births)
told me that he didn't believe in doulas. At some point during labor,
the nurse ordered me onto the bed and told me that I wouldn't be
allowed off until my baby was born. Despite it being an unmedicated
birth, they ordered me to start pushing. I never had any pushing
urge. The doctor did extreme perineal massage during the pushing,
grabbing my perineal area and pulling, leaning back and bracing his
feet on the floor to get all his weight into it. It was the most
painful thing I have experienced. With each push, I could feel my
baby's head banging excruciatingly against my pelvis. I didn't rush
in the pushing, since I didn't think I should be pushing yet. All of
a sudden, the doctor said "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to cut you",
picking up the scissors as he did so. I screamed "NO!" and kicked at
him, forcing him to jump back. He then said that my baby's heartbeat
had been going down during pushes and it needed to be born right
then. I thought I could get the baby out in one push, but I wasn't
absolutely sure, so I had to let him do it. I shrieked in pain as he
cut, then pushed my baby out. I was extremely angry with the doctor,
but had to let him stay to sew me up. The cut had led to a rather
bad tear too. It seemed to take forever. I must have lost quite a
bit of blood. About an hour after the birth, they tried to get me up
to move to another room, but every time I tried to get my head up to
sit, I became too dizzy to do it. They finally managed to get me into
a wheelchair and wheeled me in, with my head between my knees. The
never did any blood tests after the birth to see if I was anemic. In
retrospect, they probably should have had me on iron. The continued
hospital experience was bad too. At one point, I asked a nurse to
change my baby's diaper, since I was so unwell, but she refused saying
"We hate to send babies home with mothers who are afraid of them." It
was clearly a threat, which was quite frightening, since they do have
the power to report you as an unfit mother and not let you take your
baby home.

Once I was home, I continued to be in extreme pain. The pain reminded
me of the birth and I cried through the nighttime nursings for months
as I relived the birth experience each time. When my baby was 2 1/2
weeks old we had a death in the family and had to fly half way across
the US for 2 weeks. During this time, I thought I was healing wrong,
and finally got brave enough to look at my perineal area with a
mirror. It was very frightening. I had a sticking out part that was
bleeding from the surface of the skin. (I didn't find out that this
was granulation tissue until after my 2nd birth. It was caused by a
reaction to the plastic in the "Always" brand pads I was using.) At
the time, I thought it was from being stitched wrong and was very
upset. Since I had no doctor there, and we were in the middle of
family grief, I didn't tell anyone at the time.

I struggled through 11 months of pain hoping that I would get better
with time. I finally went to a nice doctor in a nearby town who I
found through a La Leche League leader. She sent me to physical
therapy for the pain and psycho therapy for the Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder. One EMDR session ended all my birth nightmares. I
continued physical therapy until my baby was almost 2. The pain from
the cut and tear improved quite a bit. They kept trying to straighten
out my pelvis, and sometimes helped and sometimes made it worse.

We took Bradly classes before even trying to get pregnant with the
second. I found a midwife and told her about my first birth. Later
she told me that she thought I had imagined the extreme perineal
massage until she worked as a doula at a birth with the same doctor
and saw him do it to another woman. I planned a home birth. Just in
case, I also went to my new doctor. She wrote in my chart that I
would not be required to get in the bed and that I did not have to
have to have the doppler sessions. Due to a mess up with insurance
that just happened to hit when my baby was born, my midwife called to
risk me out of a home birth the night before my baby was born. I went
into labor and called her. She came to take me to the hospital. My
labor was very fast and I was already starting to push a bit by the
time she arrived. On the way out to the car, I was down on my hands
and knees twice, and almost gave birth on the front parking strip, but
somehow managed to get in the car. When we arrived at the emergency
entrance, I tried to run in, but found myself once again on my hands
and knees pushing in the parking lot. Someone came rushing out with a
wheelchair and ran me to the delivery room. My midwife turned doula
ran ahead yelling "She wants everything all natural." The nurses
rushed to push the bed out of the way and I gave birth on my hands and
knees. The nurses put down a waterproof pad for me to roll onto as
soon as I had given birth and handed me my baby. With the hands and
knees delivery, my pelvis was fine. In fact it went back into
alignment and the pain I had had since my first birth was gone.
Although I did tear, it was painless and I could hardly believe I had
stitches. In the hospital, the nurses were wonderful and did
everything I asked. Just after the birth, I was feeling much better
than I had when my first baby was 6 months old. Although I did
develop granulation tissue again, I went right into my doctor who
prescribed a cream for it and it never got too bad. At that time my
doctor asked me if this was what I had happened after my first birth.
She then told me that granulation tissue after a birth is rare. She
hadn't believed my description of it the previous time and thought I
had imagined it due to the PTSD.

With my third birth, my labor was a longer and easier, about 3 hours.
This seemed perfect. I had her on my hands and knees at home in the
bathroom. It was much easier on me and the kids than rushing off to
the hospital. While I needed stitches again and was quite sore for
week after the birth, everything was fine and I was happy about it.

I know that many other women have had terrible birth experiences that
were objectively much worse than mine, but this was bad enough for me.

--Betsy

Hi to all three of you.

Joanna was actually my 3rd birth and she was the hardest and worse delievery
ever. My first son was born by section and actually that was a breeze
compared to Joanna even with the flu bug I caught after havig the section
which made it more painful every time I coughed etc. Number two was also
really easy, I had every pain reliefe going and didnt even know he was being
born as I was so out of it. Joanna was just an absolute nightmare but not
all of it. I had a kind of difficult pregnancy with a massive bleed at 9 wks
which resulted in me staying in hospital and thinking I'd lost the baby
although thank god I hadnt. I then suffered a bit with sciatia which was
really painful on some days but even that I can bear again. I can be a bit
more open here as most of you are aware of the Joanna drama. Anyway she was
a quick labour 5 hrs from start to finish, the first past was soooo easy
didnt even have any warning through that day or anything that she was
coming, came home about 5pm from a child protection meeting and without any
warning my waters broke so I called the hospital explained that my waters
had broke but no labour pains but they insisted that I went in anyway so I
did, I got to the hospital and by that point I was having twinges but
nothing I couldnt handle at that point, they strapped me to the monitor I
think to check babys HB which was fine and then they checked to see if I had
dialated and to everybodys surprise I was 10cm dilated and I remember saying
really well i'm not having any painfull pains really. Then there is a bit of
a bluh but I can remember that all of a sudden the pain became unbearable
and I was at that pushing stage. The midwife at one point put me on all
fours but I didnt really know what I was supposed to be doing and then she
put me back on my back and told me to push into my bum and I thought I was
doing it but obviously I wasnt because the midwifes became really frustrated
with me, then I remember them calling the doctor person and saying babes HB
was dropping so they were going to use the ventrois which they did but first
of all they couldnt get it to work properly and then when they did they were
using it even when I wasnt having a contration so it felt like they were
pulling her out. At one point it was so agonising that I just wanted to get
off that bed and run but they all held me down while nasty doctor woman
pulled my precious baby out. Joanna was then born and it was all over but
then I couldnt hold her because I was shaking so much then they took her to
SCBU as she wasnt allowed to stay with me ect. I know the aftercare bit
won't happen again as Joanna is with me now so I won't be treated like a
cirminal like last time and baby will be put with me but I just can't get
that horror labour from my head and so desperatly want another one.

april

"april & co" wrote in message
...
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience
that followed the bad experience?

My first birth experience wasn't 'terrible' but it was much harder then I
was expecting and I was disappointed. I had an episiotomy and it took a
really long time for that to heal to the point I wasn't miserable. I pushed
for 3hrs 45min. I do not think I had very good nursing care during
labor/delivery but people were nice so I wasn't traumatized. Baby was never
in trouble so that was good.

The second labor and delivery was much better. It was easier and I wasn't
so frightened because I knew what to expect. I also had much better
nurses.

The third labor was easy enough. Very fast so a little scary for a few
minutes but really it was fine. Again, the babies were never in any trouble
or any scary moments like that - which makes a big difference.

I can totally understand wanting another experience to sort of wipe away a
bad memory. I felt like that too with my second pg.


--
Nikki, mama to
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Brock 4/06
Ben 4/06

On Aug 6, 11:44 am, "april & co"
wrote:
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience that
followed the bad experience?


I had a horrible birth experience with #1, but went on to have 4 more
and the labours were fine. With #1, he was overdue, and I had gotten
induced. It was a teaching hospital and the resident was not good. #1
was posterior, and was stuck for over 2 hours, after 15 hours of hard
contractions. We were rushed into the operating room for an emergency
c-section, but was given 2 chances first with the forceps, and they
got him out on the second try. I had major trauma to the perenium, and
tore badly and had a lot of stitches.. Not sure what degree I had, but
it was months before I could sit down normally, without the boppy
pillow. After that, my labours were fine. I switched hospitals

April

--www.freewebs.com/lastchancerabbitrescue

april & co wrote:
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience that
followed the bad experience?

I can reasonably say none of mine have been that wonderful, and frankly
I have no intention of having a sixth child.

I can get into details another time.

Michelle
Flutist

Hi Everybody for your feedback. I think i'm just going to go for it and just
pray like mad that my next birth experience is better than the last. Hey if
I plan it right then I could go into labour back home in England and give
birth at the good old L&D hospital and then I would know that I would be
getting good care and support. I've been looking into a doula and might go
with that idea one things happen. BTW Joanna is doing fab, shes 18 months
old now and is doing normal 18 month old things. We off the at risk register
and have been transfered over to another social services department where
they don't have as much involvement.

april

"Michelle J. Haines" wrote in message
...
april & co wrote:
Have any of you had a terrible birth experience where you went on to have
another one? If so what was the experience and what was the experience
that followed the bad experience?

I can reasonably say none of mine have been that wonderful, and frankly I
have no intention of having a sixth child.

I can get into details another time.

Michelle
Flutist

"april & co" wrote in message
...
Hi to all three of you.

Joanna was actually my 3rd birth and she was the hardest and worse
delievery ever.
snip
(((hugs)))
What was the spacing between #2 and Joanna? I've a vague memory of someone
saying that if you have a spacing of more than about 5 years often the
delivery is more like a first delivery. (I've no references for this, but
I'm sure someone told me that at some point and they might be wrong too)
I don't expect it helped having all the stress that came up just before she
was born either-it all came up just before she was born didn't it? I know in
labour if I am just concentrating on getting through the contractions then I
cope much better than if I'm not totally focused. I'm sure if I'd been in
your situation then I wouldn't have been able to focus well.
Particularly with #2 I absolutely dreaded the labour through the pregnancy
and it didn't match up to my expectations. In fact the only labour I didn't
go into dreading and thinking it would be awful was my first, which was :-)
I know what you mean about the midwives getting frustrated and saying you're
not pushing properly. I've had that, and it's really disheartening when you
think you've just done a good push. Actually when they said I was pushing
well, I really couldn't tell what I was doing differently.
In this area you can ask for a midwife to go over your labour notes and give
you suggestions on how to make it better "next" time. Ask your GP if you can
do this. I didn't do it, but I know people who did who found it gave them
more confidence to get pregnant again.
I can't say that the next labour for you will be easy/easier, but I suspect
it will be in a lot of ways because you won't have the worry of baby being
taken from you. It may be emotional for you, thinking about Joanna and what
happened then, but it shouldn't happen again. (and if it does we'll get a
misc.kids delegation to march over to Wales to duff them up...)
Debbie