At 6 days post partum it was found that I had an infection in my c-section wound. I was then on antibiotics for most of the next 7 weeks, and having my wound dressed by the district nurses at my local GP surgery every few days.
I developed post natal depression, had trouble breast feeding Jack and found it virtually impossible to participate in the basic care of my new baby. I couldn't bend or kneel to change his nappies, couldn't lift him from the floor or his bouncer, couldn't get out of bed in the night to fetch him to me for feeding, couldn't lift him in his infant carrier or push a pram and couldn't take him out anywhere without help. It was hell and seriously interfered with my ability to bond with him.
Luckily, Andy had over 3 weeks off work so was able to help a lot during the worst of it. My mum then took over, visiting every day to take me to the nurse and help look after Jack.
We had trouble with BFing, mainly, I believe, because of the surgery. I wasn't able to hold him for several hours afterwards, we didn't get our immediate skin-to-skin, in fact it wasn't until the next day that I got this. We were advised to use nipple shields to help him latch on, so we used these for a couple of weeks, but they were a pain to use, had to be sterilised and were generally unpleasant and interfered with normal feeding. At about 2 weeks we cracked it, we ditched the shields and Jack managed to latch on on his own and from there on I was able to feed him normally. We did give him a few bottles of formula in those early weeks, but stopped when Jack was about 5 weeks old. We've been exclusively BFing since, Jack will be 19 weeks old tomorrow!
When my physical recovery took off I was almost immediately better able to bond with Jack, I could do more with him and began to enjoy being a parent. But the events of his birth continued to haunt me and although I had felt ok with each decision at the time I began to look back with deep regrets about our decisions to call the MWs so soon, consent to ARM and hospital transfer and the cascade of interventions we were coerced into accepting. I have since learned of many women who had extremely long latent labours (days long), who had posterior babies etc who gave birth naturally at home. I applied for my hospital notes and on examining them we found that there had been more progress than we had taken in at the time (at one point I was 5-6cms) and Jack was posterior, not transverse as predicted. Transverse babies can become lodged in the pelvis, but women give birth to posterior babies all the time with little more difficulty than anterior babies.
I believe now that the NHS MWs did not try hard enough to help me have a normal birth, protocols and misguided use of interventions led to the c-section. We have an appointment with an independent MW next Monday to go over the notes with an impartial 3rd party and I am keen to know what she thinks about what happened and what she may have advised differently had she been in attendance.
I have agreed with Andy that the only way I would consider having another child in the future is if we can hire an IM and shun the NHS. He agrees with me. A dear friend asked me why it matters what happened and I had to tell him that I feel I failed as a woman, I did not give birth to Jack, he was surgically removed from me and the experience of giving birth that I was very much looking forward to was stolen from me. It also has implications for Jack's health (c/s babies are higher risk of asthma and diabetes) and makes a normal birth in the future less likely. Hiring an IM goes some way to increasing the chances of me being able to give birth next time and there is no way I will trust the NHS to have my best interests at heart in future, they will have their arses as their top priority.
I developed post natal depression, had trouble breast feeding Jack and found it virtually impossible to participate in the basic care of my new baby. I couldn't bend or kneel to change his nappies, couldn't lift him from the floor or his bouncer, couldn't get out of bed in the night to fetch him to me for feeding, couldn't lift him in his infant carrier or push a pram and couldn't take him out anywhere without help. It was hell and seriously interfered with my ability to bond with him.
Luckily, Andy had over 3 weeks off work so was able to help a lot during the worst of it. My mum then took over, visiting every day to take me to the nurse and help look after Jack.
We had trouble with BFing, mainly, I believe, because of the surgery. I wasn't able to hold him for several hours afterwards, we didn't get our immediate skin-to-skin, in fact it wasn't until the next day that I got this. We were advised to use nipple shields to help him latch on, so we used these for a couple of weeks, but they were a pain to use, had to be sterilised and were generally unpleasant and interfered with normal feeding. At about 2 weeks we cracked it, we ditched the shields and Jack managed to latch on on his own and from there on I was able to feed him normally. We did give him a few bottles of formula in those early weeks, but stopped when Jack was about 5 weeks old. We've been exclusively BFing since, Jack will be 19 weeks old tomorrow!
When my physical recovery took off I was almost immediately better able to bond with Jack, I could do more with him and began to enjoy being a parent. But the events of his birth continued to haunt me and although I had felt ok with each decision at the time I began to look back with deep regrets about our decisions to call the MWs so soon, consent to ARM and hospital transfer and the cascade of interventions we were coerced into accepting. I have since learned of many women who had extremely long latent labours (days long), who had posterior babies etc who gave birth naturally at home. I applied for my hospital notes and on examining them we found that there had been more progress than we had taken in at the time (at one point I was 5-6cms) and Jack was posterior, not transverse as predicted. Transverse babies can become lodged in the pelvis, but women give birth to posterior babies all the time with little more difficulty than anterior babies.
I believe now that the NHS MWs did not try hard enough to help me have a normal birth, protocols and misguided use of interventions led to the c-section. We have an appointment with an independent MW next Monday to go over the notes with an impartial 3rd party and I am keen to know what she thinks about what happened and what she may have advised differently had she been in attendance.
I have agreed with Andy that the only way I would consider having another child in the future is if we can hire an IM and shun the NHS. He agrees with me. A dear friend asked me why it matters what happened and I had to tell him that I feel I failed as a woman, I did not give birth to Jack, he was surgically removed from me and the experience of giving birth that I was very much looking forward to was stolen from me. It also has implications for Jack's health (c/s babies are higher risk of asthma and diabetes) and makes a normal birth in the future less likely. Hiring an IM goes some way to increasing the chances of me being able to give birth next time and there is no way I will trust the NHS to have my best interests at heart in future, they will have their arses as their top priority.
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2 comments:
I am sorry you didn't have the birth you wanted, and I hope that 'next time' you will be able to. It is definitely an ideal worth striving for. Keep up the good spirits
Thank you :)
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