re: Birth Trauma/Birth Rape Support Thread

Quoting Caitlyn Dunaway:" Hey guys. I don't know what exactly im counted as but another mamma told me to come here because it would ... [snip!] ... I just wish i had my patience back. I feel like i snap at my girls for no reason where i used to just be so laid back. "

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I'm SO sorry you had to go through all that. I can't imagine how you must have felt. That was a very traumatic experience. The thing is, you getting an epidural may not have caused all that. It could have happened like that anyway so please don't beat yourself up. Also, every mama get's crazy sometimes. I was in tears all the time with my son during the first few months. I would have to call someone to come help me because I would get SO angry at him. I love my son and would never hurt him but I would have these violent feelings and when I did I would have to walk away and let someone else take over. Motherhood can really drive people over the edge. It's the hardest job in the world IMO! It tests your patience and requires your 24/7 attention. It's a strain on the mind and body. I have no idea what I would have done without a support system. I hated calling anyone at first because I felt like a failure because I thought I should be able to do this by myself. Now I understand that even mommies need a break sometimes.

Quoting Punk Rock Princess {EBFT}:" My son's birth itself wasn't traumatic. But afterwards, while my MW was checking for tears she suddenly, ... [snip!] ... I understand!" It was worse pain than the whole 4 hour labor and delivery of my 10.5 lb baby. And that was without drugs."

  OMG is that allowed?!? Did they get into trouble for not at least warning you?

Quoting Eva Barnett:" Thanks so much for sharing your story. I'm SO sorry you had to go through all that. I can't imagine how ... [snip!] ... a failure because I thought I should be able to do this by myself. Now I understand that even mommies need a break sometimes."

Thank you. I don't know i guess it just made it worse when she came home because it was all so different than the experience i had with my first daughter. Nothing has been the same. And where as i expected it to be different. It has been different in a hard way. She is always upset or hurt or something. The poor thing cant catch a break  
But i definitely understand what you mean about calling people. i have started calling my mom over to help me on the days that i just can't handle it anymore  

I don't know if I was birth raped, but I was certainly disrespected on the opperating table.
What happened wasn't my OBGYN's fault, my c-section was completely nessisary.
but after being given the spinal, I started having a bad reaction to it. I felt like someone was sitting on my chest even though I knew I could breathe because of the oxygen mask on my face.
Knowing didn't seem to help. I blacked out and animal instinct took over. I was screaming for it to please end and for someone to help me! Please help me!
The doctor helping my OBGYN with the surgery said to my mom "tell her to stop being a baby. If she can scream, she can breathe".
Once my daughter entered the world, the same smurf doctor and a nurse told me either you can see the baby or we can give you something to calm you down your choice."
At this point my OBGYn, the one medical member of the teem who was kind to me, help the baby up to me and I kisssed her on the nose before they took her away. I don't even remember doing it because of how traumatic my reaction was to the spinal. I was given versed and the next thing I knew I was somewhere else and could breathe again.
I would like my next experience if I do have more children to be better. I feel completely disrespected. It wasn't my fault I had a reaction and he and his nurse didn't need to treat me like crap.

not sure if people would call this a traumatic birth but everything that happen to me before durring and after was very traumatic to me

I will start with I was very sick my whole pregnancy. I had hyperemesis gravidarum (if you do not know its severe case of morning sickness) It started at 7 weeks and at 6 weeks PP I still have it. I was in the hospital all the time due to just the mass amounts of throwing up. I needed at home care but they would not give it to me said it would go away. I needed a med pump and same thing they would not give it to me said it would go away. I lost close to 50lbs in my pregnancy.

On May 31 2011 I went in for a normal OB appointment I was 34w 6d. I had been having major problems with my heart condition so my doctor sent me to L&D just to check the baby and make sure she was doing alright and so cardiology could take a look at me. Baby was happy as can be but I was contracting every 2-3 mins but nothing to strong. Cardiology came and decided to do an U/S of my heart and to see if my heart was failing. Which in this case it was starting to fail. They decided I needed to be admitted to L&D for care of my heart but had no plans on me having the baby they were going to wait as long as they could. They said the NICU team was going to come in and talk to us just in case she was born we knew what to expect.

Later on that night i ended up having a eclamptic seizure. So i guess 20-30 people came rushing into the room and hooked me up to the crash cart. Once I woke up a few minutes later I had two anesthesiologist trying to put in another large bore IV in my hand. So now at this point I have two large IV's in both my hands and a catheter in plus I was hooked up to a heart monitor. They gave me a huge dose of magnesium sulfate which made me feel like i was on fire. At that point the doctor said I could not go on like this anymore She talked to a few doctors and they were trying to figure out if i needed an emergency C- Section or I could do an induction. They decided I could try for an induction and that in few hours once i recover from the seizure they would start the induction.

The induction started with me already at 4cm and everything was great for the most part contraction were coming hard and fast but i was ok and did not want an epi ( did not have one with my son either and loved the experience and wanted it again). I was told the induction would but long due to the fact I was on Mag and it makes inductions much harder. My induction started at 11pm my water broke on its own at 8:10am and the contraction got much stronger. It was painful but nothing I could not handle. Sometimes around 10:30-11am my heart just was not taking the birth very well and it was decided it was best that I got an epi which I really did not want at all just in case i needed an emergency C-Section. ( They said if i did not get the epi now i would have to be put out all the way if i needed an ermergency c-section) Anesthesiology put in the epi and left however it did not work so they came back in. I ended up with a total of 4 unsuccessful attempts and finally on the 5th one they got it. A little bit later the doctor came in and check me and I was at 8cm she had to break my water because when it broke on its own i guess it did not break all the way. She said she would be back in 2 hours to check me again. Not 15 mins went by and I called the nurse in and said this baby is coming NOW. The doctor came in and all she had time for was to put a face mask on and gloves and out came the baby at 12:56pm June 1st 2011 at exactly 5 weeks early. I did not even get to see her before she was rushed over to some kind of table thing. The NICU team came running in and started working on her. She was ok at first but went down hill very fast but finally they got her breathing again after a long 3-4 mins and everything was just fine. For the first few hours she was ok but she was doing what they call singing which means she is breathing but not breathing the right way so they were trying to decided if she needed to go to the NICU. They decided to wait it out a bit longer and finally toward the end of the day she got much better.

I had to stay on L&D for another 24 hours because I had to be on Mag and then they moved me over to the mother infant care center. At this time I felt great my vitals stabilized and all i had was a headache. We were released from the hospital on the 3rd day and everything was ok. Went back to the hospital the next day for her check up and I had a headache from HELL. I ended up collapsing in the pedi office. So once again here come a ton of people to help me they hooked me up to an AED and when the AED said shock required they rushed my husband out of the room and all my husband could hear was the AED saying begin CPR They then took my husband and my little girl to another room so I have no idea what happen after that. I finally woke up and was at the ER. Spent forever in the ER but finally they said I was ok and could go home. On the way home I had 2 seizures and having a 3rd one by the time he got me to the hospital near our house. They hooked me up to more Mag and gave me a very strong pain meds and I was transferred by rescue back to the hospital I just came from. (the hospital on the base we live at is not a very good hospital so they can not treat high risk pregnancy people like me or anything to bad in the ER).

I was again on L&D for another round of mag. I was then moved to another room where they could just watch me for a few days. Now it has been 6 days since I had my little girl and i have heardly spent any time with her and I still have this headache from hell which was a spinal headache. I needed a blood patch to fix it. The next day I went down for the blood patch and they could not get an IV in me anywhere to draw the blood they needed to put in my back so they ended up having to put an IV in the artery on both my wrist. Then after that the blood patch went great. I talked to one of the nurses and she said in her 10 years doing blood patches she has never seen them have to take blood from the artery before. I was sent home the next day.

I think everything is going to be ok and I can start to bond with my child seeing i have not really seen her and I want to BF. Not the case out of nowhere i ended up having a problem with my gallbadder. I needed emergency surgery to remove it. I spent 9 days in the hospital. So now my milk is gone (its still gone) So no BF because I can not get it back. I am having some kind of PPD or something because though I love my daugher I can not bring myself to hold her or bond with her. Thinking back on my birth i can not stand being in the hospital my heart races and I feel faint. The birth and everything that went with it makes me feel faint or just crying.

Quoting Jordan & Liliana's Mommy:" not sure if people would call this a traumatic birth but everything that happen to me before durring ... [snip!] ... in the hospital my heart races and I feel faint. The birth and everything that went with it makes me feel faint or just crying."

Oh wow mamma. Im so sorry that you have had to go through all of that! Your story was way worse than mine but we kinda went through some of the same things.
If i read correctly your baby is just over a week old?
When my baby came home from the NICU i didnt want to hold her or touch her either. I still don't sometimes. But talking about it with other mammas on here has really helped me to calm down some and i have kind of started to bond with my LO.
If you ever want to talk feel free to PM me. I know how hard it can be to want to be there for your baby but not want to be any where near them at the same time. I hope you heal up fast and that you and that little girl can bond soon.

Quoting Caitlyn Dunaway:" Oh wow mamma. Im so sorry that you have had to go through all of that! Your story was way worse than ... [snip!] ... not want to be any where near them at the same time. I hope you heal up fast and that you and that little girl can bond soon."

Thanks!

I was scared to say something to other mom's on here because I did not want people to be really mean to me when I was going through stuff. I read in the OP that this thread has some protection so that's why i opened up and said something.

My daughter is 6 weeks old this week.

Quoting Jordan & Liliana's Mommy:" Thanks! I was scared to say something to other mom's on here because I did not want people to be ... [snip!] ... OP that this thread has some protection so that's why i opened up and said something. My daughter is 6 weeks old this week."

I actually just posted mine like two days ago. And from what i can tell no one has been mean on here   But i don't know why anyone would be mean about your story any ways. That was horrible.  
It really does suck though that you can't just complain about how you feel on here though because you have to tell your whole damn story for any one to understand that your not just being a wimp  

i heard the term birth rape from another mama on BG..but until reading the OP i wasnt 100% sure what happened to me.

i was induced and they didnt ask me ANYTHING they just did what they wanted when they wanted without telling me what was going on. i know they should ASK but honestly, that day, being TOLD would have been better than nothing.

i wish i had had a midwife. my OB was hardly there and left me with a nurse i didnt know who upped my pitocin without asking my doc or even telling me. which caused my sons heart rate to drop..so then she shoved her hands in me to massage his scalp or something like that (still not sure what she did) without even telling me she was doing it (had an epi)

the only reason i knew she was doing it was because my mom came in a demanded to know wtf was going on... i wasnt even told til AFTER he was born that my pitocin was ever even upped.

there was way more than that too, but thats what haunts me the most. what if Ms heart had stopped? they never even let me CHOOSE anything that day.

I’ve seen this support thread a few times and I’ve been thinking about sharing my story here and finally decided that I would.
The birth of my son 5 years ago was supposed to be a wonderful happy occasion. He was the little boy I’d been wanting for so long. I already had 2 girls who were 8 and 10 at the time my son was born.
At the advice of my doctor we went in at 39 weeks for an induction. I only had a 1 and a half hour labor with my 2nd child and we lived about 45 minutes away from the hospital if there was no traffic. Since we didn’t feel it would be the best thing for me to end up giving birth in the car, induction seemed like the best choice.
Everything went ok up until about an hour before I had my son. We went to the hospital at like 6 a.m. We filled out all the admission paperwork and around 8 they finally got me hooked up to an I.V and started giving me pitocin. By about 2 pm I was dilated to about 3 cm and my doctor decided to break my water. Then he left the hospital for to go to lunch. About 30 minutes after he broke my water my contraction started becoming very intense. I was in a lot of pain and they were coming very close together. By 3 I was dilated to about 6 cm and then it got really bad. I went from 6 to fully delivered baby in 30 minutes. The nurse had tried numerous times to reach my doctor but got no response. My son was delivered in 3 pushes and the staff doctor at the hospital got credited with delivering him, though he was out before the doctor came in the room.
My doctor arrived shortly after and there was huge commotion over the fact that he never got any page from the nurse. He swore that she must not have paged him and he was upset and she of course insisted that she did page him and everyone seemed to be worried about covering their asses. I don’t know exactly how long after the birth it was but I started noticing that I was having these gushes of blood every few minutes. I kept asking my nurse if this was normal. I had given birth twice before and didn’t remember having gushes like this. She kept assuring me it was fine. It was about 2 hours after my son was born that I finally reached the point where I felt like I was going to pass out. They checked my blood pressure and it had dropped to 60/40. I was hemorrhaging. A lot of doctors and nurses came into the room and they rushed my family along with my new baby out. I was getting stuck with needles in my thighs and in my arms. My doctor started reaching inside me and pulling out massive blood clots. They were giving me stuff in I.V’s and I remember one thing in particular was extremely cold and it hurt really badly. My doctor did make them stop that and heat it up. But I was begging for it to all stop. They kept telling me they had to and the whole time I’m being stuck with needles and being held down by nurses my doctor keeps pulling clots out of me. They wouldn’t take me to surgery. Then after the bleeding was finally getting under control they put a catheter in me which was just added pain. I think all in all I lost a little over 4 pints of blood and they never gave me a transfusion. They simply pumped me full of fluids.
Then to make matters worse, after everything I went through they refused to let my family stay with me for the night. I had to spend the night alone and scared and in pain. They ended up keeping me for 3 days because they were so concerned about how much blood I lost but still wouldn’t give me a transfusion. I went home extremely anemic and weak and then had to try to take care of my newborn son. The first day I was home I felt like I was going to pass out at one point and it terrified me. We went to my doctor and he checked me out and everything was ok, but because of what I went through I was so scared.
We considered filing a malpractice suit against the hospital because we feel that negligence led to this situation. If they had been more worried about me than covering their asses over the incident with the doctor not getting his pages, they would have realized I was hemorrhaging sooner and it may have been less severe. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t even bring myself to file the suit because I knew I’d have to relive that day over again.

Ladies I saw your stories and I just wanted to you that I think ya'll are amazing. Reading this makes want to punch those doctor in their nuts. They forget that with the birth of a child is also the birth of a mother. I am so sorry that all that had happen to you.

Is there ribbon for support of healing and awareness that I could put on my page?

<blockquote><b>Quoting Tracey Barnes:</b>" I’ve seen this support thread a few times and I’ve been thinking about sharing my story here and finally ... [snip!] ... when it came down to it, I couldn’t even bring myself to file the suit because I knew I’d have to relive that day over again."</blockquote>




im so sorry you had to deal with that. it would be so terrifying..

i just hate how birth has become something controlled and forced, technically i dont have to let them even check me but yet we all feel we cant speak up or that we have no choice but to have these hospitalized medical births. birth is a miracle, not a procedure  

Quoting Jordan & Liliana's Mommy:" not sure if people would call this a traumatic birth but everything that happen to me before durring ... [snip!] ... in the hospital my heart races and I feel faint. The birth and everything that went with it makes me feel faint or just crying."

I know this was posted a while ago but I hope you are starting to heal some. That about made me cry. :[
Thats so awful. I am so so so sorry. My birth was bad due to Pre-eclampsia but yours is BY FAR much scarier. Have you till not been able to get your milk to come in? Doctors have a pill now that they can give you to induce lactation! and it works for adopted parents and transgenders...lol both that have never had children so it should work if you can get it.

I just wanted to share this.
I had a pretty traumatic labor experience. I know that I posted it in one of these threads (not sure if it's this one)...but during my labor, I meditated to my favorite band, Enigma in hopes that I would not get an epidural...but the hospital staff was so pushy that I ended up with it anyway due to "Pre-Eclampsia" and scare tactics... anyway, my son didn't react to it well. His heart rate dropped and he almost died ect... It still makes me mildly ill to think about.

There is more to the story but I just wanted to share... that it has been 15 months now and I can FINALLY listen to, Enigma without having this sick gut wrenching feeling...or without crying...
For months after the birth of my son, I couldn't look at him without crying and if it weren't for breastfeeding I don't think we would have bonded...

The other day, when I was able to listen to that music and not feel regret... it was the first time I had really noticed that I am healing....
Healing can take a long time... but I hope you all can find peace <3

Quoting Jeanine *:" I know this was posted a while ago but I hope you are starting to heal some. That about made me cry. ... [snip!] ... and it works for adopted parents and transgenders...lol both that have never had children so it should work if you can get it."

Thank you so much mama. I did not know about the pill and i am still having major milk issues.

It does not matter who story was worse then others it was bad or tramatic to the mother/baby/or family.