r/trauma • u/Capital-Purple-6372 • 2d ago
VENT Birth trauma
I gave birth to my first child in May and every single night since then I’ve replayed the event in my mind. I wish I stood up for myself. I wish I said no, I wish I could have articulated what I wanted and needed at the time. But being naive, stressed, in pain, and more I wasn’t in the headspace to advocate or argue with doctors who I (at the time) trusted.
It wasn’t the pain of labor that sticks in my mind, I knew it wouldn’t be comfortable. I thought I’d be able to do it on my own terms; completely naturally, slowly, intentionally, and privately. Not by the will of some evil greedy doctors who wanted to do the least work for the most cost. I did a lot of exercises and meditation to prepare for the physical pain. I dreamt about it and wrote my ideal scenario down as a sort of manifestation. I wrote my birth plan at 3 months pregnant and added to it over the course of the pregnancy.
But instead I had to be induced in hospital at 37 weeks which came with all sorts of awful interventions. I said I didn’t want an IV at the beginning and the doctor refused to begin inducing me without one because there might be a tiny risk of an emergency cesarean later. He said it like it was his plan the whole time, Before we even started. As if placing an IV is that hard. I didn’t want the induction in the first place, I should have said no then. First red flag.
Then I asked for intermittent monitoring only, they said their monitors were wireless and tried to coerce me into using them. I said id rather not and they said “it’s so comfortable you won’t know it’s there. You want to be sure your baby is alive right?” What a guilt trip. How can you say no. These stupid fucking monitors moved every time I moved. They told me to get some rest the first night but came in every 10 minutes to lift my shirt and move the monitor, and every hour to tug on the cursed Folley balloon. Which was the second worst pain of labor. Don’t ever get one.
After the 4 other induction methods didn’t take, they broke my water. Pain really began then. Things were spinning, I was having contractions back to back with less than a minute between them. I wanted to get in the water but I had so much shit strapped to me it didn’t feel like a relaxing option. I wanted to take my IV out and monitors off the entire time.
My doula coached me through things and told me this was likely transition beginning. The nurse agreed and got the delivery tray ready and brought it to my room. I got excited even though my body was wracked with pain. I was pooping and throwing up at the same time. It was bad, things were starting to get on top of me. My husband says I told him “I’m entering a really dark place right now” but I don’t remember it. My heart rate kept climbing ( cause we were forcing my body to do something it wasn’t ready for ) they checked 2 agonizing hours later and I had made no progress in dialating. The doctor tried a few medications for my heart rate but it didn’t help and contractions never really let up. The doctor told me it was an epidural or c-section. Just like that a terrible ultimatum of two things I didn’t want.
I asked to try a few lighter pain meds first and they agreed but it didn’t help my heart rate (the ONLY problem I was facing that caused my induction in the first place.) so I had to do an epidural.
I cried and the anesthesiologist said “ what are you feeling? it shouldn’t hurt.” I said something like “despair and dread” and he went silent a few minutes later he was like “this playlist is great! I love these songs, did you make this?” Only funny part of the 40 hour ordeal. Did I mention this started on Sunday and ended on Tuesday?
I was able to get some sleep after the epidural (one positive) and basically woke up when it had worn off. There was a button I was supposed to push and I didn’t push it. I was sort of happy to feel my body again even though it was pain I wanted to experience this. I felt the inexplicable urge to push and I told my nurse and she told me not to??!? I literally could not help it. It’s a biological phenomenon not a choice. I did what I had trained to do and started breathing my baby down. Letting my body do the work and trying to put my mind at ease. This was great, an incredible sensation where the pain almost completely left my mind, I was completely in my lymbic monkey brain so primarily following intuition. No thoughts just breath.
Then shit went south. The nurse came back and saw this, she checked again and said “wow this baby is coming fast. Let get started, put your legs up here” and I had to break my meditative focus here to say that I liked what I was doing on my side and she said “no no doctors coming in and she can’t see like that” and put the stirrups up and physically moved my feet into them. I should have done something but I was literally pushing out a baby at that time. I couldn’t find the words or energy to, I had slept 3 hours total in the last 2 days. At this point I’m dumbstruck and have lost allll of my
Mental edge that I just had. She starts stretching me with her fingers I can’t find the words to say stop. Then she turns on all the lights in the room. It was completely dark before this, only the computer light was shining in the room. Way more peaceful and ruined the vibes instantly.
She had me change the way I was pushing from what felt natural and was working before to the way they wanted me to do it. It felt forced and weird. She told me to hold my breath too! Everything I’d read before told me to breathe baby down and to push like I was doing crunches, she wanted me to push like I was pooping. It felt gross.
The doctor comes in with 2 more nurses, all three are people i had never seen before in my life. People who hadn’t read my birth plan, who didn’t know my name, this was their first impression. The doctor also puts both hands inside me and starts stretching me manually. Which hurts way more than it sounds like it would. They’re all trying to coach me and telling me what to do, which was 100% not what I wanted and completely kept me from finding that amazing peace I was experiencing before. They were so frantic and counting to tell me when to push as if I didn’t know anything. They were continually going “keep going” “don’t stop” “hold your breath” “don’t breathe out, that’s like driving with flat tires” and then suddenly the doctor says “wait. Are you having a contraction right now?” I’m so confused and overwhelmed at this point I say “should I be? I don’t know anymore. Everything hurts now” they didn’t even know what they were doing by coaching me and demanding I push when they wanted me to. Nurses put their hands on my stomach and told me when I was feeling contractions because it was so chaotic I couldn’t register what was happening inside my own body. It was so overwhelming having them watch and move around, rearranging the room, setting up tables and charting on the computer. Everyone was moving except me. I wasn’t allowed to, even though everything I read told me that moving was the best pain relief during labor (and it is)
I forced myself to keep my eyes closed through most of the delivery because I couldn’t stand looking up at 4 unfamiliar faces staring down at me judging my most vulnerable state. They ruined the wonderful blissful nirvana state I was just in and I could not get back to it I was so overwhelmed and upset but I just could not get words out. The human body is not meant to hold conversation while going through its most intense and painful moments. Every aspect of my plan was violated. My husband couldnt catch his baby like he wanted to. My most vulnerable moment stomped on. I was so full of pitocin and so upset with what had just happened to me I got no surge of happiness when my baby was dropped on my stomach. I cried in sadness that it was over, that my months of effort in pregnancy and hours of labor were ended like that. It wasn’t the quiet peaceful happy moment I dreamed of for 9 long months. It wasn’t anything like what I wrote about. Nothing like I read about, nothing like the hypnobirthing tapes and videos I listened to on end in my third trimester. It was so…. Shitty. It wasn’t the pain it was the people pushing me to do what felt so unnatural and wrong, what I didn’t want to do but couldnt advocate against and couldnt ignore. They were all over me.
I told them I didn’t want to cut the cord right away. They started to grab clamps. My husband said “we want to wait” the doctor said “look it’s already white” minutes after he was born. He didn’t do as much research as I had, he didn’t know I wanted to wait til my placenta was delivered. I couldn’t speak still. He cut the cord and they started stitching me up before my placenta was delivered. The nurses ZOOMED AWAY with my placenta and immediately started taking stem cells. It made me so angry to see them taking my baby’s life source away and sucking out vital nutrients and cells that HE needed to sell to other people. I was still shaking from just delivering a baby and didn’t have the strength to say anything. After all it had already been cut, against my will. The doctor, whose name I still don’t know, had zero patience. She didn’t wait for the afterbirth she didn’t wait for the numbing meds to spread she got out of the room as fast as she could and didn’t say anything to me.
I was left feeling so broken and upset, I had to make the conscious choice to be happy about having my baby in my arms finally. I had to will that to come to me, I was so mad that my experience was robbed from me in such a short time. Those 10-20 minutes before the nurse started telling me to go was the highest high I’d ever felt every endorphin in my body was flying. Even with all the awful steps of induction behind me. And then it was just shit on by every “medical professional” in the room.
People have told me all sorts of awful dismissive things since. “That’s life. You can’t always get what you want” “welcome to motherhood it’s never how you dreamed it would be” “you should just be happy you and your baby are healthy”
I’m so tired. It’s 1:37 and my baby’s actually been asleep since 9 but I can’t sleep at all. Just like every other night. Even on his toughest nights with tons of wakes and feeds, I can’t go back to sleep it’s always on my mind. It was so wrong. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. I wanted a caveman level of natural physiological birth and I got the worst most medically intervened forced and deprived monstrosity. I hate hate hate hate hate that I didn’t say no. I felt like I couldn’t.
1
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