Feeling conflicted, guilty and undecided about how to birth baby #2

[Lolpigs]

Blondie, don't let anyone make you feel badly about wanting to avoid trauma. I got the same thing with my first birth. I really wanted a natural birth, who dosent? and it wasn't to be, my baby didn't engage and after 41 weeks with blood pressure starting to soar my options were induce which my OB said had a pretty good chance of ended in emergency C.s due to my baby not being engaged and they weren't sure why or C/S.

I chose and elective C/S, I was devastated at first, however know myself, and could not handle 30 hours or whatever of labor and end up with the distress of an emergency C/S. In the end it was the right choice for me and my baby as the cord was wrapped around her neck twice and very short, so short she couldn't engage, so it pretty much confirmed that my OB was right, we would have been an emergency with possibly distressed or dead baby or dead me. Without modern science we probably would have both died, as she never would have been able to get out. Ugh.

I still get people give me looks, like I copped out or took an easy option, my recovery was straight forwards but was by no means easy. If I has to go through a failed VB I don't know that I would have been able to cope at all if I'm honest. I think I would have shut down from the trauma. BF failed, I suffered from anxiety and depression afterwards because of this, and the unrealistic expectations I placed on myself. (I thought if it had to have C/S BF would damn well work! well it didn't) And I had a severe reflux baby. Hey I did get to use cloth nappies like I wanted. Life sometimes has a funny way of giving you what you need rather than what you want. The C/S was no party I was numb almost up to my chin, exhausted but I got to hold my baby all the way through, she slept on me in recovery and BF once we ere back in our room. I too have issues with midwives as they didn't help but hindered me and made me feel like everything I did was wrong constantly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you had massive trauma last time, I see no reason to go through that again. I would discuss what happened last time with a trusted OB/GP , get them your notes from last time from the hospital and discuss the risks/ pros/cons and make your decision from there. This is what we did. I know myself and my body was so glad we made that choice as I got a happy and healthy baby and I survived too.

This time around, I'm going to try for a VBAC, but if the same thing happens again I will choose elective C/S again. I will not hesitate. For me while recovery from C/S was hard, recovering from a failed VB and Trauma from that I would not be able to cope with at all. You need to do what is good not just for your physically I think, but mentally and emotionally as well. I found the failure of BF harder than the decision to C/S. This caused me lots of heartache and tears. How the baby comes out, isn't the definition of you as a woman. Sun roof is a fine option if needed.

Take care, and ignore those people that are not supportive of you. No-one other than you and your husband make this decisions.

xx