long story short, I had an awful, awful birth experience with DS resulting in surgery and distress and depression and whole lot of nasty.
I am now UTD with a very wanted and planned #2 called ziggy the zygote, who we are looking forward to meeting in late February or early March.
I am now petrified of hospitals, due to my experiences from DS's birth and the subsequent surgery etc.
As in, I had my first appointments today and was in the hopital for about 3.5 hours for midwife, Dr, pharmacy and bloodtests, and I was in tears for a significant portion of it, just from being so distressed.
This is not me.
I have organised to be at a different hospital, I am getting ongoing counselling trying to recover from the birth trauma, I doing everything I can think of to make this not so upsetting, but there I was, bawling with the (very nice and understanding) midwife ...
DH works an hour away from the hospital, all of my immediate family work, none of our friends know that I'm pregnant, so there isn't someone I can have come with me (and I have no idea whether that would help in any event).
I don't know how I'm going to get through 7 months of appointments and a few days of hospital stay after ziggy arrives!!
Has anyone else had to deal with fears about being in hospital ? What helped?
Hugs hunni. I'm not sure what else would help from what you have already implemented...
Could you have the apointments in the community (not sure if your needing to have appointments at the hosp - that could make it easier) again not sure if that's an option.
Huge hugs.... xoxox And if you were closer I ould come with you
Hugs hun,
If you need some support I'm happy to come along to your appointments with you.
Sounds like your doing everything you can to relieve the anxiety & hopefully with time it will ease.
Hugs
Maybe crying with the midwife today was good. I bawled the day I booked in at the hospital, it was the first time I got to speak my experience to someone in the hospital system. The midwife was wonderful and treated me with utmost respect and sensitivity, I think I did a bit more healing that day. Maybe you did too, even if it didn't feel like that.
I organised an elective caesarean and I'm glad I did because I wigged out completely the day we did the hospital tour.
It may not be the right approach for you, but I'm telling you about it so you know there are things you can do to make this experience completely different to the first one. There is lots of support here on BB of course, and supports with calm birthing techniques, doulas and IMs, and like you've mentioned, counselling. Hypnotherapy and EMDR (Eye movement desensitation) can be particularly helpful to deal with PTSD.
I hate hospitals. I hate pregnancy clinics. DH has always been with me though. When we had to go back for meetings after DS1 died, we scheduled mertings in the social work dept to avoid the pregnancy mgmt ward.
I also had counselling. I was learning Mindfulness in the anticipation of DS2's birth. This is a bit like retraining the mind and body so going to hospital wouldnt cause so much stress. I can PM you details.
We had nearly all our appointments with our private midwife in our own home and only went to hospital when everything went wrong again. That meant we weren't exposed to that kind of stress.
Is it possible to have your appointments either at home with an IM or a community clinic? Or with a private OB in their consulting rooms? Also look at phobia specific or PTSD related therapy. Things like kiniesiology work at removing trauma at a cellular level. I think EFT does it too. Self-hypnosis or hypnotherapy can also help.
Counselling is good but it's limited if it's just talking about things. You need techniques to help on a deeper level. Ideally I'd suggest a homebirth but obviously that wont work for a c-section.
My phobia didn't come about from my pregnancy or birth... When i was 17 i had a very bad fall off a horse and messed my right arm up quite bad. The trauma from having my mum fight the surgeon to not amputate my arm and do what he had to, to keep my arm. And then being placed in the dementure ward as the adolescent ward was closed for maintenance and seeing and hearing things that haunt me even now. So when it came to me falling pregnant and the thought of having to stay in hospital made me nervous and anxious.
I am fine if i have my mum or my DP with me but when i am by myself even for 10 mins i tense up and just want to run away. I don't know if ill get over my phobia/fear. I have always made sure i didnt have to stay in hospital for long, after DD was born one night was fine for me and i wanted to go home.
I agree with counselling to talk about your feelings and talking to your midwife to ensure what happened before doesnt happen again.
Hugs hun I think you need to see a counsellor about your feelings, as until you work things out you will not enjoy your pregnancy and will not acheive a happier, calmer, more enjoyable birth 2nd time as you will be full of fear and worry.
Hugs hun you are a strong woman you can do this and you will get a better experience this time xoxo
thanks, girls ... my own little doula posse! I might have to take someone up on the offer, for the next appointment, and see if it helps.
sorry to hear about your experiences, LMS ... that bites. I hope you're recovering too.
my counselling is going really well, and I'm making good progress. It just takes time.
I really thought I'd be ok in a different hospital, but apparently not.
The midwife was really, really lovely, and spent about an hour with me, talking things through, being really upfront when things came up that she couldn't answer and I'd need to speak to the Dr about, etc. That was helpful, because lines and boundaries and experience was very clear, and I could see she was helping me to manage my expectations which is important for me at the moment.
And the Dr was not exactly lovely, but very upfront and honest and straightforward, and explained how long the stay would normally be, but that I could go home earlier if I needed to and I and the baby were ok, etc. And she explained a few key differences about c-sections compared with vaginal births (eg: normally can't feed straight away, but they can usually get the baby to you in recovery within an hour, etc ... things which I obviously didn't like to hear, but I am pleased she was honest, so I don't have unrealistic expectations, and I can start thinking about what I'm most keen to work at - like holding and feeding him/her as soon as possible).
My next appointment is in 4 weeks, and I'm thinking maybe I should take a buddy. It's a Tuesday, so I might call on you, Ocean!
I'm also seriously thinking about taking a week of work after we announce, and just spending time processing and journalling and praying. I know I can't fix everything in a week, but it at least will give me a chance to try. I want to be able to enjoy this pregnancy, and not have by entire life seem as if it's through the filter of my birth injury ...
And with multiple children, multiple siblings, ageing parents and parents in law etc, I can't go through life bursting into tears everytime I go into a hospital.
And again ... this isn't me. I don't like it. Something's got to give.
I have PTSD from several VERY bad hospital experiences. I too fell from a horse and I broke both my arms. The care was appalling and bordered on malpractice. Nurses refused to attend to me because I called to them instead of using the call button (which I couldn't work due to having two broken arms) I too was with a dementure patient who kept trying to pull my drip out as she was an ex-nurse. I had two very bad recoveries from aneasthetic on that stay.
The next hospital stay was for "simple day surgery" and I reacted badly to aneasthetic although I warned them......ended up in intensive care.
The next stay was for the birth of my daughter Ellen. I held off on being induced because of my extreme fear of the hospital and because I was so fearful I ended up losing my daughter. She was induced because she had already died inutero at 41 weeks.
I am now pg again and in absolute fear of the hospital. Any small hiccups scare the heck out of me and my husband also has a high distrust oif the hospital. We do not believe they actually care for us well at all.
I have done some things to try and help myself.
here's a list
- I have made a VERY detailed birth plan
-I have made sure none of the people who brought Ellen into the world will attend this birth
- I have spoken with the social worker and she is organising a conference for all the people involved in the birth so they know I will stutter and be very frightened and so they know our story and don't ask inappropriate questions.
- I have visited the hospital often to try and de-sensitize myself......not sure if this is a good idea but I'm trying it.
- I have found a midwife I like and I am seeing her regularly and she hopes (shifts pending) to be there when my baby is delivered.
- I saw a pshycologist for a while but she was fairly useless so I stopped seeing her.
- I take my hubby to as many appointments as possible
- they are arranging for my hubby to be able to stay in hospital with me if this becomes difficult I plan to leave
- I use rescue remedy as required to be able to survive the visits
Hope some of these ideas help
Good luck
Kate
I hope some of these ideas help
oh kate, I'm so unbelievably sad and sorry to hear of your experiences ... I wish you every success with a safe, empowered and joyful birth this time ...
thanks for sharing, you're so generous and helpful
BellyBelly Life Member - Love all your MCN friends
Jun 2004
The Festival State
3,008
dementia.
i just had to type that out, thought i was going mad, when i saw "dementure" not once but twice.
(i had to learn to spell allover again, after being in a coma, so i get panicky about spelling sometimes).
Peanutter, the PSTD you are going through, is totally understandable.
From MY experience in hospital, i would say, whatever notes they have on your file in hospy, get them copied, YOU have a second file. Two days before bilby arrived in this world, the hospital, with whom i had put in place, all through my pregnancy, things to make sure things went smoothly, LOST my entire notes, TWO DAYS before i went into labour.
At the time, i thought, doens't matter too much, i'm having a homebirth. But i ended up having to call an ambulance at the 29 hour mark. So i turn up in an ambulance, see all these medical people i've never seen before, the high up ones are shouting/screaming at the nurses to find my notes (which no-one could find) - so they had to treat me "blind" really. All the meetings i had had with one of their anaethetists, to avoid situations like this - none of it counted, as my notes were gone. I was there for 7 hours, so whilst 30 - 37 hours into labour, very exhausted and in heaps of pain, they tried to take my details again, and as i don't have a medical background - well, take my word for it, it was a mess.
In theatre, (the cascade of intervention happened big time, after 7 hours i gave in and said yes to the emerg C) and because of lack of info about my past medical history, theatre was a ballsup and complications ensued.
so, have your OWN copy of your hospy records, as backup.
i think having an independent midwife to advocate for you, IN the hospital, would be gold. Wish i had had that.
Even in a diff hospy, hospies are institutions, they share many similar things, so even in a different setting, there will be many triggers for you. Have you been counselled for Post Traumatic Stress?
It is entirely understandable, why you are so anxious, there are obviously many triggers in the new hospy, that still set you off. You're not crazy, you have gone through a trauma, and it has left scars.
anyone have a hospital phobia?
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Maybe you did too, even if it didn't feel like that. 
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