Why do LTTTCers seem to prefer a c/s?

[scooby]

Sushee i definately wasnt implying anyone on here had done that, i love BB for that very reason and trust me it is the complete opposite for most forums. I did want to support Nixon though as i have tried to find support elsewhere and been pummeled for even suggesting that i might want a CS rather than risk incontinence issues and it is linked with LTTTC. I feel like i have been a complete failure not being able to concieve naturally only to be hammered and made to feel guilty for considering a cs, which i know is a completely different topic and maybe belongs in another thread but i was really happy to see CS discussed in terms of AC as it does shine a whole new light on the subject. I am very aware that these are my own issues to deal with and i find the whole CS thing a very touchy subject with many issues that i only have about 12 weeks to work through even though (as Hoobley will atest too )i have been trying to work out for a really long time. Apologies for the thread hi jack

[butterfly_warrior]

Sushee, I think part of the problem is that many of us have had years to learn all there is to learn about how to get pregnant and stay pregnant. But we don't look into what comes next at all because that's putting the cart before the horse and is way too scary.

The research on how to actually deal with pregnancy and birth happens once you are there, and if you have endured losses, probably not until much later! For me, it wasn't until I was feeling Munchkin move regularly at around 22 weeks that I came out of denial and actually admitted that a birth was going to happen at the end of this. This gives me a matter of weeks to become as familiar with birth as I was with IVF. Of course, being the perfectionist and compulsive researcher that I am, I feel I need to know as much about one as the other... But at a few days off 28 weeks I'm still not yet completely out of denial and the research still isn't happening. To me, it's no wonder that women in this situation are content to sit back and trust their OB - because it all seems too hard! We have a deadline now that was never there before...

It's also becoming blatantly obvious to me that I'm just not like other pregnant women. There are another 5 pregnant women at work at the moment and all are content and happy to talk about their pregnancies with everyone - including the students. It's not just a peculiarity to my personality and teaching style that as soon as a student wants to question me about my pregnancy that I squash the conversation ASAP and get everyone back to work. The number of times I've heard "but Mrs XXX told us..." I'm the same in baby shops and with strangers - I only seem to want to talk to my close friends about being pregnant and would be so much happier if everyone else could just ignore the bump - not so easy now that it's too big to ignore!

And just last night I was reading an article about how IVF teenagers are more aggressive and more prone to behavioural problems because their parents tend to be more indulgent... but that's a topic for another thread!

BW

[dusty]

Sushee, I think part of the problem is that many of us have had years to learn all there is to learn about how to get pregnant and stay pregnant. But we don't look into what comes next at all because that's putting the cart before the horse and is way too scary.

I can certainly relate to that!

Great topic Sushee. You have managed to raise something that doesn't get spoken about because it seems once you fall pg after IVF either you are expected to just get on and have a pg like any other 'natural pg' or alternatively are monitored to the max to ensure the little mite(s) are still there and doing well for our own sanity's sake. Most of my friend's natural pg's don't seem to be monitored half as much as those I know who have fallen pg through IVF. Yet are the risks any higher for an IVF pg than a natural one?

I hope you don't mind me putting my two cents in when I am clearly not pg and I know that I don't always react or respond the way I think I will when faced with the reality. So this may be a moot point.

I have always always thought I will have a VB and minimal intervention (if I can mentally cope with it) throughout a pg. People around me are always amazed that I don't want an OB to monitor my pg and that I am happy for a midwife/GP guided pg, after all this time and effort we have gone through to fall pg. They wonder shouldn't we ensure we have the absolute best ongoing and continual care available?

I think as I am using an egg donor the chance to experience a natural birth and share that experience with our bub is now even more important to me than it was when I was doing IVF myself. I want to have all the connection I can possibly have to my baby. I feel I have failed on the egg front but by golly I want to do what I was born to do - grunt, groan, suffer and birth my baby! A real physical suffering after all these years of mental suffering (and some physical) mostly for naught, would be simply fantastic IMO.

Everything is so medicalised with regards to IVF conception that I would love a medical intervention free pg and birth if it is possible. The fact that VB is a safer option than a C/S is just the icing on the cake for my decision. I think even if it were the other way around I would have to go the VB as long as there was no strong medical reason not to.

I hope that I get to test my belief and feelings out one day!

[Willow]

IVFers need support not only during trying to conceive, they should have access to support during their pregnancies, and through the early years of motherhood.

I know some women believe that, once pregnant, there is no difference between a woman who conceived naturally and a woman who conceived via AC after many many years of struggling with infertilty. I don't agree. I think you cannot go through such a life-changing event such as LTTTC and not be affected by it. So why do we as a society essentially ignore these same effects simply because the woman is now pregnant?

This is a common theme among pg LTTTCers, and women who become mothers after LTTTC - they feel isolated and think their feelings of guilt, distress and anxiety is something to be ashamed of. They currently don't have the opportunity to work through those issues, mostly they don't even talk about it. They somehow believe that admitting that they aren't 100% ecstatic 100% of the time will mean they aren't 'deserving' of their good fortune of finaly having success.

Soooooo true!! A lot of you will know that I struggled for a while after bringing DS home, I suffered from shocking anxiety which began the first week home and ended in a series of panic attacks that I needed treatment for in the end. All is GREAT now, but those early weeks weren't much fun at all (and how guilty do I feel even saying that??!!). The birth went fine, he was safe, he was HERE and then everyone just figured I'd get on with it. I do think the lack of sleep contributed but the expectations I'd placed on myself and this poor little baby soon became sooooo overwhelming and I didn't feel like I had any right to express this - I'd fallen prg, I had my beautiful healthy baby, everything was 'fixed' now right?? Wrong.

[Kmn]

I had a different TTC journey to most - I have a genetic condition, and wanted to use PGD to not pass it on. The counselling/test development phase was years of waiting. We conceived first try when we eventually got there.
That process was one where trusting the experts to do their jobs well was the only approach that was possible.

We then carried that approach through to my pregnancy - so when my obstetrician said to me that unless my baby had turned head-down by 38 weeks a CS was the safest option that's what we did. I didn't start out wanting a CS - we were wanting to avoid it, since surgery isn't my favourite thing.

[Jennifer13]

I''m just a lurker, so my points are not from someone who is a LTTTCer or using AC. So I'll be extra careful in what I say!

Firstly, the idea that c/s is safer abounds for most pg women (who knows why?). In our antenatal class when we were discussing c/s, etc, we had to nominate points to go against each birthing option (pros and cons), for vb, c/s, drugs, etc, and when I suggested c/s wasn't as safe for mother or baby both the m/w and the class were HORRIFIED that I could bring this up. Which is ironic, because at the time with my placenta praevia it looked like I'd be the one most likely to go down that path... (and did, much to my disappointment). My ob also mentioned that older women and those who'd taken longer to get to pg were the ones most likely to request a c/s. Not something he endorsed.

I also wondered if it might not have something to do with using a specialist? If you've seen a FS and you don't want to be left hanging with no one paying any attention to this hard-won pg, the idea of waiting weeks and weeks to see someone might lead many down the path of an ob? Also seeing the one person probably appeals, given that there have been so many specialists and drs involved and I imagine not all of them good! Plus, you are probably talking about a group of mothers-to-be with private health insurance who are looking into private hospitals. And we all know that obs and private hospitals have higher rates of c/s. Personally, I think one of the reasons this is the case is that these options are more readily available (I read in a recent study for eg that women in private hospitals were more likely to have an epi simply because an anaesthetist was likely to be able to respond more quickly than in a public hospital, not because they were more likely to ask, and then, the intervention cascade thing occurs...).

Just my two cents!

[sushee]

I think that Jennifer, you make such a great observation - most IVFers do end up using an ob. And using an ob usually equals higher rates of intervention. BW, you make an even more pertinent point - I remember too being pregnant and refusing to buy anything for baby until I was well past 20 weeks. For many IVFers, planning for baby, let alone birth earlier than that is almost taboo, isn't it? Which then makes the time to think and plan for birth even shorter.

So what do we try to overcome first? The 'disconnection' women feel from their pregnancy early on? I'd love to know how. I have regular had conversations with pg LTTTCers who are so anxious in the first half of their pgs that they virtually become recluses, refusing to talk about their pgs because it all feels too fragile to discuss freely or feeling stuck between being happy at their good fortune and guilt that the many women they have loved and supported have not been as lucky.

I know when I was newly pg, what I really would have appreciated was someone telling me what I was feeling so damned normal for an LTTTCer. It is such a common thing for LTTTCers to feel! But when I participated in the PGALTTTC threads, everyone talked about anxiety, yes, or scans and ob visits, but no one spoke about how damaged emotionally and psychologically we'd become as a result of the process of being LTTTC (and let me qualify - not all LTTTCers feel this way, but I did and I know many women do).

Since having Charlie this is something I've tried to address. First with the social group, but whle the group has had some amazing conversations, I've still felt that there is this MASSIVE area of support missing - and that's for those post-LTTTC.

What would help PALTTTC and Parenting after LTTTC women grapple with their isolation? And assist them towards doing the research, making the decisions, learning to find control over their bodies again? I don't know if there is an easy answer to hose questions. It's all I've been thinking about for days now.

Also wanted to also address a few things:

Firstly while I have focussed the issue of a lack of support for birth choices/BFing for LTTTCers specifically, I personally have appreciated all the comments and posts from those who are not LTTTC but care enough about women in general to wish to help contribute their ideas.

Secondly, I hope this thread speaks not just to LTTTCers who have 'graduated' but assists those still TTCing to recognise and acknowledge these issues long before they 'graduate'. In that respect, I'm thrilled that someone like dusty has posted, which shows she's thinking about these issues now, and it becomes less taboo in the long run.

Thirdly, scooby, I know I seemed to come down hard on words like 'ridicule and 'forcing' but it's because I've seen sooooo many threads started with the best of intentions degenerate to slagging threads about c/s vs VB, or BFing vs FFing. It's gotten so that members become almost too scared to mention any of those things, yet if we don't talk about these things, the information doesn't get out there, and women feel yet more isolated and uninformed.

I understand it's an emotive topic, so emotive in fact that it's getting to be that if you try to talk about VB being safer, or BFing being better for baby (and these are facts supported by evidence, true even if you're not trying to be pro-anything) you're almost gauranteed someone is going post something that will start to skew the topic into yet another us vs them scenario, whether intentionally or not. And yet when I speak about IVFers, I don't see any 'us and them', to me, we're all 'us' and I want the kind of support and services that is best for 'us'.

Before I started this thread, I told myself I wasn't going to let this thread become divided and angry. It's about finding solutions, not persecuting anyone's choices. So I'm nipping it in the bud early. I completely understand Nixon and your posts, they are legitimate opinions, based on experiences here or elsewhere. They are just off-topic for this thread, and I am requesting that everyone stay on topic so that this thread doesn't become a c/s vs VB thread. So it's all good, hun. I'm just being extra fussy about that, is all.

[onthefly]

I also wondered if it might not have something to do with using a specialist? If you've seen a FS and you don't want to be left hanging with no one paying any attention to this hard-won pg, the idea of waiting weeks and weeks to see someone might lead many down the path of an ob? Also seeing the one person probably appeals, given that there have been so many specialists and drs involved and I imagine not all of them good!

This was the case for me