Horrible first birth

I think i have to get this out of my system. My first birth in my eyes was an absolute shambles. I went past my due date and was booked in to be induced exactly 2 weeks over. Luckily i guess i went into spontanious labour all by myself. I had my first contraction at 11:30pm Wednesday the 13th i didnt tell anybody as it was nothing major and just hopped into bed popped on a movie and relaxed. Contractions were approx 10 minutes apart till 5am in the end i got up as i was uncomfy and just walked around the house. My mother who was down from sydney heard me so she was up. She made us a cuppa and i let my student midwife know what was happening. i had contractions the approx 7 minutes apart. i was already 2cm dilated even before my first contraction. I had 2 stretch and sweeps in the last week, and had dilated all by its own! Anyway so i laboured most of the day with contractions in between 5 and 7 minutes apart. My partner was due to go to work at 3:30pm Thursday, I really didnt think anything was major was going to happen for a while so i told him to go to work. But being the man he is he didnt go. Anyway we just relaxed around the house till about 3pm. I was starting to get tired so i decided to walk up and down our street. This pushed things along and they started to become intense and 4 minutes apart. We rang the hospital at 9:30pm and they said to take our time and wonder in. SO i guess we got there around 10pm. Of course my contractions had almost completely stopped when the monitor hit my belly! My blood pressure was a tad high so they took me from the birthing suit into a delivery room. They did an internal and i was 5cm. They were a bit confussed as i have been in labour for almost 24 hours and 2cm progressed. But they said not to worry its first anything can happen. So they rang my midwife (i was in a primary midwifery care program, one midwife looks after you the whole way through and post birth) and my student nurse and they both came in. I laboured fine all by myself most of the night with the help of my beautifull midwives and a nice long hot bath. My midwife had to leave me as she had been at work for 38 hours late and was no longer any good to me! And my student nurse also had to leave as she was actually suppose to be working in a different ward! But we talked about the doctor coming to assess me at his rounds probably around 9am. So i am ok doing just fine. They are intense and i thought i was doing exceptionally well. The doc came and saw me at 9:30am he told me i was 9cm and he broke my waters, he wrote me up for some pethadine but i didnt need it quite yet. So i went back to my little zone and was fine. I spent most of my time in the toilet. I had started to be violently ill, contractions and vomiting are certainly not fun!Id stand to get up off the toilet and bang another contraction would come. They were about 1 minute apart and lasted for what seeme like hours. The new midwife who was assigned to me (who i had seen twice since 7:30 that morning and it is no 10:30) pops her head in the loo to see how i am doing.. Matt (my partner)tells her what is going on. She quickly ducks out of the toilet and comes back tell me i have to come out now! As soon as i get up and am sick everywhere again i am trying to get myself on the bed as she has instructed me. I get up and with that i have this allmighty urge to push. As many of you know when your body wants to push it wants to dam push. I have this stupid midwife tell me no dont do that, so im telling her i can t stop it i need to push. I ended up swearing at her telling her that i couldnt stop it no matter how hard i try so she jabs me with the pethadine she has gotten while i was in the loo. Bang im out like a little. My contractions totally back off and they are now 5 minutes part again. My blood pressure starts to rise. I am off my face on a drug i never wanted and my midwife has freaked out and left. So i am assigned another one till lunch time. she comes in looks at my blood pressure and they call the doctor by this time its approx 12pm. He comes in they do my reflexes on my foot and by god they think i have eclampsia! so there are people running all around me. I basically have no idea what is going on because i am that doped up on pethadine. I remeber the doctor tell me that if they didnt get it under control i was going to fit. So they decided an epidural and some other drugs as well as everything else to get my blood pressure down. so they put all these drugs up to help my blood pressure and the hormone to regulate my contractions and put in a epidural. as soon as i sit up fr them to put the epi in, bang i was back in the land of the living! Im like what the hell is going on!So they explained it all to me again and i finally settled down. As soon as it was in and the sensation started to go the anesthist came in and checked me, this approx 2:30pm. This is the first time anyone has checked me internally since the doctors broke my waters at 9:30 and i was already 9cm then. So he does an internal and looks straight at the midwife and his face is bright red. Snatches my chart from the bench and angrily tells everyone in the room, "this baby should of been born hours ago! why did no one check her before!" i was fully dialted and the baby was already down the canal by 3cms. So of course i was given the all clear to push.they told me it was a possiblity that they would have to do an assisted delivery because i may not be able to push adequatly enough and i may need just a little help. But i was determined so i pushed and pushed and 20 mins later the head had crowned! Then the nurse goes all sort of quiet and im thinking, something aint right here. The put the probe on his head and im just about to push when she slams the big red button on the wall. A whole army of people come racing in and i am being told i have to push and push now. No waiting for contractions nothing this baby has to come out now. So i pushed and pushed and 2mins later he is out. The midwife stuck her finger in his mouth and he cried so they put him straight on my chest. He had his arm wrpped up in the cord and it got stuck in between him and my pelvis blocking the bloody which is why they couldnt find a pulse in his little head. So at 3:19pm Friday 15th he finally came into the world. In total during my labour i had 7 midwives, 3 doctors and a anestesist and his little helper. I was left alone when the doctor specifically said i was not to be and had a nurse do the runner cause she couldnt handle what was going on cause she was a nursery midwife. I wasnt checked inbetween 9:30am and 2:30pm when i was 9cm at 9:30 and the baby shoud of been born when i was pushing the first time around, i was confined to a bed because no checked me and attached to five different bags of junk. I had to have a special nurse for the first 24 hours because of one of the drugs they gave me, they couldnt determine if my placenta was whole because it was so ragged but yet they never did aqn ultrasoud after they said they would, and i feel that i was horribly let down. `
So im sorry this is horribly long and probably boring but i had to write it down somewhere because i just thought my first birthing experience was a horrible and a major let down. none of my wishes were respected and i felt i wasnt offered anything just told to be still and take it. Thats not what birth is all about! Where were my choices and decisions?

Katie, I'm so sorry you didn't have the birth you wanted. I can really relate. It's kind of disappointing, huh? You were very strong to do so well, you should be proud of that :)

Oh Katie, I am so sorry your birth wasn't as empowering as you hoped. Please feel free to vent and talk about it all you need to. Many people say, oh well, baby is healthy, but your feelings are valid and important and you should talk about it all you need to. There is a de-breifing forum if you need to share your story there too.

You could put in a complaint at the hospital, it's so hard when you have that baby in your arms and just want to get over it, but when women complain it all helps change. It might also help you heal.

Thanks for your kind words. I was so terribly happy that he was just healthy that i didnt really think about the birth much till a couple of days later when my original midwife came back. She was so apologetic that she left and in a way blamed herself.
I was just so upset that my opinions werent validated and no one listened to me and what my body was telling me!
I guess in time wounds will heal..

Oh you poor thing.... How tough are you though!!!!!! I would write a letter to the hossie telling them that you are really dissapointed, it might help you heal plus it might prevent this from happening to someone else.

It could have ended badly so you did so well getting through it. Talk as much about it as you want to, it probably will make you feel better.

And congratulations on a beautiful little man.

Katie I actually want to congratulate you for sharing your birth story. You must have been so worried as to what was going to happen next. Your story wasn't boring at all. And I offer you a big hug of support for you, your hubby, and little boy.

Jacqui

That's just terrible Katie. Do whatever you need to do to feel better - whether that's leaving it at posting on Bellybelly or writing to the hospital.

Katie..I'm so sorry you had to go through that. You did so well hun, SO WELL..be so proud of yourself.
It makes me so angry to hear about something like that. You must tell the hossy, they cannot let that happen, EVER.

John is such a lucky bub to have you as his mummy.

And your next birth will be nothing like that..I'm sure you will breeze through it.

Big :hug:

Katie, that is an awful story. They tell you to ignore your body and then jab you with a drug you don't want, and wonder why your BP is high! For crying out loud, who's wouldn't be!! I am so sorry you were treated like that, it's so wrong.

Please take heart that know you have more knowledge and experience, you can avoid these things happening again. If you have another baby, I would choose a different hossy (if you can) and hire a doula. Or think about a home birth. You CAN have a good birth experience, and I hope you do. It won't take away the pain of the first, but it will feel good anyway.

Big hugs to you hun.

Katie,

You must have felt completely powerless! Yes you do have a healthy baby so the end result was good, but it's still OK to feel that your birthing experience wasn't good enough and that it should have been different. It took me a long time to digest my first birthing experience and the lack of control I had over it. My second birthing experience was completely different and has gone a long way to helping mend my heart, not entirely but enough.

That's absolutely terrible! How dare they!!! I would sue their arses!

I'm sorry it was so horrible, Especially when most of it could have been prevented.

Oh, no, I feel so sorry for you! What an amazing chain of incompetence and bad decisions (not on your part of course, on theirs).
It's only because of your strength and determination that things didn't go even more wrong.
I can't believe the nerve of that midwife telling you not to oush and then jabbing you with pethadine without your consent!!! Have you made a complaint to the hospital?
I hope you can get over this experience and stop feeling all this regret. You did the best you could in the circumstances. None of this is your fault. Your wishes should have been respected.

Sasa

Katie, i read your story. I'm so sorry you went thru that. i can't believe these people are trained medical staff yet they act like that? what are they getting paid for then?!?

you poor thing. i would write them a letter and who knows, it may help the next person who births there perhaps? and if not, at least you can get it off your chest even more.

All the very best to your little guy and you and your family :)

Katie - so sorry that the birth turned out the way it did. :( Good on you for letting it all out. :hug:

Hey Katie

well done to you for birthing your beautiful baby

you should be really proud of yourself for posting your birth story :) and thank you so much for sharing it with us all

I hope that you are enjoying your beautiful baby, and that you are warmed by his beautiful face, cute button nose, soft pouting lips

xx yogababy

That is such an awful thing to go though! I can't believe the stupidity and complete unprofessionalism of the midwives at that hospital! I would write a strong worded letter to the hospital telling them everything that happened and mention that stupid midwife by name if you can find it out!
In any case, don't let this discourage you from you next birth. I had an unpleasent experience with my first baby which resulted in a c-section and i was so discouraged from it all that i ended up having an elective c-section the second time. I feel so cheated that i missed out on a proper birth the way its supposed to be both times so this time around i've psyched myself up and am going for a VBAC.
I've heard so many stories from other women about how wonderful their experiences were and i dont' want to miss out on that and you shouldn't either! Thank you very much for sharing, its helps to vent and share and i truely hope your next experience will be an awsome one!

Oh Katie - so sorry about the horrible experience you had. I really hope that you can now enjoy your beautiful baby and forget about it. And I agree with some of the others.... next time you can hopefully have the birth you want - and hire a doula who can take control for you!
And thanks for sharing your story too.... I find it wonderful to read the good and bad stories so I am prepared so either one when it is my time :)