Do people gas light the trauma of childbirth? My experience.

I went into pregnancy thinking little about the actual delivery. When people asked about my birth plan I just said I wasn’t keen on an epidural at all. When people asked if I was scared, I responded, “Not really, I just want it over with.” Pretty much the response that a lot of women have.

So fast-forward to the big day. Wait, no, scratch that. Day? I was clearly being optimistic. Fast forward to my waters breaking at 4am, and then my baby actually arriving 30 hours later. (Delivery day? lol).

You can probably imagine that my very basic birth plan didn’t go to plan.

Childbirth is not textbook

I was under the impression that my waters would break, and I would go into active labour. Wrong. My waters broke and nothing happened. I called the MAU and got asked to visit, where they told me officially “nothing is happening.”

Now what? Well I got told if I didn’t go into active labour before Monday at 9am I would be induced. Was I happy? No. Did I go home and try EVERYTHING? Yes. So about 10 hours later I have my first contraction whilst walking the dog… and that was it. I then went back into the MAU at 9pm that night for a quick check up on baby… he was all good, no contractions, back home until Monday morning.

*PLOT TWIST* — I go to bed at 10pm, get the most intense pain, by 11pm I’m back at the hospital, and by midnight I get told I’m actually 7cm dilated. Erm hello, how did that happen? Am I having a miracle speedy birth? Will I beat the induction? Yesssssss.

Slow down there lady, that is not how this childbirth thing works

In case you’re wondering, it was in fact too good to be true. I got to 10cm, pushed for two hours and everything just stopped. Cue being rushed to the ward upstairs… followed by MANY painful examinations, followed by emergency theatre, followed by the unwanted epidural, followed by further unpleasant experiences for the next three weeks. And that brings me neatly on to my first point…

Childbirth doesn’t just last the day and the effects do not disappear the minute you leave the hospital

I ended up having to stay in over night — the epidural had secured my bed. Did I have a c-section? Nope. I had failed ventouse and then forceps, with an episiotomy (feel free to not Google) thrown in for good luck. When the feeling returned in my legs I could barely walk, but cruelly I could also not sit down, it was awful. The midwife who checked my stitches gave a look of serious unease which just about said it all. Then upon leaving the hospital the next day I got thrown a bag of 10 injections that I had to apparently administer myself as a consequence of the epidural. BRILLIANT.

Anyway this had me thinking, is my experience traumatic or am I just being dramatic? Or is this a common occurrence for women? I turned to a couple of friends who have babies and quickly discovered that this experience in childbirth is painfully common, and also, not talked about by anyone afterwards. There is a mainstream assumption that because childbirth happens every day it is fine. It is frustratingly not treated as other emergency medical procedures in common conversation would be. Whereas it feels as though if you had been admitted to hospital and rushed to theatre under any other circumstance it would be considered in a very different way.

People don’t want to hear about it

So I came home and while I didn’t want to really talk about my experience, another part of me felt it was necessary and therapeutic to talk it through. But sadly, in the same way common talk about women’s periods are vilified, I tried to discuss with some of my female friends and received the response, “Ergh no, I don’t want to hear it.”

Now on one hand I get it, but equally I don’t think you can shout about female empowerment yet not listen to a woman’s account of childbirth. It’s completely natural, not pretty and real. People want to watch you through pregnancy and then get the big exciting baby announcement in the group WhatsApp chat, all while forgetting the hard and sometimes traumatic journey to that point for the mother in question.

I had visitors for days (and weeks) afterwards yet for the first two weeks I couldn’t even sit down when someone came in. If I had a broken bone people would get it, but according to society I can’t just come out with “P.S. my vagina got cut open with scissors whilst I was delivering that child you’re all fawning over, so if you could bear with me as I’m not feeling particularly chirpy right now.” Cue my next point…

I didn’t have the perfect first meeting with my baby

I was under the impression that the first time I met my baby it would be magical. (I know, me the cynic totally believed that). In short — it was not. And yes, I’m being flippant but this is something that upsets me when I sit down and really think about it. In TV and films they all show the big, perfect delivery when baby gets put onto Mum’s chest and all is good with the world.

My baby was born but I didn’t feel it — the epidural meant I wasn’t even aware my baby was delivered until I heard crying. But drugged up me couldn’t even process that the baby cries were from MY baby. I barely remember the moment, and thankfully we have some pictures that the anaesthetist took which have jogged my memory since. I was also all geared up for skin to skin pre-birth but when asked in theatre (with people still working away downstairs) I didn’t know how to respond because I was sleep deprived by about 24 hours and I just gave a blank stare which meant it didn’t happen. Baby bonding achievement not unlocked.

So what’s my point in all of this?

I truly believe that trauma in childbirth is wildly overlooked. And I don’t mean whether your midwife asks you whether you feel ok in the head on a certain day. I mean just generally how people overlook the experience. Instead everyone says, “but once he’s here it is so worth it.” — For the first two weeks I didn’t feel that way, I felt like I was in a never ending cycle of pain, which nobody pre-warned me about and that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing because I felt it came across as attention-seeking and dramatic. After all, women do this every day right?

Secondly, with how happy and exciting child birth is portrayed, I felt somewhat of a failure when it came to not enjoying my experience or really acknowledging my baby in the first few hours of his life.

I’ll leave you with this… I think it’s time that these experiences in childbirth are normalised and discussed rather than brushed under the carpet and filed under ‘Ew_Gross_EmbarrassingLife.doc’.