by Kristin

At 40 weeks and 5 days gestation I willingly arrived at the labour and delivery ward for induction of labour. An impatient person by nature, I was thrilled that I was soon going to be meeting my baby. The cascade of interventions began at 9pm with the gels. Labour started pretty much straight away and went through the night. I laboured quietly and alone through the night, in a shared room where another patient was sleeping.

The next morning my membranes were ruptured. I burst into tears. The only thing I could think was that they’ve pulled the plug on my peaceful baby. The midwife read my birth plan (no drugs, want to keep active throughout labour, use the bath / shower for pain relief etc) and said “pffft… you don’t want an epidural? Ok…..” in a disbelieving tone of voice. Labour got more intense. It went on like that till about 2pm when I cracked and asked for an epidural (BIG mistake) and then the labour pretty much stopped, as I was lying down. So up with the syntocin drip.

Change of shift, and a new midwife. This one even worse than the one before. I was progressing ok for a while. A student doctor got to check my cervix because I couldn’t feel anything anyway. Eventually I was fully effaced and dilated and they said try having a push, but I couldn't feel the contractions so it wasn't very productive. So the midwife suggested having a rest, while they turned the syntocin up, let the epidural wear off. About an hour later I started pushing again. The midwife was checking my baby’s heart rate between contractions, and the midwife felt that he was starting to get stressed (probably because of all the syntocin), as his heart rate became a bit irregular. I panicked (another big mistake) - they said it's time, you have to push this baby out now.

Frantically, I pushed and pushed. The obstetrician came in and I yelled at her to get the baby out as I was convinced by this stage he was going to die, she said ok in a pissed off tone of voice, topped up the epidual, and off I went to theatre. I was a real mess during the surgery, crying hysterically from beginning to end. The anaesthetist, who was lovely, said to me I know that this is not what you want but we are going to make it as natural as possible. The baby will be delivered onto your chest, so I will pull your gown away and we will put
the baby on you.

At 8.55 pm the baby was pulled from my abdomen, my gown was pulled aside, then the fricking paediatrician took him, checked him, wrapped him in a blanket and THEN gave him to me. So much for skin to skin. There I was with my tits out, bawling, baby crying (So obviously breathing.....).

One of the nurses said to me "you're not pregnant anymore" which made me cry even more. I wish I could do it over again, I made so many mistakes and bought into their bullshit and allowed myself to be led by fear. Firstly I made a bad choice in deciding to go through the hospital. I thought home births were dangerous and that people that had them were irresponsible, but I never looked at the facts about intervention rates in hospital or even fully understood the delicate balance of hormones involved in labour and how being in an unfamiliar environment effects them. I also made a bad choice booking the induction - it could have waited. I was only a few days over, so really I was just being impatient. The induction made the labour a lot more painful, hence the epidural. That was a bad decision too.

I let fear rule me, and now I know that fear = adrenaline, and adrenaline stops labour. The fear crept in by hearing other people’s “horror stories” and also because the night before the induction I had watched a tv show about a woman whose baby died because she refused a CS, so that was the image I took with me into labour.

I was disappointed that I was so weak and couldn't handle it and asked for the epidural. I was disappointed that I didn't get to birth my baby as that was something I was looking forward to so much. I felt like a complete failure and a hopeless case - what kind of woman can't even give birth? I hated that my baby wasn't with me the first night of his life because I was doped up on the morphine they had given me (which I never asked for or
even consented to) and that he was wide awake at the nurses station probably thinking where's my mum? So we missed out on that initial bonding experience. That period of alertness just after birth is so amazing and I didn't even get to see it. I felt disappointed that we spent our first days in hospital as I was planning to be discharged the same day and having the midwife visit us at home.

The whole thing was just one big fucking disappointment with the only good bit being that he was a fantastic baby. The message from the midwives and all my visitors was loud and clear:  I shouldn't be upset because the only important thing is that the baby is healthy, which then made me feel confused and guilty about my feelings of
disappointment. I have so much I need to work through and resolve with all this before I have another baby. And that's why I want to tell women that they have choices - because this was a horrible experience to have lived through. And it just doesn't have to be that way. I just wish I knew then what I know now but I probably never would have bothered reading so much about it if it hadn't been for that experience. I just thought birth is a normal natural thing, it never occured to me that I would have a CS. I used to read the books about birth and just skip over the chapters on CS, thinking that I would never have one of those.

I never had any follow up from the doctor that did my caesarian. I don't even know if it was a man or a woman. I just never saw them again. There was no debriefing, no apology, no acknowledgement of the experience that I had been through. I was in shock and felt as though I had witnessed a train crash or something but was forbidden to mention it. It’s been 3 ½ years since the surgery, and I still can’t think about it without crying. It was without a doubt the most traumatic, invasive, dehumanizing experience I have lived through to date. I have the lingering
feeling of being like a slab of meat on the butcher’s bench. I feel very angry and sad for the loss of my baby’s birth and wish that I could have given him a better introduction to the world. We both continue to live with
the aftermath of this experience. I love my son and am forever grateful for his presence in his life, but it’s a bittersweet love, tainted with guilt.

Sadly, what I experienced was not unusual. This was just a typical day, in a typical hospital.