I was feeling incredibly empowered by a long post that i had just written.
I pressed Control and W by accident and it went. It was the first time i’d vented my spleen in a long time. I felt so much better for writing it, i wanted it out there, on my blog so that one day, when i’m finally healed and all this birth crap floating around in my head doesn’t sting anymore, i’ll look back in awe at the pain i felt and be glad that it had gone.
I don’t know if i can do it again, but i am going to try, because i want to write it, i want to have a record of these feelings. I was on the last sentence. I only went back to insert a rant warning. I am so pissed off. So anyway, here is the rant warning. Read on at your peril and look away if you hate the f word, or think i’m an idiot not to have had 3 nice simple elective caesareans. Don’t, ANYONE, dare tell me that how they get here doesn’t count or all that matters is we are both safe.
Anyway, it starts with a nightmare, the first in a while, and a realisation. The nightmare was yesterday night, then again this morning. It’s been a good while since i woke up with my throat clenched and hurting from dream tears. And the realisation came on Friday, while i was musing about breastfeeding.
I consider myself a failed breastfeeder, an odd thing, even i know that. The pain of not being able to feed Fran and of giving up feeding Maddy is still there. I don’t count successes. I ‘ve always thought that if i’d asked just one more person, got one more lot of help, tried a bit harder, for a bit longer, in one more position, with a little more fortitude, i’d have got there with her. I know now, in retrospect, that she has a high and narrow palate, i know too looking back, that i tried every trick in the book. So why has it taken all this time for this to suddenly click? I didn’t learn anything new between Maddy and Amelie – no new positions, no better technique, i didn’t read any books, or have any demos. Yet Amelie and Josie have been a dream to feed, easy as anything. It has taken me all this time to realise that just knowing a few more breastfeeders is not the reason i succeeded third time round, or fourth time round. The simple fact is, i always knew how to breastfeed, but no matter what i tried, feeding Maddy was always going to be utterly and unbearably painful, with blood, with bits of me being rubbed away. There is no way i magically learned anything new between her and Amelie – Amelie and Josie were feedable and Fran and Maddy were not. No one, not even an earth mother, can feed a baby forever that rubs her to bleeding rawness with every feed, no matter what you do.
And this is all part and parcel of the desperate damage that has been done. I don’t believe in myself at all. I can over analyse everything, imagine there is always a way through, or a cure if only you look hard enough. But sometimes there isn’t. It wasn’t me. This is the trouble with email lists – i see women succeed where i once succeeded and where latterly my courage has failed and i compare myself and find myself wanting.
I’ve raged this year, inside myself, about Josie’s birth. I’m so angry. I’m angry with myself, angry with Max, angry with the people who bullied and cadjoled and undermined me. I’ve blamed myself, i’ve been numb, shocked, hurt, bewildered, in denial, tried to put it behind me. I’ve shielded Max, my daughters, my mum and even my friends, or shielded myself from them. I’ve been a walking zombie this year, trying to keep myself sane. i dread to think what effect it has had. I’ve not been able to bear to think about it. If i try to talk about it, all that happens is that i get so angry at the weakness that makes me cry, that i choke up completely. I’ve got nowhere near dealing with this yet. I don’t even know where to start. Everything in my life is so utterly changed by that day, i’ve had all my rights cut away at the same time as i had my baby cut away. They stole the feeling in my bladder and they stole the feeling in my soul at the same time. Where i used to have thoughts and emotions, all i have now is a blackhole of rage and damage.
I’ve tried so hard to get to the root of what makes me so furious but what it comes down to is that i FUCKING HATE Peterborough Maternity Unit – they are a mechanised, litigation based bunch of fuckwits who care no more for the PEOPLE they process than if we were cows. Go and work on a farm, fucking bullying “I know best and you’ll do as you are told” registrar, go and boil your instrument in a shed Mrs “I’ll send my decision from another room without bothering to come and see you” consultant. Thanks to you i’ll probably never have another period that isn’t unbearably painful, or feel my bladder again. So much for your safe caesarean. We couldn’t have been much less safe if you’d chucked us out into the carpark. That safe caesarean nearly left Josie without a mother.
You are a bunch of total and utter fuckwits without the sense you were born with. You didn’t save my life, or my baby’s – but you’d like to think you did, with your smug “you were quite poorly there for a while” banter after you’d been reduced to injecting stuff directly in my arm to try and fix me. Two nice steady heartbeats in a labour room that ended up with me losing consciousness and pushing my baby away in an operating theatre. I fucking hate you. So much for safe – i’d have been better off rupturing in the labour room than bleeding all over the floor thanks to your nice, safe procedure. At least then you’d have rushed me in asleep and i wouldn’t remember it all; at least i wouldn’t remember hearing my husband leaving the room because he thought i’d gone. You didn’t save my life, you put it in danger.
So long as i live, i’ll never forgive myself for the danger i put myself in going to that place. I was so frightened, so tired, so anxious about another baby in the danger that Amelie was in at birth. I wanted to have another homebirth but Max was too afraid and i was too kind to push him. I don’t think he’d have had a worse experience at home if we’d tried. I was overdue, i’d been bullied for 2 weeks, i was worn out. I didn’t believe in myself anymore. Thanks to the meddling of that place, i don’t get any say in whether i ever get to have another child; thanks to protocol and procedure it’s 6 years since my husband looked at me in awe and told me how proud he was of me, and i’ll never get another chance now. Thanks to people who don’t believe that a woman can give birth without their help, i’ll never look back and consider i gave birth to my children, i’ve lost even what i gained from Maddy’s birth. And if i ever do have another, i’d rather do it in a cave. No one will ever persuade me that hospital is a safe place to have a baby. Even the slim belief i had that a caesarean is safer when all else fails is so far gone now that i’d laugh in the face of anyone who suggested it. Actually, were it not for the people who need me alive, i’d rather die than try it. And i don’t say that lightly, i’ve been here before. If there were only me, i’d have another and if no one needed me to survive, i’d take every risk rather than take the “safe option.”
So i’d lost the belief in my body to birth, but i think that through the fog i’m realising that i haven’t lost that so much as i’ve lost faith. I see myself as a failure, yet i can’t look back at that day and see where i failed, other than not do what i was told. I know we were both in good health, i know i’d been dilating fine but stopped for a while, i know i felt pushy but was only 6cm. I know i didn’t stand up because i was so exhausted – i should have moved. I was given the choice to. But why did no one say “You must!!!!” Why was it easier to let me fail? Why was it acceptable to say that as i hadn’t dialated anymore in a couple of hours, while asleep on my side and on pethidine, that i had to have a section, despite otherwise good progress and no signs of distress?
I did fail that day. I do know that i did. But it is so unbearably hard to know that my greatest failing was to trust a health professional and put myself in their hands. It nearly cost me everything. It’s cost me all my self-respect.
Oh ((((((Merry))))).
I feel very similar – for different reasons – but there all the same. xx
You didn’t fail – you were failed. Big difference. I am so sorry that you have felt this way for so long. Send this to PMU and let them read it.
We do the best we can given our circumstances at any given time and insofar as we life to be perfect we will always feel inadequate and a failure. You did what you had to do. That doesn’t make you a failure, Merry. That makes you human.
Nothing is perfect but to feel this pain isn’t right. I don’t know what to suggest other than telling the people involved how much their actions have damaged you.
It might cathartic.
(((Hugs)))
Merry,
You say you don’t know where to start dealing with this … but what you have written is a very good place to start. You are good with words – I urge you to write more about it, whether for your eyes only or for the blog – as you wish – but every time you express any of the feelings, even on paper, you unravel the knot a bit more and start to loosen the hold that the dark memories have on you. Write, write, write, over and over again if necessary, and it will be healing. Every time you write you will see it from a slightly different angle, and understand what went on a bit better.
And I also wish I could urge you to be gentle with yourself … just think how afraid you were after what happened with Amelie. That was what you knew. You didn’t know all the crap that would happen after you went into the theatre with Josie. You just knew that it got very dangerous with Amelie. And you were very tired. You need to feel and acknowledge your anger, but then you also need to think how compassionate you would be towards some other woman who was telling you this story.
You can and will heal from this in time, Merry, you are a strong and courageous woman without a doubt.
This needs publishing. Hugs – YOU are not a failure, you were failed by a system that sees women as sausages on a conveyor belt and birth as the messy bit between wage packets.
Merry
you ARE NOT a failure, how can anyone trying to swim the Channel, with one hand tied behind their back becalled a failure when they don’t make it??
We DON’T call them a failure, they are hero’s for having tried.
As has been said
you had a lot of fear in you from previous births and sweetheart, you know fear leads to adrenalin, leads to prolonged labour… You did not have the support you needed during your last labour. You were surrounded by fearfull people. That is all transmitted to the labouring woman. How could you have gotten rid of them? You have every rights to be angry with Max, for his failure to trust you. Yet he was in a difficult situation, and probably still traumatised from Amalie’s birth. Send this blogg to the hospital, AIMS, NCT your MP… keep writing. Lots of love and hugs to you xx
((((Merry))))
I feel your pain though cant imagine how you really feel. I cant offer you anything except love and hugs,and the fact that I have faith in you. Thinking of you.
xxx
For what its worth Merry, you don’t come across as weak or a failure but a strong woman who was overwhelmed by events and people who should have known better. You are bowed but not broken and I know you will grow strong again.
I do recognise and empathise with your pain and rage – not even the VBA3C has completely removed that. My only salvation has been my faith and discovering that it helped to keep the rage going outwards and not inwards, to lay the blame where it belongs and that is not with you.
Merry, after my 2nd operation with Kieran’s birth I didn’t feel my bladder for the best part of 2 years but almost all sensation is back now, don’t give up hope. You are an incredibly articulate, wonderfully insightful woman and I know this blog and your other writings will help other women who have suffered in the same way. I found it helped to know that I was helping others, I don’t offer it as a sop it really does help me to know that out of all my pain and rage there comes some good. I think that people thought my VBA3C would somehow miraculously heal that pain and rage. In a way it didn’t really. I like to tell people that I was “to terms” with my births before I had Fergus but deep down, if I’m honest, I wasn’t. I could live with it, it wasn’t constant daily pain but I think the 10 extra stone I carry in weight is outward evidence of how miserable I have been and it certainly did my depression no favours. What helped with F’s birth was the feeling that I was proven to be right, that I could have given birth with the right support and the right people. But that doesn’t negate the other stuff, in some ways it intensifies it. Just cos you know how good champagne is doesn’t make you feel better about being fobbed off with plonk.
You are enormously welcome to ring me or mail me, I do wish I was closer and could give you a hug. I have been talking for years about writing my own empowering, no crap birth website..maybe we should do it together?
Lots of love.
From someone else who has failed/been failed, hugs, and what a fantastic post.
(((Merry)))
You’re right. How they get here does count. I’m truly sorry that you were failed so badly by the system.
Part of my healing has come from the knowledge that I’ll do everything I can to ensure my daughters have better birth experiences. I can only hope.
(((((Merry))))) I’m crying too much to make sense. I’m glad you are starting to let some anger out, please don’t direct it at yourself, you were in labour, you were vulnerable and you were reliant on those who are supposed to care to look after you and *they* failed far more than you whose only failing was trusting professionals who should have had your best interests in mind. Wishing you peace if only for a while.
No Caroline, i don’t have any right to be angry with Max really. He was great, very supportive during what had been a nice labour, but very frightened. I actually have very positive memories of most of the labour and the majority of that stems from how focussed and comforting he was and how much of it we spent close to each other and in tune.
What i needed from him was the superhuman situation saving stunt he pulled during Maddy’s birth – but he didn’t – and that is my fault for not priming him well enough. We barely discussed it, we should have. It was all too scary.
I wish we could talk about it now though, and discuss the fact i’m not resolved on never having another. I don’t like being dictated to – but that is a whole other story, if started by this one.
Thank you everyone. You are very kind. I can’t pretend i feel much better now than i did before – but swearing about something is only ever good for venting, so i’m glad i did that. And may this post come up when people google for PMU!
Oh Merry cant put this into words, its the system thats Cr*p,its too much abou lawyers and not about people and their lives and they forget women have done this for thosands of years ……..
Remember its the system that failed you. ((((merry))))
I too have been there.
I felt brutalised, assaulted and I was ANGRY.
I felt they wanted me to fail, made me fail because I knew what I wanted and didn’t leave it in their hands.
And to make it worse I was a health professional myself.
They are thieves, they steal what should be a wonderful moment and then claim it was theirs to take.
Oh Merry
Thanks for sending me to your blog, it does help to know there are others who feel a failure because of these botched births. It is so hard not to feel a failure yourself, even when you can see the system for what it is. You have daughters and your experiences are going to prevent this shit happening to them. I think we need to start being brutally honest with the bastards who do this to us, even if they don’t care. You have not failed, you have been failed. Please keep writing, we need to break down the barriers to talking about this stuff, the loneliness of the feelings is the worst part.
With love, Sarah x
i would love to sit down with you and listen to some more of this – maybe one evening you can call me round?
it is also amazing how even a seemingly ‘natural’ delivery can leave a woman with these same feelings, and although there may have been less physical violence and trauma, the psychological scars remain. lots of very similar emotions to rape too. i wonder how surgeons would feel if this was spelt out to them?
and, for all women in pregnancy, childbirth and the parenting beyond, i think it is only possible to break the cultural perversion of normal by spending huge amounts of time with like minded ppl. i still want to birth again ‘properly’ as i intend, without the professionals getting involved. it is easy to understand the latest unassisted childbirth movement, but i’m already scared! (no, not pregnant)
merry, this type of trauma always benefits us in the long run. it is so painfully hidden at the time that we can’t understand, but it will make you so beautiful to yourself, and already more beautiful to those around you.
much love.
Hiya,
I have read this and you have mae up my mind,thankyou!!! I am due to have my fourth baby in october and planning to have a natural birth after 3 c-sections, i am currently fighting with ignorant staff at PMU, and wondering wether to switch to hitchinbrook, i am so,so terribly sorry for what you have to go through, and so thankfull that you have saved me from trusting PMU!!!!
Linzi, dunno if i am going to be able to find your email address back throguh my comments, but if i can i’ll get in touch and try and be any support you might need.
But go to Hinch, they seem much more vbac friendly.
Hiya hun,
thanks again,my hubby just read your blog and is totally lost for words,we are so,so sorry for what you had to go through.
I have e-mailled hitchinbrook,will wait to see what they say, my e-mail adress is Xxlinzi4jonxX@aol.com
take care