Katie

Dear Anna

 

I was very interested in your comments on how the staff acted as though you and your husband were over reacting through your childbirth/hospital experience.

 

Five years ago (1996) my first pregnancy ended in emergency caesarean.   (It has taken 5 years to find out exactly why, as no obstetrician could give me a direct answer)

 

Then in hospital, with feelings of failure, my doctor gave strict instructions on lifting the baby etc. However, when, under his instructions, I asked a midwife to pick the baby up for me, I was basically told off.  How did I know that the midwife believed otherwise as to what I should do, and as I had never been in that situation before, and was only undertaking what the doctor told me.  Anyway, this made me feel even more of a failure.  Then I came home to overseas guests, and to cut a long story short, received no help from anyone in the family except my husband.

 

It was the most stressful time of my life.  I went to three different doctors complaining of extreme tiredness, who all basically told me to expect it, because that was motherhood.  Later they found out I had glandular fever, which attacked my liver and gave me hepatitis on top of it. (Too bad they hadn't taken notice prior and given me a blood test earlier - it might have avoided the severity of the illness) So I felt very down as I felt too sick to enjoy my baby, and felt no support from immediate family.

 

Caesareans are major abdominal surgery, but people don't seem to understand that.  Here I am with a three week old baby due to caesarean, and my father can only watch as I struggle with shopping bags!!  I am too embarrassed to ask for help, and now too upset to bother!  My sister in law had her appendix taken out, and here is my mother sending over meals and helping her, yet here I am with a baby to cope with as well as surgery after a long labour. (I have been given no instructions from the hospital as to what I should and shouldn't do - they probably think I can remember from my first birth experience) 

 

I found a new obstetrician for my second pregnancy, as my first one told me I would never be able to give birth vaginally - I proved him wrong!

 

Third time around last month, and armed with loads of information I went into labour and laboured really well, using all the techniques I had researched.  Every time there was to be medical intervention, I questioned it and was very assertive.  However, my baby had decided to come down the birth canal with his elbow over his head.  With a very supportive midwife, we convinced the doctor to let the labour progress to see if the situation would improve.

 

Things got worse, and totally against what I wanted, into theatre I went for emergency caesarean. In brief, the baby had descended to +3 but was stuck, the anaethetist who was supposed to be on call, had wrongly gone into booked surgery, ( so the doctor had to phone all over Brisbane for an anaethetist). Over one and a half hours had gone by before they finally got hold of someone, and all I could think of was that my baby or I would die. When they finally opened me up, they found a window in my uterus due to the very long labour and most probably because of the very long wait to go in to theatre. When my son was born he let out a tiny cry, then stopped breathing, so then they had to resuscitate him.  In between my vomiting on the operating table, I was trying to see him to see if he was breathing - it was just horrible. Luckily he came good.

 

I was extremely nervous about haemmorrage, as with my previous two births I lost a lot of blood, and was on the borderline for transfusion.  So I asked lots of questions about the procedures which had taken place, whether everything was okay etc.

 

Next thing I know, after the most traumatic day in my life, I was asked by another midwife "do you always worry a lot".  I am still dumbfounded as to why she asked me this. I think they see so much, that they become extremely insensitive to the experiences of their patients.  To us it is a once in a lifetime experience!  What mother would not get upset if her baby was blue and not breathing? What mother would not get upset if with all the trying she could, still ended up in the operating theatre cut open?

 

What women would not grieve the loss of future pregnancies, whether she wanted more children or not? What woman in labour is not going to sign a consent form (you can't exactly get up and walk out of there!)

 

I am glad I read your account   (I often think whether they would make such rash decisions if they were operating on another male, and had to decide whether to remove his penis or not due to loss of blood!!)