vocalmakeup
New member
@armorbear1 OP needs to hear it- there is nothing she could have done differently, and despite everything she got the best possible outcome. She needs to reframe her thinking or she’s going to drive herself insane.
Birth story: unplanned c-section. Help me understand what happened. (TW: birth trauma)
- Thread starter boby777
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@vocalmakeup Agreed!!
@freeway To jump off this, my daughter had no complications. My son…… different story. I delivered him but on the way out he got stuck. Things went sideways so fast that I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. The doctor was walking me through the things he may have to do, a whole large team of doctors and nurses come rushing in and prepping a lot of stuff, all while I am pushing with a nurse pressing. On my stomich. Luckily he was out quick, but I was not expecting the chaos that came with his birth.
Anything can happen during pregnancy and I am clad your little one is safe. If it helps, no one cares how a person was born as they get older. I was never asked once if I was c-section baby.
Anything can happen during pregnancy and I am clad your little one is safe. If it helps, no one cares how a person was born as they get older. I was never asked once if I was c-section baby.
@boby777 You did nothing wrong. It sounds like your team tried their best for you too, I’m so sorry it was a traumatic experience. I think it’s worth remembering birth has always been dangerous and while classes which tell you your body is designed for this can be helpful, they’re also disingenuous in that nobody’s body was designed for anything. We’ve evolved to have live births more often than not and that’s about it.
Your hospital should be able to run some sort of debrief and counselling with you. I know people who have signed up for it and found it very helpful.
Your hospital should be able to run some sort of debrief and counselling with you. I know people who have signed up for it and found it very helpful.
@boby777 Some babies just don’t want to come out that way— there’s nothing you could’ve done, and the modern medical interventions may well have saved you both.
There’s NOTHING wrong with C Sections and I hate that society has us thinking there is. We didn’t fail. We got our babies safely out of us. I had those moments of guilt and what ifs— I think the hormone surge makes it all way worse (9 months later and I’m actually thrilled with how my birth went), like , isn’t my body supposed to be made for this?? Except then I remember the mortality rate of childbirth before interventions were available and considering the alternative is pretty dark.
Childbirth isn’t just on you, but on the baby too— you BOTH need to be working at 100% for the best results: just like you can get fatigued, baby can too. To me everything in your story sounds like it wasn’t you, it was the baby. The baby wasn’t descending and her heart was increasing. The way I see it is you made the first official parenting decision (and many more will come) where you had to decide to do the thing that wasn’t best for you but was best for your baby. And for that you deserve a big congrats!
There’s NOTHING wrong with C Sections and I hate that society has us thinking there is. We didn’t fail. We got our babies safely out of us. I had those moments of guilt and what ifs— I think the hormone surge makes it all way worse (9 months later and I’m actually thrilled with how my birth went), like , isn’t my body supposed to be made for this?? Except then I remember the mortality rate of childbirth before interventions were available and considering the alternative is pretty dark.
Childbirth isn’t just on you, but on the baby too— you BOTH need to be working at 100% for the best results: just like you can get fatigued, baby can too. To me everything in your story sounds like it wasn’t you, it was the baby. The baby wasn’t descending and her heart was increasing. The way I see it is you made the first official parenting decision (and many more will come) where you had to decide to do the thing that wasn’t best for you but was best for your baby. And for that you deserve a big congrats!
shaughnessyym
New member
@1peter318 It makes me sad people come here thinking like a C-section is a failed outcome. The goal is to have a healthy baby! Woohoo, goal achieved! The fact that we have medicine available to us to make this even more common is amazing! Without medical intervention it’s very possible that OP or baby could have died or had a serious complication.
@shaughnessyym Having a healthy baby is the bare minimum. Mothers should leave birth physically and mentally healthy also.
@1peter318 Love love love your last 2 sentences. Very well said!
cloudrider
New member
@1peter318 Yes!
I had a failed induction that resulting in a c-section. You wanna know why? My baby had his arm up. That was it. Everything else was fine but I wasn’t progressing bc he just didn’t want to leave yet. (But it was way past time.)
And people have tried to shame me for it. Someone told me I HAD TO HAVE another baby so that I could “have a VBAC and it will HEAL you!”
No. What “healed me” was saying no to the shame. Talking about my experience. Time. And baby snuggles.
I had a failed induction that resulting in a c-section. You wanna know why? My baby had his arm up. That was it. Everything else was fine but I wasn’t progressing bc he just didn’t want to leave yet. (But it was way past time.)
And people have tried to shame me for it. Someone told me I HAD TO HAVE another baby so that I could “have a VBAC and it will HEAL you!”
No. What “healed me” was saying no to the shame. Talking about my experience. Time. And baby snuggles.
@cloudrider Similar story here! Induced baby, he didn't make it past two centimeters for two days and was staying higher up.
Turns out when he was being taken out of the sun roof, my doctor noticed he was close to getting stuck in the birth canal. He wasn't even a big baby, I just wasn't made for healthy natural births after all.
I was also mentally prepared, though, as my mom had the same problems. She had so much anger over needing three c-sections and put me, the youngest, at risk by trying to force me to come put naturally.
My son is the rainbow so I just focused on taking home a healthy child, and while the c-section was kind of freaky in some ways for me, it wasn't a mental load for me once I knew the important goal was achieved.
I'll have to have a c-section again if I have another and it's okay. The idea of having a VBAC attempt scares me more.
Turns out when he was being taken out of the sun roof, my doctor noticed he was close to getting stuck in the birth canal. He wasn't even a big baby, I just wasn't made for healthy natural births after all.
I was also mentally prepared, though, as my mom had the same problems. She had so much anger over needing three c-sections and put me, the youngest, at risk by trying to force me to come put naturally.
My son is the rainbow so I just focused on taking home a healthy child, and while the c-section was kind of freaky in some ways for me, it wasn't a mental load for me once I knew the important goal was achieved.
I'll have to have a c-section again if I have another and it's okay. The idea of having a VBAC attempt scares me more.
heavensmaker
New member
@1peter318 Those last two sentences made me tear up… thank you for that!
godanswererdmyprayer
New member
@boby777 It sounds like you made the best decision you could at the time so nothing to feel guilty about even though it did not go as you hoped. I can’t answer what the medical cause may have been for why he wasn’t descending, but even if you had felt good enough at the time to keep trying to push it’s very possible baby still wouldn’t have progressed down. If the medical staff couldn’t give you some ideas of why this happened it seems like something you can find more info/studies on if you dig into it more online. You may not find a clear answer, but it could give you some better ideas to ask about it you do end up wanting to try for VBAC and you have plenty of time between now and then.
You’re not alone in this right now either - I’m sitting in the hospital now after an un-planned c-section last night. My baby got down to my pelvis but after 4 hours total of pushing (supposedly really well) he wouldn’t budge. I also got a fever, was shaking uncontrollably, and generally felt awful at that point. My nurse suggested we keep going, but after having a breakdown I decided to just accept the c-section I’d been trying to avoid. Not my hope at all, but baby and me and here safely.
You’re not alone in this right now either - I’m sitting in the hospital now after an un-planned c-section last night. My baby got down to my pelvis but after 4 hours total of pushing (supposedly really well) he wouldn’t budge. I also got a fever, was shaking uncontrollably, and generally felt awful at that point. My nurse suggested we keep going, but after having a breakdown I decided to just accept the c-section I’d been trying to avoid. Not my hope at all, but baby and me and here safely.
@chris1978 Congratulations on your baby! Were they able to tell you why baby didn’t decend? My first was face up so after 4 hours of pushing they got her out with forceps. I guess she at least was far enough into pelvis…
@bdspires Thank you!!! Glad you were able to get her out after that long, I know tired you must have been. In my case most likely because he was just too big not in the best position for my pelvis. If I had kept pushing it sounds like they would have tried the vacuum but given the state I was in at that point that scared me more than the c-section.
okiegirl27
New member
@boby777 I had a similar experience. My midwife tried all the positions and even tried manually turning him throughout labor, but nothing worked. Ended in a c-section after 2.5 hours of fruitless pushing.
It was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I felt like I had done everything right — Bradley birth method classes, a midwifery practice with the lowest c-section rates in the area, my mom (who was trained as a doula) there for support. But sometimes things are just outside our control. And often we don’t get a good explanation for why things happened the way they did.
I was sad about it for a good long time. In the beginning, my only experience as a parent was birth! But 4.5 years in, I hardly ever think about it anymore. It was just one experience of parenting and at this point I have a million other experiences to weigh it against.
It was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I felt like I had done everything right — Bradley birth method classes, a midwifery practice with the lowest c-section rates in the area, my mom (who was trained as a doula) there for support. But sometimes things are just outside our control. And often we don’t get a good explanation for why things happened the way they did.
I was sad about it for a good long time. In the beginning, my only experience as a parent was birth! But 4.5 years in, I hardly ever think about it anymore. It was just one experience of parenting and at this point I have a million other experiences to weigh it against.
@okiegirl27 This sounds just like my experience, down to the manual rotation of baby during labor (ouch, my OB tried it twice but Baby kept turning himself back). I’m expecting my second now and struggling on the decision to try for VBAC or not. Curious if you have any thoughts on this. The calculators give me like a 62% chance of success. Were you ever told anything about your anatomy or something that could explain why your labor stalled at pushing? My OB just speculated. Baby was sunny side up and head tilted, so I keep wondering if next baby is positioned better if I’d have success.
my second was an RCS. But for what it’s worth, she was in the perfect birth position!