I keep sitting down and trying to start a birth story but then my head goes all fuzzy, maybe tonight, I dont have any problems with Ava shes absolotely great, but when i think back i just think... why? i think? :S

i cant say too much on this becasue i was lucky enough to have a good experience.. what i will say is that i think its normal to revisit it regularly... its a HUGE experience, and one that was long and complicated.. revisiting it is how your brain makes sense of it, and eventually puts it to rest... the same happens with car accidents / loss of a loved one / other scary events...i think the problems occur when you are obsessing about it... if you cant think of anything else / cant sleep for thinking about it..then its likely that you are having some degree of PTSD, and its best to seek some help with that.
allow yourself to try to find the good things about it too.. i know there arent many, but when you find yourself starting to think about it all, think about it for a moment, then think about ava, and the fact shes here safely, and the fact that you survived it all too... balance the negative with a positive?
also.. try not to read into it too much... true PND often doesnt surface for many months after baby is born, its more likely to be a nasty combination of exhaustion, baby blues, crazy hormones, making you feel worse about it all too, so dont rush to add PND to your list of things to worry about chick.... thats only going to make you feel even worse. crying is normal, being an emotional wreck is normal.. i had an easy time and i still did both.

i think the PP's have some good advice with talking about it too... writing your birth story, even if you arent ready to post it yet... or talking thru all the bits you remember with someone.. maybe your mum might be good as she was there and will be able to identify with bits of it? or even the HV / someone less close to you... ill certainly listen if it helps xxx
just rest as much as you can, concentrate on ava & urself & sod everything else, it can wait. its still early days, and i promise it will be much better soon xxxxx

Mine was extremely traumatic and a truely horrendous experience which resulted in Phoebe being admitted to intensive care, we have lost all faith in the medical profession and it is only now 9 months on I feel I can talk to my OH about what happened.

I suffered from nightmares for weeks after and it affected me bonding with Phoebe. It does get easier though and I love being a mummy but i'm not sure I would want to risk going through all that again.

i had a tramatic birth and terrible problems after, i was diagonoised with post tramatic stress, the night mares are the worst, i found it difficult talking to start with, once i did tell someone i felt better then i found myself telling everyone every single detail, my daughters nearly 16 months old and i feel ok now and even ttc again, best thing you can do is talk about it when your ready. i still dream about it but not nightmares any more. if you ask your doctor you can request your notes that may help you xx

As you may have seen in the dec stars thread my birth story isnt really all that easy to talk about.

Right now its something I'd rather forget, th entire experience in hospital was hateful, I wanted to be at the birthing centre using the pool - ended up with a emergengy section alone with no one in theatre telling me anything.

Luckliy my local MW clinic run a counselling session called birth afterthoughts that you can attend any time after the birth nd go through things with a MW and talk about it.

I'm hoping in a few weeks when I'm bit more myself to go and run though things, I'm hoping that may put someof the demons to rest.

I feel like me a dnmy hubby were cheated out of what should have been the most memorable moments of our ives but it was so horrible for both of us we'd rather forget about it.

I have trouble feeling feeling like I have given birth at all...I have a baby but he was handed to me at some point after hours of torture.

Feel like he could have come from anywhere.

i know the feeling chuck, thankfully its not affected my feelings for her, but its not the same is it.

Obviously i cant compare this birth to any other, Dewi being my first but it certainly doesn't feel 'right'.

Things will get better for you.

My birth was no where near as traumatic as most of you girls on this thread have experienced, but it did upset me for many months afterwards.

I actually coped fairly well with the contractions up until being in active labour for nearly 30 hours when, being exhausted, and being told I was 'only' 7cm dilated, I asked for an epidural. Half an hour after the epidural, I was told I was 10cm. Tristan then got a bit stuck and was delivered by forceps. Even then, I was quite happy with the birth. It was afterwards, when they waited for the placenta, that things changed. My placenta wouldn't come away on its own, so I had to have my epidural topped up and was whisked away to theatre where it was manually removed (basically, the doctor puts her hand 'up there' and pulls it out). It went straightforwardly, although I did lose about a litre of blood and ended up on iron tablets for about three months.

The whole placenta experience did taint my birth experience for a long time - but I feel a lot better about it now. I realise that it wasn't anything that I did wrong and it was just one of those things. I am a bit worried about it happening again though, as apparantly you have a greater chance of a retained placenta if you have had it before. However, next time the doctor will have this in my notes and can be prepared for it.

I hope things get better for you girls.

xxx

Keep seeing about people not wanting to talk about it...but I was the opposite...it upset me so much to think about it, but I kept talking about it, going through everything over and over again, wanting to tell everyone every little detail haha! Infact sometimes I still do if anyone asks :S