really?

my mum told some friends tonight and listening to it made me well up i wanted her to stop!

I had a good birth experience, really. It was the aftermath that I have to say really upset me and still affects me. They overdosed my baby and treated her like she was poorly when there was never anything wrong. I still feel like she's really fragile and worry over every tiny thing. I worry that next time will be the same.

Talking about it helps me. I'll tell anyone who'll listen! With each person I tell it gets easier and makes me feel more confident that I'll do it all again.

My mum was telling the hv a few details about mine and i just looked at her and was like ohhh i forgot about that bit?! I really struggled to write my birth story been working on it bit by bit for three weeks and its super long though im not going to read it. its there for looking back on when i feel a bit better about it all

Is your birth story somewhere?? as I don't know your experience..

My first birth was great really, natural, in the water and I felt like I achieved something and coped well but I thought my second went completely wrong and has put me off having anymore children. They found out my baby was breech when I was already overdue, and she was a healthy size (big lol) at that so they had to try and turn her which didn't work, hurt me loads and sent me into labour a few hours later! well having a midwife tell me I had to wait until morning *twat* lol, an emergency c section and certain experiences really put me off! I know some women go through much worse than I did, but for me it was not nice emotionally and physically

Oh, just wanted to add that my first birth experience didn't start well, but did end well (thats another story though, that I won't bore you all with lol) but my little one was in SCBU for a week and I still blame myself constantly and feel like it affected me bonding with my little girl - who I obviously adore and always have, but it definitely affected things. Shes 3 and I still think about it,

nope ive not been able to write a birth story yet, i keep trying, i will, i just cant yet, the only good thing thats come out of it all is Ava and the fact that if i ever have any more kids i KNOW i will have an elective section planned with date and time and it will not have the chance to go like it did this time, even altho i was told i could still have a normal vaginal birth in the future, i dont want too i dont want to even try. I shudder at thinking about another labour,

Sorry that you had a bad experience, hopefully you will be able to talk about it soon. x

Mine was pretty traumatic and to this day, I still don't remember the whole thing, I just remember being in pain for hours on end and eventually having him.

My mum wrote my birth story

i wish i didnt remember tbh,

I'm sorry to read so many stories of bad birth experiences, but in a way it's good to know we're not all alone. My own labour sounds like it was perfect - it was precipitate, only took 2 hours from start to finish(so it says in my notes but I don't really know where they got that from) and my son is perfect and healthy which is the most important thing. My waters broke in the afternoon so we went to hospital. After being monitored I was told nothing would happen that day and I'd probably need to be induced the next afternoon. I was kept in because my blood pressure was 'slightly high'. I was all for going home but in retrospect it's just as well I stayed where I was. My husband was sent home at 9pm, I had been having some pains by then but was told nothing was happening. An hour or so later I was given pethidine, which I hadn't wanted but the midwife said that as I was no where near giving birth it would be ok and the baby wouldn't be affected at all. I said to her that I must be a real wuss to need drugs when I wasn't even really in labour. At about midnight the pain was really bad, I was on an ante natal ward with the curtains pulled round my bed, there wasn't anyone monitoring me or anything. I remember at one point being on all fours on the bed, dripping with sweat and feeling completely out of it. A midwife came to see how I was so I asked if I could have a bath, she was really happy for me to do that. In the bath I had an almighty pain and I remember thinking 'if this isn't labour then I won't be able to cope with it when it gets worse' I stood up to go and tell someone I wasn't coping. As soon as I stood up I felt the urge to push. I got dressed and was on all fours (again!) on the bathroom floor when the midwife knocked to see if I was ok. She came in, I said I felt like I needed a poo (tmi!!) and she said 'I think it may be your baby's head', one quick internal check later and I was told I was fully dilated and rushed to the delivery room. My son was born 2 pushes and about 15 mins later. I know this sounds great - all very quick, not pushing for hours, not in pain for hours etc. But in reality I was alone, my husband had no chance to get back to see his son born (and this baby took 7 years to conceive so we don't envisage having anymore at our ages) and I'd gone through the pain of 2nd stage labour with no support which was really scary. All the books you read, the programmes you watch, all go on about how great it is to have support and how much Dads love being involved etc. It makes me feel really sad to think that my husband missed out on that. He arrived about 30 mins after our son had been born, he didn't know that he had been born so had a bit of a shock when he walked into delivery room to see me sat there with a baby!
I do feel fortunate that it was quick, but I do feel that after all those years of waiting for this baby it's just so sad that we weren't together for his arrival. Oh and it really bugs me when people say I had an easy labour. Quick - yes, easy - no, not really!! My mother in law is insistent that it was easy, I managed to get her to concede that it was 'easyish'. Goodness knows how she knows, she wasn't there and neither was her son!! My midwife was really understanding, she said quick births can make you feel like you're in shock sometimes, which is true.
I do know my experience was no where near as bad as other people's but I suppose a lot of it is about your expectations isn't it?
It has helped to write it down.

I had a bad experience too. I took me several weeks to stop thinking about it all the time, and I still well up when I think about it now.

After 3 days in slow labour at home, I spent a day being monitored in hospital before having my waters broken. When I reached the point of pushing a few hours later, we couldn't get a midwife to stay in the room for ages, but eventually baby went into distress and I had mw and dr arguing at the foot of my bed over doing a c-section - they had to take it outside. I ended up in theatre with a spinal block and ventouse delivery and 2nd degree (extremely generous I'm told!) episiotomy. After packing me and stitching me up they discovered they'd lost a swab, and after hunting everywhere for it, there was only one place left. They decided to wait 8 hours until all my pain relief had worn off, but before my husband was allowed to come in for the doctor to remove the pack and spend what felt like forever rooting around trying to find the swab. Thankfully I had gas&air while they did it, the pain was worse than anything I'd had during the delivery. The midwife assisting had decided enough was enough and was halfway out the door to get help when the swab was eventually found.

I feel angry, upset and scared of what could have happened when I think about my experience, but it has eased in the 8 weeks since it happened. I find myself wondering what would have happened if we could've got someone to help sooner, and I feel guilty that I'm so upset about it because things could have ended up a lot worse with the various things that happened. Hopefully it will ease further going forward, but I'm not convinced I'll reach a point where I would consider risking having another baby.