KandyKinz
Longtime Mama
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My mum's reaction has been interesting and complicated! She has had four kids, two at home, first and last (me) induced. Don't know why my brother was but she had bad pre-eclampsia with me and was on bed rest in hospital for weeks. She was disgusted with the treatment I received at my birth long before I was. She's never had any issue with my wanting a home birth either time but she is nevertheless terrified about any of us going into labour! Seems a bit mad. She had very quick labours, all less than 7 hours, fairly straightforward, no complications except with me. But she has seen my sister's long labours and clearly saw too much of mine last time! She just seems always worried about us. Yesterday she randomly asked me about blood pressure and swelling because I was feeling a bit faint (bearing in mind I have low iron and am at the tail end of nearly 2 weeks of bronchitis and had no complications in pregnancy last time) and said how she knew a woman who died very suddenly from pre-eclampsia but the doctors had said it was so fast no-one could've done anything. What that sort of anecdote achieves I don't know!I think she just doesn't know how to handle the worry for us more than having any real aversion to any plans.
I almost just wanna hug your mom and tell her it will all be alright!
It must have been really hard on her to see you go through that horrific ordeal.I think my mother's past obstetrical experiences also has played a huge role in how she views things now. I was her first and with me she experienced days and days of latent labour. Once they finally did admit her after having not slept for ages she was completely exhausted. So they augmented her with oxytocin and she spent the remainder of her prolonged labour in confined in bed strapped to the monitors. Early on in the process my dad left for lunch..... and then never returned until after I was born 24 hours later. So she had no labour support. Giving birth to me traumatized her!
Then with my sister, she ended up having placenta previa and had several hemorrhaging incidents. As a result she ended up being admitted onto the maternity ward from 24 weeks until she had a cesarean at 36 weeks (with a brief 2 day period around 33 weeks where they allowed her to come home, but was quickly rushed back to hospital for another subsequent hemorrhage). The day after the birth my sister developed quite extensive jaundice and was placed in the NICU for a few days. They both finally made it home and week postpartum my mother became very very ill with a staph infection which became systemic and it literally took her months to fully recover from it. Being pregnant with my sister and the horrible postpartum experienced traumatized her even more!
Then with my brother, who's due date was just 18 months after my sisters birth she had another awful pregnancy as there was constant worry there was something wrong with the baby. At the ultrasound, they detected abnormalities within the spine and vertebrae but they could not make a firm diagnosis as they simply did not know what was wrong. She had to travel long distances for level 2 ultrasounds and going into the birth she had no clue what they were going to find. She wanted another cesarean because she was worried she hadn't healed properly after the first one and was also worried about the impact a vaginal birth could have on my brother's potential spine problems. The doctor refused (this was in the mid 90's when VBACs were all the rage). She was induced with progesterone cream and went into labour with just that. Progress was normal until she reached full dilation at which point there was absolutely no progress during the pushing stage. The baby was OP and wouldn't rotate or come down at all. The doctor tired to manually rotate the baby despite my mother telling him to repeatedly to stop because he was hurting her so bad and then left and told the nurses to get him once the baby moved down some. After pushing for 5 hours and not being allowed narcotics during that time because the baby would be born soon and not being allowed an epidural because the anesthetist was only available on call for emergencies the OB and anesthetist came in at 06:00 and did another repeat cesarean. My brother did in fact have some issues with his spine as he has sprengal's deformity as well as fused vertebrae in his spine which is likely why he couldn't get into a good birthing position and why he couldn't negotiate his way through the pelvis.... He also now has autism and who knows whether the birth had any impact on that
But that just added on to my mom's traumatic birth experiences...... Then when you combine all three births together it kind of makes her comments a little more understandable. She views birth as a very negative very scary thing that you do cause you have to.
My sister is 16 now and I'm intending on having her present for the birth of Baby Peanut primarily to care for my older ones but also to take pictures and stuff. She's excited, but the sad thing is so is my mom because she thinks that the experience is going to traumatize her into celibacy
My mom just doesn't get that birth can be a nice pleasant thing and I'm really hoping for my sister's sake that this coming birth is natural and normal and untraumatic because I would hate for her to grow up and believe that what my mom believes is in fact the only way birth can be..........
