I am going to be walking 5k everyday of birth trauma awareness week with Eliza in the pram, 18th-23rd July. After 10 long months I feel ready to tell my story and spread awareness of birth trauma, so please share to let everyone know it is real and not everything is like in the media! 

About 30,000 women a year, according to the most recent research, experience birth trauma in the UK. Instead of being joyful and happy, the experience of giving birth has been frightening. Perhaps the baby’s heartrate dipped, leading to an emergency caesarean section. Maybe you or your baby suffered injuries as the result of the birth. Or maybe you felt that you weren’t well looked after in labour, or you weren’t told what to expect.

Here is my birth story:

August 21st 2021 I noticed my contractions had started but weren't regular, carried on with my day like all the midwives recommend. The next day they still weren't regular until the evening it seemed they were getting regular went to the hospital at 11pm however by the time we got to the hospital they had slowed down again the midwife did all the checks. I wasn't dilated enough so it was either go on the ward or home. By the time we got nearly home I could barely sit down and started to feel, this was something I had suffered with through my whole pregnancy! On the driveway to my house I was sick several times and the pain had changed not to contractions but a constant pressure. Sam ran me a bath to calm me down, I managed to fall asleep in the bath but woke up a couple of hours later with that pressure again but more intense, this was when I could only stand to get the pain away. I hardly slept all weekend so was quite tired I just paced my house from 5am-9am when I rang the hospital to come back. When I got back I said to the midwife this doesn't feel right and she noticed I was struggling to wee, we couldn't get a good sample to see if I had another uti another frequent problem in my pregnancy. Due to this we weren't going home so this is now Monday 23rd 10am. I'm needle phobic so as part of my birth plan was to get my canula fitted on arrival instead of if needed in an emergency. I was given some pain relief to catch up on sleep, this started to wear off so got the epidural but to get that I had to have my waters broke apparently. I was sleeping to be woken up by my new midwife to tell me I need the hormone drip, they asked this when my birth partner wasn't in the room to advocate my rights for not wanting the drip. In the moment of being woken up I just agreed but said don't ever turn it up. They turned it up everything was fine Sam had some food, went out for a fag and then it started to go wrong the pain was getting intense. My epidural couldn't be topped up so was given gas and air but that wasn't touching it either. Then the next thing I remember is loads of people coming in the room telling me my contractions were coming way too fast and I need to take this tablet to calm them down, Sam came back in the room to all this helped me take the tablet when they started saying baby is in distress her heart rate got 220 bpm! We were rushed to theatre Sam was putting scrubs on. The anaesthetist was doing checks trying to get me to calm down, when he was doing the spray he realised all along my pelvis the epidural wasn't working. Because this was a class 1 c-section baby had to be out in under 30 minutes, the decision was made for General Anaesthetic, the words I never thought I would hear for my birth. 

For anyone that didn't know with a GA birth dad/birth partner has to wait outside. So we have none of those lovely moment's where you see baby come out together, hear the first cry and get that initial skin to skin.

I then only remember waking up to find no baby in my room back in the labour room I was in before theatre. I was getting all these checks with midwives and doctors for myself no one mentioning my baby. I didn't know what day, time or even weight she was. I asked my midwife and she said baby was poorly in neonatal and I can go down once my Covid result was back. I had no idea what had happened why she was in neonatal what happened with me and theatre. Eliza was born at 23:53pm on the 23rd August, I didn't first meet and hold her until 6:24pm 24th August, I will always remember that being the time the photos of us were taken. That was when I found out that we had an infection and Eliza also had a cannula in the back of her hand the same as me.

We ended up being in the hospital until the 29th August it felt such a long difficult stay, Sam was only allowed to come 2 hours each day! The longer I was there the more I found out about mine and Eliza's problems during labour. They suspected pre-eclampsia but as my swelling and blood pressure grew slightly at the end of pregnancy it was never picked up on until I was in labour. During the c-section I had a postpartum haemorrhage and needed 1 unit of blood. A few days later my iron levels were severely low when an average reading should be 110 mine had dropped down to 60! I had an iron transfusion also known as the ferinject. I also had a UTI which was most likely the cause for all the pressure and discomfort during my labour. Eliza had a high heart rate causing the alarm in the first place, came out with a temperature of 40.4 Celsius. She had several heel pricks, a spinal tap at only 2 days old, antibiotics every 12 hours and then even mild jaundice. This is just the medical side of it I also encountered some unhelpful staff that made the stay even worse.

These factors led on for me to develop postnatal depression and PTSD from the birth. It took me 3 and a half months to reach out for help, my GP referred me to the perinatal team. I can honestly say how proud and far I have come from back then to now. Eliza will be 1 next month and I no longer feel a hate or scared feeling towards it approaching!

If you have read this far thank you, and please share to raise awareness, the birth trauma awareness Instagram page helped me realise that I wasn't well if only this was knowledge sooner and to more people.

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