PTSD and childbirth?

So a friend linked this on her facebook http://www.salon.com/life/motherhood/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/02/17/ptsd_in_childbirth

To me it’s not a shocking story. Infact it’s pretty darn close to what I experienced with my first. The story isn’t what bothers me (not that it doesn’t bother me but we’ll discuss that more later) it’s the comments from several of the readers.

There seems to be a giant void in understanding childbirth and how it works, rather that IT DOES WORK. Not only does it work, it works UNHINDERED! What a novel thought.

I suffered undiagnosed PTSD from Tatum’s birth, heck I’m having issues with it THIS pregnancy. What happened for me, I was without control. Now all childbirth requires that you somewhat lose control. There’s a difference though. When you’re birthing normally; labor begins on it’s own, labor progresses at it’s own rate, no interventions are used, no drugs are used, baby is born into the hands of it’s parents, baby nurses, placenta is expelled; well it requires that you lose control over your civilized self and get primal. There is nothing wrong with this, rather I feel there is something so beautiful and glorious about it.

My birth I lost control in a different way. I wasn’t allowed to have labor continue the way it was supossed to. 

Issue 1.) Prodromal labor

There’s this funny thing that doctors don’t tell you about. Prodromal labor. It’s a beast but it’s normal. Doctor’s like to call it “false labor” but that’s a bunch of crap! There is no such thing. Prodromal works in many ways prepping your body  and your baby for birth.  I went in with prodromal labor and being anxious my blood pressure was up so the hospital decided to “keep me”

Issue 2.) Pitocin

Since I was being kept (another loss of control! not part of the decision making process) that meant my prodromal labor was going to be augmented instead of left to fizzle out like it would have if I stayed home. Augmented labor, labor that starts then pitocin is added. (different from induced labor where labor has NOT started and pitocin is used to start it) So my body lays there no longer an active part of the process just the thing the uterus sits in being pumped full of a synthetic hormone. A hormone that causes the uterus to contract with great force against an unopened cervix. Doctors don’t warn of the risks of pitocin, things like hyperstimulation of the uterus and  fetal distress.

Pitocin contractions are nothing like the rhythmic contractions that oxytocin create in a woman’s body. Oxytocin in a woman’s body makes these lovely almost wave like contractions that hug the baby down, draw the cervix up, and allow a woman to birth. Pitocin is the whole uterus cramping, like a vicious leg cramp, oxygen is cut off, it hurts. It’s NOT NORMAL.

So another loss of control, I was told by my providers that my body didn’t know what to do but they did so they go to be incontrol of my uterus and dictate it’s future.

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So there I was pumped full of a synthetic hormone, which made my uterus feel liek it was crushing my baby. I wanted away. I wanted it to end so the next step was drugs! Woo.

Some sort of narcotic added to the IV and a wait for the epidural. The epidural that was misplaced despite my pleas that it was too far to the left. This meant that it works primarily on my left side. More accurately it worked on my left leg. Well you see my uterus isn’t and wasn’t in my left leg so this didn’t help. Control was once again lost. I had lost control in the ability to move my body on my own.

Having an epidural also means having a catheter. For me that means I’ll have a urinary tract infection in no time, sure enough I was treated for a UTI before baby was 1 month old.

So there I lay epidural, pitocin, catheter. What comes next? Well the bag of waters are in the way, and the baby monitor would work better if we had wires going through the vagina and screwed into the baby’s head. Great idea, lets increase the risk of infection. So I was told once again my body didn’t work, and now my baby is not safe in my body better break the water and physically harm my unborn.

So now I lay writhing in pain, contractions that feel like they’re ripping me in half. A wire, and pressure catheter going through my vagina into my uterus, and urinary catheter keeping my bladder empty, and epidural catheter flooding my nerves with numbing medication but only working on the nerves to my leg. This went on for hours.

After a while I felt the urge to push. My nurse check me and told me I can’t push. I couldn’t NOT push. Once again I was being told my body is wrong. After a while of this I was finally complete and allowed to push (theres that lack of control) so I did. I could feel my vagina and the urge to push just fine but the nurse felt it necessary to insert her unwanted fingers into my vagina and stretch my vagina to the point that it hurt and no matter how much I begged her to stop no matter how many times I said “NO!” she wouldn’t remove her hand from my vagina. I don’t know what got her to stop. It was like being sexually assualted all over again.

2 hours of this pushing on my back, 20 something hours without nourishment (another thing used for control, no food) and I collapsed. I started to black out inbetween contractions. MY vagina felt like it had already birthed a baby. So my doctor came in and decided to do the c-section.

Alone in a cold, bright room, blacking out inbetween contractions, in pain, defeated, proven that my body was incapable of childbirth, violated, and alone. They started cutting and brought my terrified husband back. Our grey/blue son was delivered. We was just as brutalized as I was. his head cut from the internal fetal monitors, his nose scraped against my pubic bone. How could a woman fail her precious perfect child like that?

I got to see what looked like a dead baby for a second while they got him started up, the fetal monitors never showed any distress. Then they showed me this face surrounded in blankets and handed him to my husband, I watched them leave while I gave in and checked out mentally until I was being wheeled to recovery.

More of the control was lost there. I begged my nurses for my baby they felt the gossip was far more important that bonding with my child, or feeding him, or you know getting to touch him or see him.

A woman shown that her body doesn’t work, is unsafe to create and birth life, then gutted, not allowed to touch her baby, and in the midst of it felt sexually violated. How could someone not have PTSD?