This is a woman’s story of her second birth. During her first birth she was left with a recto-vaginal fistula. After searching out information about labor with her specific issue, she wanted to have a gentle birth with no interventions, which could bring to a minimum the risks of further damage to her body and those to her baby.
_________________
Around 10 o’clock in the evening of 21st of October 2009 me, my daughter and my husband went to bed. The little one really didn’t want to go to bed, so I was prepared for a long breastfeeding session. We were lying like that, all three of us, when suddenly I felt like something started to leak from me. “Oh,no, again! It shouldn’t start like that” I told myself. My previous birth started the same way, but this time it was very important for my waters to break as late as possible because of the recto-vaginal fistula which was left from my last labour. I told my husband what is happening, because there was no way for him not to know and all of us got up. I did tell him that I am not going to the hospital until I get strong regular contractions. I got in to have a shower and stayed there longer on purpose, then started to get the bag ready and spent some time walking between the rooms. I put some water to boil to steep some calendula to wash myself down there and to make rosehip tea to drink during the birth and after.
We called my mom and my mother in law to come and watch our daughter. They came around 11 o’clock and were surprised that we are not ready to leave. Yet again, I explained that I will not go before I feel stronger and regular contractions. I was starting to feel some barely painful contractions, but I didn’t time them and continued to wonder around. After awhile, maybe around midnight) the contractions were more frequent and were becoming painful. I continued to walk and to talk to my mom, who was shaking and was amazed at my relaxed state. She could see that I felt the pains and could figure out exactly when the contractions were happening but couldn’t comprehend how right after them I just continued to talk to her and to finish what I had started to do. Around half past midnight they had become more frequent and she got scared that I will give birth and started to pressure me to go. Until then my husband would come in every 5 minutes to say “Come on, lets go already!”. It was imposed and we left.
I traveled in the back seat of the car, on my knees leaning on the boot. My husband was driving too fast, which was very unpleasant, especially during a contraction. Unfortunately when we arrived at the hospital and we got in, I felt that the contractions had slowed down and the pain had subsided. It was obvious the fear of hospitals was having an effect already…
We went to be admitted. There was another woman there and they were taking their time, thanks to which my contractions started up again. My mother was stroking me on the back, which really helped with the pain and in between the surges we chatted and joked around.
I was admitted around 1:30am. The midwife examined me, shaved me and gave me an enema. When I asked “Can I not be shaved?”, the answer was “Well, how are you going to give birth without being shaved?!”. I was 6cm dilated. Along came one very young doctor to fill my documents and when I told him my waters had broken at 10:30pm his reaction was “And you are coming just now!? Don’t you know that you have to be in the hospital up to an hour after the waters break!”. I replied that I knew about the 24 hour rule, but that I had taken that long because it took some time to pack.
The enema was working and I went to the toilet with the bottle of steeped calendula , the contents of which was questioned by the two of them, followed by a sneer in between them. Naturally, there was no warm water. From my last birth, which was a night one as well, I knew that in this hospital they economize on warm water during the night. Still, I had hoped that in 2 years something might have changed, but alas…So long, warm compresses on my perineum.
I returned to the room where they were waiting for me to sign the “informed consent”, I refused and from that point on things became horrible. First they tried to convince me that I cant not sign, but in the end they led me into the pre-delivery unit when I asked that they give me a document to sign that I take all the responsibilities for my actions and the things I am refusing. I thought I had won and I found a comfortable pose in the bed when all kinds of doctors, midwives and other people started to come in and to scream at me about refusing to sign and to threaten me that they will kick me out if I don’t do it. They asked me what exactly don’t I agree with. I started to list – IV line just in case, oxytocin, continuous monitoring, vaginal exams, episiotomy.. I could have gone on, but somebody interrupted me with “Since you are not agreeing with these things, what are you doing in the hospital?! Go give birth at home!!!”
In the meantime a midwife asked me to do a record of the fetal heart rate. I agreed, because she was really kind and even though she didn’t understand me she was trying to make contact with me without shouting and offending me. She was the only one there which treated me as a human being and was trying to show some understanding. I barely made it on my back for 15 minutes and as it hurt more, I kept on wiggling. All the while different people were raising their voices at me and talked about me as though I was not there, just because I didn’t sign. In the end the doctor said to call my husband, because he wanted to talk to him. It was becoming clear to me that they would force me to sign. I called and not long after they asked me to go to the admission room. There was my husband, who started to beg me to sign and said that he had talked to the doctor that they will follow my requests and will not do anything without my consent. I signed and felt a bit of hope that they will leave me to give birth actively and naturally…All of this was happening in between regular painful contractions which were hard to get through amongst the constant attacks, questions by people, which were talking to me or were asking me to do something…
I returned on the bed on an all fours position with slightly opened up legs, in which the pain was bearable. In the room there were three other women, one of which I think was on an IV and was strapped to a fetal monitor. Next to her was a midwife, which she was seemingly ackuainted with. The woman was in obvious pain. I tried to ignore everything, which was really hard, at times impossible. After a little while I felt the pushing urges starting. In the meantime the woman with the midwife had reached 10cm dilation with the help of a lot of shoving down there and a lot of pain.
They moved her to the birthing unit and all of the staff when there with her. Then I managed to relaxed and to go along with the birth. The pushes were starting to get stronger and stronger and with each contraction I was trying not to go with them, because I felt that I haven’t opened up enough and its early for the baby. I felt with one of the contractions that I had some excrement. After the end of it I stood up and went to the bathroom to wash myself. The cold water affected me badly. There I had another contraction and I returned to the room. They had changed the sheet and my midwife was at the door. She said that since there is excrement that means that the head had started to move and is pressing on the rectum. She said “You are having pushing urges, aren’t you?”, there was no way to lie. It was obvious that I was. I returned to the same pose and she asked “Are the pushes in the beginning or at the end of the contractions?”. I knew that if I say that they are in the beginning they will put me on the stirrups, that is why I said that its towards the end. She said to call when it becomes in the beginning and went with the woman that was giving birth in the birthing unit. From there one could hear the personnel’s favorite “Push, push, push!”, “Come on, come on, come on!”, “Come on, just a little more”, “Come on, one more time!”, and the woman was screaming “I cant anymore!”… The directions for her to push went alongside my urges and while she was pushing I was trying not to.
I felt that the moment was coming closer and it was getting harder to fight the pushing urges, but I was doing it, because I felt that if I go with it I would tear (I felt strong stretching down there and slight burning sensation with a push helped by me). I just needed a bit more time, so the head of the baby can stretch the tissues slowly and for it to be able to come out without tearing me. Unfortunately in the meantime the woman in the next room had given birth and everyone came back to the pre-birthing room. The midwife started asking me again about the pushes and to convince me to check me for dilation. I couldn’t talk and just shook my head ‘no’. She felt that I am giving birth, took a look between my legs and shouted “She is giving birth already!”. Suddenly all of them ran to me and started to pull me to go to the chair with stirrups with the words “You will kill your child! You will sit on it and suffocate it!” and other similar wise comments…I was begging them to leave me alone and was pulling away. Somebody said “There is no time for the stirrups, lie on your back now, you will give birth in the bed!” I said to leave me alone that I don’t want to be on my back, I don’t want like that…They took my arms and legs and turned me over on my back against my will and in the most violent way. I was trying to get up, but a lot of hands were pushing and shoving me to lie. They started to shout at me to push, that I will suffocate my child and such, the midwife entered me to “get it out” and my hell was now complete… My urges and contractions of course stopped, I was fighting with them… The doctor started to lean on my stomach with hands and to push the baby. I straight away started to push his hands away and to tell him not to touch my stomach. He was removing my hands and I saw he needed little more to start to hit me, but was restraining so far. He said that I shouldn’t dare touch his hands and be in his way. I continued, as I didn’t want him to push my baby, but I saw that things were getting worst and worst and started to try and push, to get everything done with… Unfortunately I had no pushing urges and what I did was not enough. I tried to lift myself a little bit, but they told me to lie and push.. They were all screaming at me and pushing me… At the end someone said “This is not working, we need to cut her! She is not pushing, the baby will suffocate!”. Suddenly I saw somebody bringing scissors in a pan and said “Nooooo…” and out of nowhere, like a miracle, a pushing urge came to me. With all my might I pushed as hard as I could.. The baby came out straight away and started to cry very loudly. I saw her, she was pink, big and beautiful, my little daughter…I tried to lift myself up and take her, but somebody cut the cord immediately and took her away.. All of them were surrounding me again and started to pull on me to stand up and to go to the chair with stirrups so they could “take out” the placenta. I said, I will birth it myself, just wait for me. They didn’t leave me, took me to the chair and started to push on my stomach. I said they could just wait, it will come out by itself. I heard somebody say “Who will wait for you, we don’t have time to wait on you..”
The whole time I was asking about my baby, I was begging them to give her to me, to hug her, to see her at least..they said she weighs 3650g and is 50cm. They gave her to me for just about 5 minutes, all wrapped up, but without a hat. She was crying and the moment I took her, she stopped. I kissed her and talked to her, she was looking at me… I heard “That’s enough.” and I realized that I didn’t offer her to nurse and now they will take her away. Quickly I tried to put her on my breast, but on the stirrups, lying down, it was really uncomfortable. Somebody said “Its just born and she is trying to make him suckle! How will it suck, it cant yet!” and they were laughing at me.
The placenta came out (along with it was a bit of extra placenta) and straight away I started to bleed. They all got scared and in a panic started to try and stop the bleeding. It hurt a lot while they were reaching inside me and pressing and I started to beg for them to sedate me, there was nothing else I needed to fight for. I felt raped and humiliated. Somebody said “Didn’t you want everything natural, without drugs, now thats why you wont get anaesthetics, you will endure the stitching” , “There, you wanted to give birth naturally, look now how you have torn yourself up!” and other offensive statements like “she is crazy, needs a psychiatrist, she is for the loony bin, member of a sect” and so on.
After a long battle, they stopped the bleed, but I had lost a lot of blood. They told me that my cervix had torn badly. They started to stitch and my other tears, which hurt a lot. Every once in a while they pushed and kneaded my stomach to make the uterus contract, after which new portions of blood poured out. The whole time I was really cold and was shivering. I was really thirsty, but they categorically refused to give me water. When they finished with the stitching they left me there a long time to shiver, while only the midwife remembered to bring me at least one blanket, which didn’t help much. They had put two IVs on, I think glucose and some with calcium etc. Periodically they would stick me for blood tests. For one of them my hemoglobin was 72. At one time I was feeling so badly, I thought I would lose conscience.
I gave birth at 3.25am and stayed in the room until about 6.30am. After that they moved me to a room across the birthing hall in which there were four beds and was used for all kinds of cases. I was still shivering and bleeding a lot, but when they moved me to the bed and wrapped me in two blankets, in just a few minutes I felt better and the bleeding reduced. In the room there was a woman after c-section which had to start moving, a woman with 4cm dilation, which was getting connected to an oxytocin drip and the fetal monitoring belts, while they were explaining to her that this way it will be faster, and a woman with broken waters and weak contractions and 1cm dilation, which was moved to the pre-delivery unit, probably to be hooked up to an IV. In her place came a woman for a planned c-section, which later on after I again argued with the staff and said how in Bulgaria the don’t know what is natural birth and how I regret I had come to the hospital, said that my words were stressing her out… Few more people came around to see who was that one that “whole night had played them around”, some were curiously questioning me, others just came to express their outrage. Along came an acquaintance of my mother in law to tell me how could I have behaved like that and bring her into discredit and that she was ashamed of me… I argued with her, but in the end I just said “One they you will see how right I was and how wrong you have been..” and stopped talking in despair. When she was leaving I heard her saying to all present and the staff (which were listening in and chiming in on her behalf) that my husband, such a lovely and good boy, and on what woman he stumbled…
The morning went with a lot of forced births, IVs, vaginal exams, monitors, shouting of “Push!”, episiotomies and so on. I asked everyone who came in the room when they will move me in a room, so I can get my baby. There was no answer, except “it wont be soon”. They were waiting on some test from 9am to see if they will give me blood. Around 2pm they started to transfuse me two banks of blood . Even before that I felt fine and wanted to go to the toilet by myself. They didn’t allow me. I just got up to pee in the pan in the room. After the first bank, they let me in the toilet. I could eat and drink, and that’s what I did in the morning. Around 5pm they decided to move me in a room. I was hoping that there will be one of the VIP rooms available, so I can have my family visit me, but in the next few days of waiting I realized that those who don’t pay for a team don’t get those rooms. Straight away when they moved me I went to take my daughter. Of course, they had filled her with formula, despite my requests not to give her anything, still we were separated 14 hours.. I can just imagine the stress she had lived through. I put her on my breast straight away and she sucked, badly, but still suckled. In the coming hours she cleared her tummy from the formula and we started to learn breastfeeding. I was disappointed that three times a day we had to leave the babies for their toilet, when in the morning it was written to leave them from 7am til 10am because it was doctor visiting time. At night from 9pm to 10pm was the toilet time. I took her in and asked that they don’t feed her anymore. We were three women in the room and only I kept my daughter for the night. As far as the breastfeeding, I will not comment how lacking of knowledge mothers and staff are and how suspiciously they looked on my “strange” advice. From the time I took my daughter we cuddled and slept together (I was given a warning that if I fall asleep I can crush or suffocate her). The next day I found out that I can bring her in for 8am til 10am and I could ask for the next two toilets for her to stay with me.
And since my tests were improving and my daughter – Plamena, started to gain (from 3500 to 3600) they discharged us on the third day. Finally we were home…
I will never forget this nightmare and still regret a lot of things and think “Only if I..” “What if..”, but I will overcome the trauma. This was definitely better than my previous birth, during which the never ending “oxitocin” contractions and stitches and episiotomy hurt much more and my recovery was much harder.
