Traumatizing birth/post birth experience

Due date was 8/6 and I had an OB appt scheduled for that morning. As I was got up to get dressed to go to that appointment, my water broke at 8:30am. I contacted the hospital and they told me to go to labor and delivery.

At labor and delivery, i told them birth plans. I went into this really wanting as little intervention as possible. IE: no induction medications, no epidural, spontaneous labor, etc. When they checked to see if it was truly amniotic fluid they also did cervical exam and I was still at 1cm dilated (which was what I was at during my 39 week exam.)

They admitted me and there was now a clock to how long I could labor for due to the water breaking. After everything I’ve read from standard practices in other countries, I assumed I would be allowed to go to 24-48 hrs without intervention. They started pushing for Pitocin pretty early on after I went a few hrs without further dilation and his heart rate would periodically drop, especially in certain positions or when I went to the bathroom.

By 2pm, I agreed to take a cytotec. At 6pm, still no progression and now my husband was also on board with me agreeing to Pitocin. I wanted to wait longer but ultimately felt a bit pressured to move forward with it and agreed to go low and slow with it. My biggest hold up is I didn’t want an epidural which seemed likely with Pitocin.

So by midnight that night, I was at a dose of 20, still with no epidural, and still no progression and very minimal contractions. At that point, the on call dr told my nurse she could bump me up marginally to 30 even though I didn’t have internal monitoring being done and baby looked more stable than he had earlier in the day. At that point, I went ahead and agreed to an epidural not because the pain was unmanageable but because I couldn’t get comfortably get into positions that didn’t cause his heart rate to drop. At this point, I also thought maybe my body just needed to relax to do what it needed to do.

The epidural had its own set of issues because the guy putting it in kept hitting some spinal bones and evidently I may have scoliosis I was unaware of. But we finally got it in and I did relax and managed to get a few hours of sleep. At 8am, I was having more contractions but still nothing that were productive to giving birth and still with absolutely no change in dilation. At this point, I gave in and knew where this was headed. The c-section was scheduled to be done at 11am. I sent my husband home real quick to take the dogs out because I knew we wouldn’t be leaving for a while after the baby was here. That ended up being the worst decision ever.

I was rolled back for surgery early and of course my husband got caught up in construction even though we live in a small ass area where there’s never construction that holds up traffic. When they started cutting into me, I was on my own and petrified. The anesthesiologist administered a benzo because I was uncomfortably crying. Right as the baby was pulled out, he was brought in and all he saw was the dr holding my intestines up. He immediately came to my side and I asked if baby was okay and he looked over at the baby being surrounded & also at the people surrounding me and then looked back at me and just held my hand. I just saw fear in his eyes and he was shaking. Then I passed out.

The baby had ended up having his cord wrapped around his neck four times which everyone present said was the most they’ve ever seen. I apparently had a lot of blood loss and almost needed a transfusion.

It was just a horrifying experience that has really shaken us both up. Our baby is doing alright as far as the delivery goes but is now experiencing issues from withdrawal from the Lexapro & Trazadone I’ve been taking throughout pregnancy. He is having some tremors, irritability, and issues with eating. I expressed my concerns pretty early on to multiple people but they didn’t really say anything until this morning when it was addressed. Since then, one of the nurses who was nice to begin with has been acting very short with me and I feel like holding back pain medications. Then just a little bit ago she comes in and asks if they can run a drug test on my urine & then says it’s hospital policy. I find that hard to believe because they test for drugs throughout pregnancy without asking, but now she’s asking for consent? I agreed because I have nothing to hide but it feels like I’m being treated like a drug addict.

It’s really hit me emotionally because it feels like I am being blamed for the issues he is having when I need those medications and everyone claims they are alright during pregnancy. Between the trauma of his birth and now the issues he’s experiencing, the well of my emotions is just hitting me so hard, I feel like I can’t take a breath.