My BIRTH RAPES

Here it goes. Prepare yourself with a cup of tea, tissues and a comfy chair.

So with my first pregnancy everything was perfect. I was healthy and so was bubs. I went 12 days overdue. On Christmas morning 2007 I finally got the call I had been waiting for to head from where I was living to Waikato hospital for "assesment" for induction. I had been in labor on and off for 3 days but nothing major. It was aprox 10.30am when I got to the hospital and was put in a room with monitors on my belly to assess what baby was doing, I was having back pain at the time. I was left alone but told to buzz the bell if anything was wrong. About 15mins later the monitor started going nuts and the baby’s heartbeat went up and down then stopped then started again, I didn’t know what to do so I buzzed the nurses 3 times and next minute about 10 nurses and 6 or 7 doctors came racing in, some yelling prep for cser others turning me over freaking out etc. One nurse turned me on my side and that got baby’s heartbeat regular again. The prepping for the cser stopped. I was now told my midwife was on the way. At this point a doctor came in and asked to check my cervix, she did and found I was 6 and a half cm's dilated. Then she pushed (inside me) really hard, I screamed out in pain and then felt lots of wetness. She had deliberately broken my waters, without saying anything to me or getting my permission. All she said was, “Opps, I just broke your waters.”

I was then sent to a delivery room, put straight on a bed and strapped down with tons of different monitors. I wasn’t told what was going on, I wasn’t allowed off to pee or walk around. I had 100's of different people coming and going. By this point, as my waters had gone I started getting full on contractions and was in full labor. I kept getting told my midwife was on the way but she still hadn’t turned up. I was not allowed off the bed or off the monitors. I remember 2 separate occasions where I had got myself off the bed and was crouching on the floor holding the side of the bed. When the nurses found me they threatened to get security to watch me so I wouldn’t get off the bed again.

At about 1pm, 2 and a half hours after entering the hospital, I started saying I needed to push. The nurses and doctors kept telling me not to and there was no way I’d be dilated enough. They asked if I wanted pain relief, I said no I wanted to push. At 1.03pm they gave me pethidine, against my will and permission, they just jabbed me with it.

Within a minute the monitors stopped, baby’s heart went into shock from the pethidine, they did an internal and found baby was almost crowning. But as no one had checked me before giving me the pethidine no one knew. I was rushed naked down the corridor, lots of people; families etc saw me, straight into the operating theatre. I was fighting them saying no I was pushing and I didn’t consent to a cser. 1 male doctor grabbed my arm and forced it down whilst another nurse pulled my head back. Others held my legs down. I bit the male doctor so hard I drew blood from his arm. Next minute as I was pushing a woman forced the mask on my face whilst another woman held my head down and still and put me under. Baby was out a few minutes later, he was screaming. Completely healthy and normal with a perfect apgar score of 10.

I had a bad reaction to the anethestic and didn’t wake up properly, by the time I did wake up my baby was 2 hours old. I don’t remember anything from the next 24-48 hours.

On day 3 the nurses almost over dosed me on morphine and I just about died. I contracted a terrible, life threatening infection in my wound and spent the next 6 weeks battling that. It would come and go. I was on about 4 different antibiotics, some at the same time. As well as massive medications for pain. I lost so much weight and got down to 45kgs (99lb). When my milk came in I couldn’t stand as I was too skinny to hold my own weight. In those 6 weeks I had a futher 2 surgeries. I remember 1 day I had a friend visiting and asked him to watch the baby while I went to the toilet. I hardly made it a metre when my wound popped open and blood went everywhere. I thought it was normal vaginal bleeding so rushed to the loo. Sat down and next minute I realised what had happened. Lots of nurses came to check me. I was in excruciating pain the whole 6 weeks and up to about 18 months after I had baby I was still on medication for pain because of the cser.

About 3 months after I had Lachlan I started to have flashbacks of the birth and surgery etc, I had terrible night terrors of the actual surgery and being held down etc.

About a year after I had my son, my husband realised that something with me “wasn’t right”. I went to the doctors and was diagnosed with severe post natal depression and was put on medication for that. I was also to see a counsellor. It started to help and I thought I was on the mend but was still on medication.

We decided to try to get pregnant a second time because of health issues with him I can’t really go into...

6 months after starting trying to, we got pregnant with our 2nd baby. When I was 8 weeks I went for my 1st scan. That was when they discovered I was pregnant with twins but 1 was ectopic and I was rushed to hospital for surgery to remove her.

My pregnancy this time around was quite hard but I knew that I would have a VBAC, there was no other way. I was a woman and women were designed and made to give birth.

At 34 weeks I went into labor, having back pain and small contractions. I was admitted to hospital and pretty much neglected. No one came to check on me, if I wanted anything I had to buzz the nurses and wait for them. Numerous times I was taken to the delivery ward and checked but my cervix was clamped shut. There was no talk of anything by this point.

At 35 weeks my waters broke but still my cervix was shut. I was then given what they called were the options of being induced and carrying on naturally or being given an “elective” cser. I immediately chose to be induced. They then proceeded to; I call bully, me into having a cser. They told me it was far too risky to go natural. I would put my baby at risk of brain damage and/or dying and if anything happened it would be all my fault. I now know this was all just scare tactics.

I was then given an “elective” cser the next day. I had an epidural and laid out completely naked on the bench. They put the drape up so I couldn’t see. You can’t feel the pain of anything but you can feel everything. I felt the pressure of the scalpel and the instruments pulling the incision open. I felt their hands inside me. I guess it’s like you’re a handbag and the doctors are inside it trying to find something. Then the most terrible part was when they started to push out the baby. The pain was so bad. The fully grown male doctor was pushing on my chest so hard I couldn’t breathe. I had huge bruises on my ribs afterwards that lasted 3-4weeks.

They took the baby and checked her over etc. Then my husband came and sat next to me holding her. She was a bit blue and not moving. She was grunting though and I kept telling everyone something was wrong. No one was listening to me. I kept telling hubby she wasn’t breathing properly and the nurses and doctors. As they were stitching me up it was really bad and I started to cry. I could feel every pull of the thread and every movement of the needle. It made me want to throw up. The feeling was disgusting. Then the epidural started to wear off in my feet and I was so scared it would wear off before they finished the op. I was wheeled into recovery where they unwrapped baby and put her on me. She stopped breathing completely and they rushed her off to the neonatal unit. Hubby went with her and I was left alone and crying. By now the epidural had fully worn off and the pain was unbelievable. They give you morphine but it doesn’t take away half of the pain. It hurt so bad I can’t even describe. I was left with 1 nurse who was trying to look after me and find out what was happening with my baby. It was all a big stuff up. I was left in recovery for 2 hours; you should be back on the ward and in a room within 30mins. The nurse that came and got me was an absolute monster and to this day I hate her. She wheeled me up with an orderly (I still didn’t know what was going on with baby). I got to my room and she left me. She didn’t tell me what was going on. I was bawling my eyes out from pain and being left. She didn’t come back for ages, by this point I was almost passing out from the pain. Hubby got to me and rang the nurses, I got morphine and then the monster came back and I went off at her. She yelled at me then left and hubby went after her. When your baby’s taken to the neonatal unit you’re supposed to be taken straight there to see him/her. I was refused to be taken down. Then when they did finally take me I was left unattended. I was pretty much neglected except for this one student nurse who helped me start to express for baby and she helped me with pain relief etc. The next day the nurses stuffed up my pain relief and I was left once again in agony. I was told I could have morphine every 4-6 hours but I was supposed to be getting it every hour; you can imagine the pain I was in. And the only reason I managed to get showered and see my baby was because of my husband.

In both cases the only reason I was able to start breastfeeding and actually see and look after my baby at all was because of my determination both times. The nurses were not compassionate or helpful at all. One night I was in a lot of pain and very upset at having another cser and I asked a nurse to sit with me and hold my hand a minute. This was about 1am. I was told that that wasn’t her job, it was my fault I can’t have babies and had to have a cser and she would ring my husband.

I am left broken, torn, scarred and disturbed. Nothing I say can ever put to anyone how I feel or how broken I am inside.  I am told i should be happy, in one case my baby is healthy, in another my baby may not be healthy but she is alive. WHAT ABOUT ME!

When I give birth to my 3rd child it will be naturally.