Jane’s story
Twenty years ago, I was given a tour of the maternity ward before the birth of my daughter. The first room I was shown as I was walked into the ward on the right, was the bereavement suite.
As an older mum at 38 I was a little worried about having a baby, but I had had all the scans and also a nuchal fold scan privately, just to be on the safe side, and throughout my pregnancy I felt so amazingly well.
I was overdue by about a month and when I eventually went into hospital and had a “sweep” once my labour started it went on for a long time.
In the delivery suite at the beginning it was all very calm. There was my midwife, my partner and my mum with me. My mum bless her, never left my side the entire time, but after many hours had passed I had got myself into a bit of a state. I was so scared of the birth and asked for an epidural. The doctor who administered it didn’t do it correctly first time round (I think there was an air bubble in the tube) so had to take it all out and do it again. This didn’t make me feel any better.
After many hours and feeling tired and exhausted, the original midwife suddenly ran out of the room. I didn’t know what was happening. Then in ran about 6 or more people masked and gowned up.
I looked forward between my stirruped legs and the consultant looking back at me said “I’m really sorry about this” and seemed to push my legs apart just a bit wider. I don’t really remember much more after that apart from a strange memory of looking upwards and seeing myself sitting way up high in the room, hugging my knees in front of me and I was looking down smiling at myself. It is such a strange memory. Still years later I wonder if that may have been a sign that I was about to die.
My daughter eventually came into the world after many hours weighing 8lb 6. Not particularly small for my first. I guess it was just bad luck for me that she was quite big and me/my hips too rigid/small to accommodate her arriving smoothly into the world. Every time I look at her, even now so many years later, I feel so guilty for the awful birth she had with me. My daughter was born with Shoulder dystocia.
My partner said there was a lot of blood and I had to have a lot of stitches.
Later when I was on the ward, I remember a nurse trying to get me to breast feed, but my daughter screamed when she was handled and was not ‘latching on’. I remember the nurse saying she was being “a little madam” and grabbed her pretty roughly to try to put her on my breast and she really let out a scream. My mum said it didn’t sound like a normal hungry scream of a newborn, but the nurse still said she was “just being a little madam” before walking off. Later that day we were both sent to xray and the reason she was screaming when handled became clear. She had a fractured collarbone. So she was not being a little madam! She was in pain! I was so angry and it made me very protective from then on with everyone who interacted with my daughter, everyone except my mum.
The consultant who delivered my baby did visit me the following day when I was still in hospital to tell me that in shoulder dystocia births when the baby gets stuck they have 5 mins to get them out and they got my daughter out in 3. I am truly grateful to them for this as I do always remember being shown that Bereavement Room and thinking how different it could have been. She also said it was fortunate I had had the epidural when I did as it would have been too late to give it to me and I would have passed out with the pain. She said both mothers and babies in third world countries still died from shoulder dystocia which is so tragic.
Because ventouse/forceps had to be used it left my daughter with a very deep indent on the right of her skull. I asked midwives about this when I was home and they always told me not to worry about it that it would be fine and I really thought her head would go back to a normal shape, but it didn’t. 20 years later she still has this indent. When she was growing up she used to say “why have I got a hole in my head mummy?” Now, luckily it is covered by her beautiful curly hair but it is still there.
She also had problems with her shoulder and couldn’t move her right arm because of nerve damage and the fracture, so when she was still very young she had to see a physio to get her arm and hand working again. When she started primary school she always used to say “mummy if I put my schoolbag on this shoulder it stays on, but if I put it on the other one it just falls off!” I thought she was being silly and didn’t realise this was actually happening because of the fracture. She still has problems with her shoulder and right arm 20 years later. If you look at her straight on, her shoulders are not straight or level with each other. Her right one is lower. And you can see the outline of her collarbone under the skin on her left side, but on her right you can’t see any bone at all like there isn’t one there.
I have tried to look into this on and off myself over the years and have found information that Erbs Palsy is a condition related to shoulder injuries suffered at birth. No one has ever spoken to me about her shoulder or confirmed it could be that.
My daughter also suffers with back pain and as a result of this had to give up her first job as a massage therapist. Privately she saw osteopaths and physios for this. Eventually we managed to get a hospital appointment and were told she also has Scoliosis in the top part of her spine. Personally I think this is related to the birth as well although the consultant, not unsurprisingly, disagreed with me.
For me, I felt as though I had gone into hospital to have a baby and I had come out 2 lonely weeks later on crutches as though I had been in a car crash. It was pretty difficult caring for her on crutches and I was very lonely on the ward. Everyone else went home and we were the last ones there. I really thought they had forgotten about us.
They told me my pubic bone had separated too much which was pretty painful, so I had to use the crutches for 6-8 weeks when I got home, I couldn’t drive and needed help getting in and out of the bath. It really wasn’t easy especially at the same time having to care for a new baby.
The visiting midwives and the ones I saw in clinic only seemed interested in making sure I was breast feeding. I could be crying, my breasts hard and bleeding, my baby crying and getting more blood than milk from me, and they would still be insisting I try to carry on with the breast feeding! It drove me crazy! Breast is best! Well actually it really isn’t in some cases!
It was a very hard time for me then and I do think I was slightly depressed. Then I got mastitis. My breasts were so hard and hurt so much and my nipples were sore and bleeding. There was not even the tiniest bit of milk coming out. I was crying and my baby was crying. She was so hungry. My partner couldn’t cope with me, the situation, the crying and had disappeared out. I didn’t know what to do. Then my mum called. “I will be right over” she said. She arrived armed with formula milk, took my baby and fed her. My poor damaged little baby stopped crying and fell asleep then contented and full probably for the first time since she was born. Mum told me to go to bed and rest. I think that was the first time my baby and I slept well in over a month. I don’t know where I would have ended up without my mum. She was more help to me than anyone. It was a very bad time for me.
For the last 20 years since giving birth, I have constantly torn and bled down below. I think it is called a perineal tear. It never ever heals. I’ve given up on love making because of this problem which as you can imagine affected the relationship with my partner massively.
But in truth, we have all been affected by the shoulder dystocia in one way or another. I still carry a lot of guilt for it all especially for my daughter. She should have been perfect. She is perfect to me, but she still has these awful things she has to live with. Our family has all been damaged in a way mentally and physically.
Was I just unlucky? Did the hospital get the dates wrong? She was more than a month overdue. Is this normal? Should I have been brought in sooner? Should they have suggested a cesarean? Was I left too long and she got too big to come out? These questions have been going around in my head for years. I suppose it doesn’t really matter now it was all so long ago but I don’t know why it went so wrong.
The thing that makes me so angry is no one ever spoke to me about it afterwards. Actually on doctors notes I had to request recently, it says “normal birth”?! It was nothing like normal! No one has ever asked how I am or how my daughter is, about the dent in her skull, about her fractured collarbone leaving her with one shoulder lower than the other and pain in her arm and back and her scoliosis. No one ever spoke to me about any of that or how I was feeling. It still brings a lump to my throat and makes me want to cry and/or punch something!
My daughter is a beautiful, vibrant young lady with her whole life in front of her and makes me so proud to be her mum every single day, but I will always carry the guilt with me of that birth and as a young adult, she is still dealing with the injuries from the shoulder dystocia and will have to deal with them all her life. How difficult will that make life for her as she grows older?
I am past caring about my own self and my problem. Honestly now I would rather have a glass of wine and watch a good film than make love! Lol! But I would be lying if I didn’t say it had had a massive impact on my relationship with my partner.
All those years ago, it was a dreadful, awful, very dark time and I can’t forget it. I still hold a lot of anger inside me and feel sad and guilty for my daughter. I just want to know if it could have been different. People think having a baby is like riding a bike, but it is not always easy for everyone.
