Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Thank you all!


Wow. I am a little bit stunned and shocked that my story of my homebirth has taken off like this.

Please remember that I am a mom to five children and do not have a lot of 'free time' to comment back. I have been reading and hope to catch up eventually. My inbox is being flooded with messages from other mothers who have had traumatic homebirths and hospital births. I have said this over and over: Traumatic births can happen in any setting. It is reality. We can not just ignore or delete the traumatic home birth stories.

I feel like I should clarify something. Yes, I regret my homebirth. Yes, I do not want anyone to make the same mistake I did. But I am not anti-home birth, I am for SAFER homebirth.

And due to the overwhelming amount of messages I am getting, I have set up a Facebook page for support and awareness.

https://www.facebook.com/homebirthlossandtraumasupport

This page is dedicated to supporting those who have experienced a loss or traumatic homebirth. I am a mom of five, and I recently experienced a horrible shoulder dystocia during my son's homebirth that nearly killed us both. After my story went viral, there was an outpouring of support and tragic stories from moms just like me who were too afraid to speak out. If you or someone you care about has had a similar experience, or if you are as concerned about the risks of homebirth as we are, please join this page and help us raise awareness of what can really happen at homebirth.

Please feel free to 'like' the page and pass it along.

3 comments:

  1. So true! We can have horrible births at both hospitals and in natural birth settings. They can also be wonderful as well!

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  2. Thanks for this incredible blog. As an OB nurse unfortunately all I have seen are the disasters from home births; including a baby whose body was delivered breech but whose head was caught in the pelvis, didn't make it, a meconium aspirated baby, didn't make it, and a woman who'd been in hard labor for so many days the uterus gave up and stopped contracting whereupon the lay midwife used veterinary oxytocin (illegal!) and still could not deliver her, the baby did not make it....thank you for educating women on the danger.

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  3. Thank you for your story. I live in a community of people extremely pro-homebirth and it is hard to express my true thoughts even with my closest friends. After the famous doc that inspires many to seek out homebirth option, I was also a strong advocate. It didn't even occur to me that I may end up in a hospital let alone have a c-section. I was built to birth, I had convinced myself. My first birth was planned at a birth center, and after an arduous labor, and asking three times over hours and hours, at 10 cms and pushing for six hours with no appreciable progress, my midwife finally agreed that I should transfer to hospital. Thankfully, my child was delivered via c-section and quite healthy. Second time around, I tried VBAC in hospital, similar long and not progressing labor at 10 cms for six hours, pushing for three. Against the advice of the nurse and my doctor, I had an epidural in hospital at 10 cms because I had convinced myself after my first birth that an epidural would help me relax enough to deliver this baby. After epidural, I slept, tried pushing again for three hours, tried vaccuum three times. No progress was made, even though baby's head was visible the whole time, while also feeling paralyzed from epidural. [Had no idea epidural would lay me up like that! No wonder they usually administer them 5-6cm, so by the time you're pushing it has worn off enough that you can feel SOMETHING--should have listened to doctor and nurse advice!] Doctor thought I needed c-section, I asked about waiting to see if time would help things, since bc of edidural I felt okay (even though exhausted, not in pain). So extremely glad my doctor expressed concern to let me lay there for more hours with my baby's head visible while my body contracted extremely strongly. Even though I felt nothing due to epidural, nurses explained their graph indicated some very, very strong contractions. And indeed before the epidural was administered, my contractions had been extremely painful/intense. With some regret at the time, I agreed to undergo c-section. How lucky I am to have had that choice. Yet the second section was different, my baby did not cry when delivered. I can't explain how very long the 10 minutes were that the medical team cared for him, counting rhythmically "one, two, three, four, five" over and over and over in the otherwise silent surgerical room as they tried to get him breathing. I lay there as the procedure finished listening to this counting, terrified. I regretted attempting labor more than I can express. But it was too late for regrets. With extreme fortune, because I KNOW that many stories and lives do not end up this way, my son began breathing. He was whisked away to the NICU; he had a bulging sac on the back of his head from three vacuuum attempts. They thought it was internal bleeding. He stopped breathing again the next morning while in the NICU, but they were monitoring him constantly and able to revive him. We are incredibly grateful, and lucky. I feel extremely foolish for being so adamant about this birthing experience. It is overrated. Birth and labor lasts many days AT MOST. Then you have to live with your decisions. We are losing sight of what really matters. It is not about a birth experience, it is about a life experiencce for mother and baby. Thank you for sharing your story, it is incredibly healing to know that there is a whole community out there that understands and supports women and thier actual experiences. Also want to mention the wonderful care I had in both hospitals. The nurses were extremely caring, and did their jobs with extreme diligence. The majority were also incredibly warm.

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