About 12 yrs ago, I had a couple come to me, just to talk. They had 1 previous child that had been born vaginally but it was a "horrible experience and everything that could go wrong with mom and baby did. Baby stayed in the NICU for awhile.
I assured them that it most likely would not re-occur, and how things were dealt with were definitely not going to be happening at a home birth.
They said to give them time, but possibly they would hire me.
A month or so later they did hire me. But there was alot to do in a short amount of time -mainly dealing with her post trauma, because it was affecting her daily. In fact when she would look at her child who was now quite healthy, she would often start crying or get very sad.
She went on the Uterine Toner and was getting a bit excited at being a part of this new upcoming birth.
She called to say she was in labor, and she was coming over to my house so I could check her. She and her husband came in and I did check her. She was 8cm and paper thin already after just starting labor. I should have never told her what her dilation was because now she was getting scared.
She was suppose to go the the birth center, but being that her labor had basically just started, they and I thought it was best to stay at my home for her birth. She was getting almost out of hand with her fear, so we got her in the bath tub. There she started to relax, and now she felt pushy. You could hear it in her voice, but she denied feeling anything. Because of the tub, I felt like we needed to get her out and in a position that she felt good in.
She had already told me that she didn't want to see anything, so we placed her on the floor on her hands and knees. She was pushing although she denied it.
Quickly baby was coming down and when I said to dad, we're going to see the head soon, mom screamed
"I'm not giving birth your lying to me"
OK,
She continues with this saying, however it is giving her more strength to push. Baby's head is crowning and I tell her I want her to slow down, and just give me little pushes- she screams out that again I'm lying to her and that this baby wasn't coming out. The head is now out and dad is pleased and told mom what was going on.
She continues to scream at me- "how could you be so mean to me Sherri- I know your just lying to me"
I ask her to part her legs now so I can pass the baby to her. She refuses to so dad came around and caught baby as I pass it to him. She's stunned and we gently got her to it hold her baby.
She kept saying "that's not my baby, and I don't like you".
Finally after gently talking to her, the lights are low, and she finally looks at baby in dad's arms. Then she decides to hold baby again. The whole time she kept saying "I couldn't have given birth".
Even with all the fighting me and tensing up she didn't tear.
She was shocked for several days, and it was finally on her 2 wk postpartum home visit that she looked at me and said
"I really did give birth to my baby didn't I" ?
She was so sure that I was lying to her to make her feel better, she was sure that the baby had died or something else happened and I just couldn't tell her the truth. It took her several months just to smile at the thought of giving birth on her own. She finally realized her gift was starting to heal her inside her body,brain and heart.
This my friends is what can happen to a woman when she is so traumatised during her birth, with instruments, with her vagina riped open to her rectum with nameless hands and masked faces, then someone took her baby and she or dad couldn't hold their baby for wks. They were threatened if they didn't do what the docs said to do, that they would be in trouble when they to try to have a voice. She and he felt so raped in every sense of the word.
I'm glad I was there for this heart tugging birth
Sherri
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