Still feeling bad.

week 4, day 1

I still feel bad about how the birth turned out, I know I shouldn't...I really do know, and no-one quite seems to understand that it is still bugging me. I should just focus on the fact that I have Tabitha safe and happy with me, and that I am well...

but...

I wanted to badly to have a natural birth, a part of me feels like a failure because my body just didn't seem to want to make it happen. It makes me feel like less of a mother in some ways. I had such high hopes and had planned so much, for things to just not work out right...and I also feel bad because I think I wasn't treated quite right at the birthing center...

I feel very much that they didn't give me the support I really needed for the birth. A bunch of times the midwives who were meant to be helping me just disappeared and Coyote really couldn't find them, which meant I couldn't use the birthing pool as much as I wanted (because the temperature kept on not being right, and we needed them to check on it), and also they just weren't there to support me, they bobbed into and out of the room without really helping me much. I really wasn't coping very well with the contractions which were lasting nearly 10 minutes at one point, and I felt I was treated as a nuisance rather than someone who could use more help. They didn't offer me other pain relieving techniques, like a tens machine, or helping me into a better position...and they let it get to the point where the only option I had was an emergency c-section , when if they'd listened to me and realized how badly I was coping and how tired I was, and how badly my body was coping, I could have been taken to the other hospital and given an epidural and a hormone drip and could have maybe given birth naturally. But I never got that option. In general, I really do feel like they just didn't listen to me and didn't help me enough. I know the birthing center was very busy that day...but that's not really an excuse...

And I know I could be wrong and that I could just have a really bad perception on everything because of the pain I was in and how tired I was...but just looking back at that day really makes me tearful and upset because it was such a disappointment...and also quite frankly traumatic. By the end of the day I was so tired and so hurting...I was despairing and upset and panicked. I wanted to give birth naturally...and I feel (again, possibly wrongly) that I wasn't given that opportunity because they weren't listening to me, or believing what I said when they did listen to me. I feel like they ignored and dismissed me.

and that still really upsets me.

and I'm still getting really tearful thinking about it.

and in some ways its hard because whenever I try to talk about it everyone just reminds me that it all turned out fine in the end because Tabitha is healthy and well and so am I. And I know that's true...but doesn't stop the entire thing from still really bothering me.