I suffered such horrific injuries and trauma from my daughter's birth that it ruined my life
By Heidi Krause|
Trigger Warning: This birth story contains details of trauma, postpartum haemorrhage and prolapse
Alice* is still overcome with feelings of terror and shame as she recalls the traumatic birth of her daughter two years ago.
The mum-of-one from Victoria felt like she was dying as a result of a massive postpartum haemorrage and a forceps delivery that left her with such severe injuries she became suicidal.
"?Every time I went back to the hospital for an appointment it was torture," she reveals to 9Honey. "I would start physically shaking and sweating, my heart would start racing and tears would start flowing. I kept reliving the event. I was terrified."
Alice was eventually diagnosed with prolapse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and her mental and physical health was left in ruins. A journey and outcome she never thought possible.
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When 31-year-old Alice discovered she was pregnant in February 2020, the day after her partner Will* proposed, she was thrilled.
"I was a first-time mum with a lo?w-risk pregnancy," she explains. "And while COVID-19 was an isolating time, I looked after myself and ensured I was fully-educated about the birth process and postpartum period. My hope was just to have a safe, straightforward birth."
Alice was at home when she started feeling contractions on the afternoon of her due date, at exactly 40-weeks gestation.
"After two sleepless nights and nearly 12 hours of howling through contractions in the shower of my tiny apartment with no progress, we drove into hospital," she shares. "I was given an epidural to help relieve the pain and some syntocin to get things moving. After a nap and hours of waiting, eventually I was told I was 10cm dilated and it was time to push." ?
She placed the forceps between my legs and then gave me an episiotimy. After three very hard pulls, I could feel everything. I was just screaming and screaming, 'get her out of me, get her out'.
Alice tried pushing for hours and in many different positions.
"At some point, I remember the obstetrician came in and pulled up a chair and says,?'Alice, I need to try and turn your baby."
"The next thing I knew she grabbed my baby's head and turned her. It was the most excruciating pain, and I remember thinking surely, it's not supposed to be like this?"
"And I kept pushing and she came back in and said, 'Alice, we have to use forceps?'."
Alice had no idea that forceps were still used quite routinely within hospitals.
"I thought forceps were only used in the dark ages, or only in a true life or death emergency when the baby had to come out immediately. I was completely blindsided."
While Alice said she begged for a vacuum or 'something else", she was told there was no other option. ?
'I was in an absolute state of shock. What just happened to me?'?
"At that point, I was so exhausted and was told there was no alternative. If I had any idea of the significant damage forceps can do to woman's body, there is no way I would have consented."
"But at that moment, I felt so defeated. I couldn't say no... I had no choice."
"The doctor placed the forceps between my legs and then gave me an episiotomy. After three very hard pulls, I could feel everything," Alice recalls through tears.
"And I was just screaming and screaming, 'Get her out of me, get her out'."
"They put her on my chest and I just remember looking at her. It was surreal, I was in an absolute state of shock. What the f--- just happened to me? ?
"?Her face was purple, with deep and dense bruises from the forceps. I wasn't even able to have that moment of love and bliss จC in awe and appreciation of my daughter. Even that moment was taken from me."
"I felt like I had been hit by a car."
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?Unfortunately, Alice's placenta would not detach and she started haemorraging and losing consciousness.
"I just remember they grabbed the baby off me and hearing them say, 'OK we have to go to theatre right now and may have to take your uterus'. I remember them calling out numbers, it was the millilitres of blood I was rapidly losing."
'I woke up in intensive care shaking violently'?
"I felt like I was falling, and as I was wheeled down the hall I just remember thinking, where is my baby? Is she okay? And how the f--- is my partner going to raise our baby alone? And that's the last thing I remember."
Alice suffered a massive postpartum haemorrage, and doctors inserted a balloon into her uterus and packing around her vagina.
When Alice woke ?up in intensive care, she was shaking violently, while her baby was on another level of the hospital.
"I remember my teeth were chattering so hard, I was so exhausted. I couldn't even talk I was shaking so hard. I was trying to tell the nurse to bring me my baby... but it must have been gibberish."
"I ?must have been on a lot of painkillers จC and hadn't slept in a few days. I was so traumatised and just remember being in utter shock. How did this happen?"
Alice was sharing a room with another new mum, and could hear ?another baby crying, while her own baby was on a different level in the hospital.
"It just felt ?like salt in the wound. I felt like such a failure, what if she's not okay? Are they watching her are they holding her? Is she hungry?
"I felt guilt and like a horrible mum, even though rationally, none of this was my fault."
As Alice desperately tried to recover and come to terms with her traumatic birth, she remembers feeling intense pain from the stomach down.
'I couldn't control my bladder. I felt broken'?
"I couldn't even sit down to go to the toilet, I was incontinent. I couldn't walk. ?I felt a deep sense of shame and humiliation. I felt broken. I was just in survival mode."
Later, she discovered her pelvic muscles had been ripped off the bone. ?And for those five days in hospital her baby remained in special care.
"There she was in her humidicrib and CPAP mask, and I remember begging the nurses to let her be with me.
"The straw that broke me, ?here I was broken and in a state of shock, I almost lost my life, and yet the thing I had worked so hard for, my prize at the end, I couldn't even hold her, have her, appreciate her."
"And that was the worst thing..." she recalls, sobbing. ?
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Unfortunately, things did not improve for Alice when she was eventually allowed home.
Alongside the sleep deprivation and usual newborn struggles, Alice knew something was very wrong ?with her body, and she was deep in trauma.
"I cried all day long จC and I couldn't stop replaying the birth?. My thoughts spiralled out of control as I started questioning whether it was somehow my fault."
?It felt like my organs were falling out of my body every day, it was so distressing.
"I was having flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and vivid dreams. I would dream my baby had stopped breathing and was blue... I was convinced something terrible was going to happen to me or my baby."
While Alice eventually got referred to a psychologist, she was also struggling with her "broken" body.
"?It felt like my organs were falling out of my body every day, it was so distressing. I was afraid to walk downstairs and had this spiraling sense of doom."
'I felt like my life was over'
"?When I was 14 weeks postpartum, I had the courage to feel what was happening down there. I felt a massive bulge at the entrance of my vagina and my stomach dropped, my heart sank. I had that feeling of shock and disbelief again. I knew I had prolaspe. I was gutted, devastated."
'I wrapped myself in a towel and ran to my partner, screaming. I had googled ?it.. I knew what it meant... I envisaged myself as becoming a miserable old woman who couldn't exercise and was a terrible mother, or worse, resented their child. It was someone I didn't want to become."
"I felt like my life was over."
Alice was confirmed to have pelvic organ prolapse along with an injured anal sphincter and other unique birthing injuries - and the news shattered the young mum.
"It consumed me, I would sit there watching other new mums walk past with their strollers on a beautiful sunny day, wondering if their vaginas were falling out of their body too. What was their ?secret? Why did they get to have a normal birth? It overtook my whole life. And I would search obsessively online for something, anything, that would help...."
"I felt like I had died. Like I was a ghost walking around."
The trauma and obsessive thoughts went on for over a year. Alice was too scared to talk about her trauma and injuries openly, as people found it too confronting and uncomfortable.
Things got so bad, Alice even started having suicidal thoughts.
"The intrusive thoughts crept up on me and I felt like there was no hope," she reveals. "I remember thinking my daughter deserved someone who can run with her and jump on the trampoline with her. I pictured my partner with someone else, I thought he would be better off without me.
"I remember collapsing onto my bed, sobbing uncontrollably one day... and I told Will I didn't want to live anymore."
Thank goodness, Alice then went back to a GP and she was referred on to perinatal mental health specialists, the Birth Trauma Association (ABTA) and started anti-depressants.
And while the medication wasn't an immediate fix, it did help Alice 'numb' some of the trauma and bought her more time to just focus on getting through each day.
"I want to be there for my daughter.. and little by little, I started feeling better. I ?see a psychologist for my PTSD and depression. And I try to be positive, and to put myself in the shoes of others, someone who may even have it tougher than I do."
"However, I do feel incredibly broken down there. Intimacy isn't what I remember it to be. My partner is deeply traumatised as wellกญ And I crumble easily, it's impossible to be fully present some days."
"But I am here and my daughter is just incredible."
Up to one in three Australian women have experienced birth trauma and one in 10 women emerge from childbirth with PTSD.
You are not alone. To find the right support for you, or a loved one visit www.pmhweek.org.au. For birth trauma support, please contact the Australasian Birth Trauma Association at birthtrauma.org.au
If you need immediate help please call Lifeline on 131114 or call PANDA on 1300 726 306.
