"Pregnancy and labour trauma"

In December 2023, I gave birth to my beautiful little girl following a hard and stressful pregnancy where she was diagnosed with Intra Uterine Growth Restriction. Months of 3x weekly appointments for scans and holding our breath that she would be okay meant that I was already feeling fragile, and some past health trauma meant that my trust in the NHS was already almost non-existent.

I was scheduled for a c section the following Monday, but the Friday before this I was admitted to hospital with reduced movements and the following morning had an emergency c section with my little girl presenting as transverse. I went into the c-section feeling strangely calm as it's a common procedure. However, from the get go this calmness turned to panic as the doctor couldn't get the epidural in my back properly and it took 3 attempts.

During the c-section, my little girl got stuck, and what followed was a long wait of them telling us to try and remain calm while they pulled, pushed and prodded to try and pull her out from under my ribs. She was born not breathing, and required extensive CPR. We held our breaths as we waited what felt like forever to hear her cry. And when she did eventually cry, we were told she didn't breath for a while so there could be some damage caused.

She was then rushed off to the NICU and we were sent back to a shared ward with other new parents who were cuddling and experiencing their new babies, and we were without ours wondering if she was okay. Luckily, she is healthy and is now a happy and cheeky beautiful one year old. But the trauma from that has lasted for both me and my partner, and we ended up both suffering from PTSD, severe anxiety and depression. 

We were both referred to the MNPI services to get help in managing this. For us, this service was invaluable. My partner received EMDR treatment which he said was a game changer for him. It allowed him the opportunity to process his trauma and he is now in a much more calm state, and has coping strategies that his therapist gave him on days where he may feel that he is struggling.

My therapist was the reason I was able to recognise that I had post natal depression and anxiety, and helped me work through feeling like both my own body and the NHS failed me. She also helped me manage my OCD which was particularly bad last year due to feeling out of control following the birth. I also struggled a lot with intrusive thoughts, and being able to speak with the therapists regarding this helped me to understand that this is very common and is not a reflection  on me being a bad parent and in fact shows that I just want to keep my daughter safe. One example being that my partner and I took it in shifts to watch over our daughter at night to make sure that she was breathing. Before our therapy, one of us was always staying up through the night just to watch her. It was making us both ill. We are now sleeping well and peacefully (when she isn't teething that is!). 

Both me and my partner are very thankful to the team for all their help, and feel blessed that we were able to receive this support to help us process our trauma and get better mentally both for ourselves and for our little girl.