Terrified to have a 2nd child

Hi
I'm beyond terrified to have a 2nd child after the birth of my 1st son. He was 5 weeks early and born breech, naturally without drugs. He was supposed to be a c-section baby but they didn't believe i was in labour and sent my partner home. My partner arrived back just in time for our son to arrive, not breathing and blue. It took 10 minutes to get him breathing and then even more unthinkable's ( I can not go into detail) but our son ended up from a country hospital to the city to have a full thickness skin graft at 3 weeks of age due to 3 paediatricians neglect and non willingness to accept responsibility for their actions. My son now has a long road of surgeries till he stops growing at age 25! AS MUCH as i would like to give him a brother or sister the thought terrifies me. Nearly 3 year on i'm still so upset and angry about what these still practising doctors did to my son that having another child makes me think the same would happen. Has anyone overcome their fears?

I'm afraid I don't really have any advice, but my friend still feels traumatised by her first birth, which ended in c section. She did go on to have another, again by c-section.
But, yep, as I said she is still traumatised and although he is 5 now she is thinking of making a complaint about the obstetrician that dealt with her.
I am backing her in doing this, as I hope that it may help her come to terms with what happened.
I'm really sorry this happened to you, and hope you can find a way to get through it.

Hi. (Sorry might be TMI!) I too had a terrible experience with the birth of my first child however all our problems were with me and thankfully my son was fully healthy. I was left with PTSD based on my experiences and it also left me terrified of having another baby. I always wanted a big family so this was a massive blow to us.

My son went into distress in labour and his heart rate plummeted so they tried a vacuum extraction 3 times which all failed before using forceps which took 2 attempts to get him out. He was thankfully fine (although covered in bruises) but that's about all I remember as I went to sit up to take him and I just remember thinking that it looked like there was an awful lot of blood and then everything gets really hazy. I ended up in an emergency operating theatre to stop the bleeding. I tore all the way from my vagina through to my anus and lost about half my blood volume. Several blood transfusions later and 8 days in hospital (in a hospital that aims to discharge most people within 24hrs of birth for home care) I was left with weeks of incontinence (thankfully mostly resolved), and months of pain as my pelvic floor wasn't strong enough to hold up everything when I stood up. I didn't have sex for over a year due to the fear of pain and getting pregnant. My poor husband also found the whole thing pretty traumatic as straight after the birth the midwife called an emergency alarm which had a bunch of people run in and my son was thrust into his alarms and I was wheeled out straight away and he was left alone with my son for 3 hours not knowing what was happening (and as a first time dad had no idea what to do with this screaming naked bloody baby they handed him!).

What I've done which has got us to the stage where we're TTC is that I've spoken with my GP about my previous birth experience and she arranged for me to see an obstetrician to go through what happened last time and how/why it happened. They've already helped come up with a birth plan to make sure I don't end up in the same situation again. My main fear is about having another tear which would almost certainly leave me permanently incontinent as they weren't able to fully repair the muscle around my anus and if it was damaged again its be left weaker than it is. Everything else I think I could have dealt with but the incontinence (poos not pee) was awful. I couldn't tell if I needed to go until it happened initially so would be feeding my son and find I'd poo'd and have to put bub down and go clean up. To make it worse i was on laxatives to prevent pressure on the tear so i was going multiple times a day. Thankfully after months of physio (who knew there were butt physios? I didn't) I mostly regained control and now only have trouble with controlling when I pass wind (which is embarrassing but I'm used to it) or if I have gastro (in which case I might as well just sit on the toilet all day as I have no hope of holding it for more than a second).

So next time I'm going to have an early Caesar and if there's any sign bubs on its way they'll do one straight away and not let me go into labour. I'm still terrified I'll go into labour and the baby will be born before they can do a caesarean though.

Anyway I'd strongly recommend talking to someone about what happened. I spoke to my GP as I have a good relationship with them but it could be a GP or a midwife or psychologist. It was worth it for me as it helped me realise how much I did want another baby and gave me ways to go about controlling the situation in the future (eg could you have your bub in a city hospital next time where there's lots of specialists who would be able to care for bub if needed?)

I hope that helps. Sorry to hear about your experiences

Have you thought about when closer to fue date staying in the city? This would help ease your mind that any complications will be dealt with by hospitals better equipped to handle difficult situations. You should never have to feel afraid to have another child due to the lack of poor medical service that was beyond your control.

Sorry this is quite long!
I'm so sorry you had this experience, I had a difficult first time ending in emergency cesarean following failure of midwife to attend when I said I needed to push, she said it was too soon, and didn't examine me despite family history of quick labours. Anyway 3 hours later baby in distress and 3 X failed ventouse (eyebrow presentation). Had to have general anaesthetic and they wouldn't let me see bub or do skin to skin in recovery even though I asked in my drugged out state, they said that had to get my pain relief sorted first. My poor hubby had baby given to him and was left in a room with a stool to sit on for 3 hours before we were reunited on ward. Thankfully baby was great though, I suspected I had uti but nurse just gave me Panadol and didn't test. Turns out it really was a uti and had left me feeling awful a few days later when it was picked up.
Anyway I was pretty upset with how my labour was handled and I was left on my own for most of the 6hours I was in labour room. I also felt that all that additional stress and feeling so scared and alone, failure of skin to skin immediately after birth contributed to breastfeeding issues.
I went to my gp at 6 wk check up and my mum had written a letter outlining her concerns at lack of care too. Gp was great and put us in touch with complaints person from the hosp. We did have some further issues with alleged missing key maternity care records with stated family history of quick labours!! We had to leave that unresolved but we at least let them know I'm no uncertain terms how we felt which helped a little.
Our second child was born in a different hosp and went so well that it was actually a very healing experience for me, learning that my body could in fact do this. During 2nd preg I read everything I could get my hands on and consequently felt very in control and informed by understanding every signal my body gave me at each stage which was incredibly valuable as I had no time for drugs. My midwife also stayed with me the whole time!!
From my experience I found talking it through with professionals helped, also changing caregivers. Could you transfer care to nearest city hosp. for next bub?
Put complaint in writing so other women after you shouldn't have repeat of your experience.
You could hire a doula who can talk you through your concerns so you don't feel out of control again and be with you through next labour.
At the end of the day though it's a decision for you and hubby.
All the best; I hope you get some healing!!

I was very relaxed throughout my first pregnancy. Just waiting for it to end. All my scans said he would be a big baby and he sure is, especially being '1 week' late. My original dating scan said he would be due 6th December but all my other scans sat steady at around 29th November. I went through the public system and all the obs/midwives seemed to ignore the new dates on the scans. Around 30th November-3rd December I was having stomach pains which I was told sounded like labor pains but the midwives told me i was fine and sent me home 3 times. I tried talking to my GP about it but because he wasn't in charge of my pregnancy he said there wasn't much he could do. My son ended up having to be removed by emergency cesarean '1 week' late (Though according to all my scans he would have been 2 weeks late) I had to be induced and to make things worse, he was breach, his head was stuck in my pelvis and had been floating in his own poo for almost a week. He was born on a Friday at around 6:30pm, went to NICU before I got a chance to even look at him, I passed out from massive blood loss needing 3 transfusions and I didn't get to see my son until 11:30am the next day and he didn't spend any time in the room with me till 3 days later from being on antibiotics. All the nurses and midwives neglected my needs despite the fact I couldn't get out of bed to make my son a bottle as I was unable to breastfeed due to medical problems. I was diagnosed with PTSD and felt I couldn't even look after my son. I fell pregnant again unexpectedly when my son was 10 months old but we decided on an abortion (bring on the hate) as I felt i wasn't ready to do it all over again. I am now 6 months pregnant with a bunch of specialists. We decided to go private this time to try and avoid all the fuss from last time and it all seems to be going well. Happy to be having a second child. It helps to be in the right mindset before you try again. Good luck