With my oldest son I went into labour on his due date. He was in a posterior position and he was sitting very high and had not engaged into my pelvis at all. The contractions were irregular but quite painful so I rung my midwife and she told me to meet her at the hospital. Five hours later I was in the hospital and I was 5cm dilated then everything stopped. My midwife then broke my waters which was very painful. She also managed to get my son in the head with the instrument that they use for this that looks like a big crochet hook. I knew she got him in the head because I felt him kick around furiously and I felt my midwife actually pushed him up with the instrument on one of her attempts. He also had cuts and some bruising to the top of his head after he was born. Time passed and still nothing so I then had a bath and more time passed but still nothing. I then was hooked up to a Syntocin drip. I was also jabbed in my arm with Pethidine at this time without my permission and as a resul of having had Pethidine I began to vomit. The pain from the contractions was intense. Labour still wasn't progressing quickly although I had reached 7cm dilated after about 18 hours from the start until this point. I then had the epidural which didn't work. They then tried it again and it still didn't work properly. It made one of my legs numb and heavy like a rock but that was about all. I could still feel everything. I finally got to 10 cm dilated after 24 hours. My midwife then made me push for two hours even though it was obvious that I was exhausted and that this baby was not going to come out the natural way as nothing had really changed about his position etc and I just had a feeling that things were not going well.. As a result he got stuck 2/5 down in my pelvis. The specialist was called in finally and I was whisked off for a caesarean section although my son had been showing signs of tiring hours earlier as per the monitoring equipment.. My Mum had even been screaming at my midwife to hurry things up. I had to be put to sleep for the procedure due to the epidural having not been effective so I was the last person to hold my son. My parents had invited the whole circle of extended family and friends to the hospital and were passing my son around when I came out of recovery. I was so high when I held him I couldn't even focus on him and the nurses had to to everything for me as I was bed ridden for 24 hours. My son wouldn't latch on, not that the nursing staff cared. They didn't help very much with that. They just chucked me a breast pump and said you will have to express. He was so sleepy, almost comatose and just would not feed despite many attempts so I had to express and attempt to feed him expressed milk out of a bottle. The next night he vomited up a coffee ground looking substace and blood and was then whisked away to be checked over by the paediatrician where they stuck a tube into his stomach and more blood came up. He seemed to be ok according to the paediatrician although he would still not latch on so I expressed for a week and even after that week had trouble. My son had not been putting on weight also so he ended up being completely bottle fed at six weeks. My son has always been slow to reach his milestones, in particular the physical ones and I have now found out that my son may have Cerebral Palsy. I ams till waiting to hear back from the paediatrician so that is why it is a maybe but my son is recieving physiotherapy treatment for his delays in reaching his physical milestones. My way of feeling about how the cerebral palsy was caused, if that is what my son has, was from the traumatic birth experience described above. I feel that he probably suffered from a lack of oxygen due to being left in my belly for too long perhaps, although the hospital staff would never admit that and my medical notes from the labour and birth do not correspond to actually what went on so I discovered when I went over them with the new midwife I had with my second son. It was such a traumatic experience as I felt like mine and my son's rights as per the rights pamphlet they give you at hospitals were completely overlooked. I feel that because of the incompetencies of certain medical professionals and the fact that they did not to admit to making any mistakes that were made during the labour and birth of my first son has made me feel unsafe when recieving any sort of medical care, treatment etc now. At times I now have panic attacks or feel very uneasy just thinking about the experience and I was very uneasy second time round which took away the enjoyment of the momentous occasion. I feel like I was robbed of the whole experience first time round. I feel like I have no closure as I have nothing to go by apart from my own memories to know what actually happened during that experience. Plus I now have to deal with a child that has special needs.

Second time round I saw the specialist as 28 weeks and the descision was made to plan for a VBAC but I was to see him closer to the EDD to be sure. At around 34 weeks my son's fetal movements had slowed right down so I was booked in for another scan. The baby seemed fine according to the scan. The second appointment with the specialist never happened. The hospital would not return my calls or those of my midwife. My midwife stormed in and had to yell at the hospital staff to get me and my son seen by a specialist and at this stage I was a couple of days overdue and my son was in a posterior position with the largest part of his head presenting. As a result he did not engage into my pelvis at all. The advice from the specialist was to have a caesarian section booked in for the end of the second week of going overdue if I still had not gone into labour by that stage (well actually the hospital was full up with bookings so if this was the track I was going to end up going down I was going to have to wait at the hospital from 0800 in the moring until whenever they could fit me in on the last day of that second week). I had another scan at 41 weeks, the earliest they could get me in from when my son became overdue. The scan apparently showed that the placenta was falling apart, I still had fluid around my son, that I still had three weeks to go until my son's due date and that my son was going to be eight and a half pounds. I went into labout at 41 and a half weeks. When I went into labour there were no beds available but after my midwife spoke to some hospital staff over the phone they found me a bed. From the moment I arrived at the hospital I was very uneasy about what might happen during this labour and birth due to the previous experience I had when I had my first son. My midwife had to work at keeping me calm. I had to have another emergency caesarean section but I was awake this time and my midwife kept pushing to get things done quickly so although I did not have a VBAC the experience was much better compared to that of the first time round. I was there for my son when he has born, although being on edge the whole time I was in the hospital took some of the enjoyment out of the birth of my second son.The second scan I had was so wrong. My son had stopped growing at 34 weeks, there was no fluid around him, it had dried up and he weighed six pounds five ounces! If it wasn't for my midwives vigilance in fetal monitoring, I might not have my youngest son today. I breast fed my second son for four and a half months. He latched on well but I never had enough milk for him so keeping up with his demands was impossible. He began to lose weight and had never been putting on much weight from the beginning anyway so I made the desicion to give him formula instead. I feel that because of the unecessary stress I went through second time round due to my first experience in labour and birth affected my milk supply.

I have totally lost my confidence in most medical professionals and I still carry around a lot of mixed emotions about why things happened the way that they did in both experiences. I feel that I still do not know the underlying reasoning as to why I needed to have two caesareans.This makes it hard for me to just get beyond these two labour and birth experiences. Sorry I know that this is a novel. Has anyone else had a traumatic birth experience? Please write it down in here if you have.

Hi all. Thanks once again for your replies.