Testimonials: “I did not see my baby born”

Estelle, 35, mother of Victoria (9), Marceau (6) and Côme (2): “I feel guilty for not having given birth naturally.”

“For my third child, I dreamed of being able to grab our baby under the arms during delivery to finish taking him out. It was part of my birth plan. Except that on D-Day, nothing went as planned! When I was pierced in the water bag in the maternity hospital, the umbilical cord passed in front of the fetal head and was compressed. What is called in medical jargon a cord prolapse. As a result, the baby was no longer properly oxygenated and was in danger of strangling. It had to be extracted urgently. In less than 5 minutes, I left the work room to go down to the OR. My partner was taken to the waiting room without telling him anything, except that our child’s vital prognosis was engaged. I don’t think he has prayed so much in his life. In the end, Como was quickly taken out. To my relief, he did not need resuscitation.

My husband has been a lot more actor than me

As I had to have a uterine revision, I did not see him right away. I just heard him cry. It reassured me. But as we had kept the surprise until the end, I did not know his gender. As amazing as it may sound, my husband was much more of an actor than I was. He was called as soon as Como arrived in the treatment room. He was thus able to attend the taking of the measurements. From what he told me later, a childcare assistant then wanted to give our son a bottle, but he explained to him that I had always breastfed and that if, in addition to the shock of the cesarean section , I couldn’t do it this time around, I wouldn’t get over it. So she brought Como to the recovery room so that I could give him the first feed. Unfortunately, I have very few memories of this moment as I was still under the influence of anesthesia. The following days, in the maternity ward, I also had to “hand over” for first aid, in particular the bath, because I could not get up on my own.

Luckily, that did not weigh at all on the bond I have with Como, on the contrary. I was so afraid of losing him that I immediately became very close to him. Even if, twenty months later, I still have difficulty recovering from this childbirth that was “stolen” from me. So much so that I had to start psychotherapy. I indeed feel terribly guilty of not having succeeded in giving birth naturally to Como, as was the case with my first children. I feel like my body has betrayed me. Many of my relatives find it hard to understand this and keep telling me: “The main thing is that the baby is well. ”As if, deep down, my suffering was not legitimate. ” 

Elsa, 31, mother of Raphaël (1 year): “Thanks to haptonomy, I imagined that I was accompanying my child to the exit.”

“As my first months of pregnancy went smoothly, I initially felt very peaceful about the birth. But at 8e months, things have turned sour. Analyzes have indeed revealed that I was a carrier of streptococcus B. Naturally present in our body, this bacterium is generally harmless, but in a pregnant woman, it can cause serious complications during childbirth. To reduce the risk of transmission to the baby, it was therefore planned that I would be given an intravenous antibiotic at the start of labor and so everything had to be back to normal. Also, when I found out that the pocket of water was cracked on the morning of October 4, I didn’t worry. As a precaution, we still preferred, at the maternity ward, to trigger me with a Propess tampon in order to speed up labor. But my uterus reacted so well that it went into hypertonicity, meaning that I was having contractions without a break. To calm the pain, I asked for an epidural.

The baby’s heart rate then began to slow. What anguish! The tension escalated further when my water bag was pierced and the amniotic fluid was found to be greenish. This in effect meant that meconium – the baby’s first stools – had mixed with the liquid. If my son inhaled these materials at the time of birth, he was at risk of respiratory distress. In a few seconds, all the nursing staff were set in motion around me. The midwife explained to me that they were going to have to perform a Caesarean section. I didn’t really realize what was going on. I only thought of my child’s life. As I had had an epidural, the anesthesia fortunately took effect quickly.

I felt they were going deep inside me looking for my baby

I was opened at 15:09 pm. At 15:11 pm, it was over. With the surgical field, I saw nothing. I just felt that they were going deep in my bowels to look for the baby, to the point of taking my breath away. To avoid feeling completely passive in this rapid and violent birth, I tried to practice the haptonomy classes I had taken during my pregnancy. Without having to push, I imagined that I was guiding my child in my womb and accompanying him to the exit. Focusing on this image has helped me a lot psychologically. I had less of the feeling of having my childbirth. Certainly I had to wait a good hour to take my child in my arms and give him the welcome breastfeed, but I felt calm and serene. Despite the caesarean section, I had managed to stay in close proximity with my son to the end. “

Emilie, 30, mother of Liam (2): “For me, this baby was a stranger out of nowhere.”

“It was May 15, 2015. The fastest night of my life! As I was having dinner with my family 60 km from the house, I felt like a jerk in my stomach. Since I was coming to the end of my 7e months, I did not worry, thinking that my baby had turned over… Until the moment when I saw blood flow in jets between my legs. My partner immediately took me to the nearest emergency room. The doctors discovered that I had a praevia tab, which is a piece of placenta that had come off and was obstructing my cervix. As a precaution, they decided to keep me on weekends, and give me an injection of corticosteroids to speed up the maturation of the baby’s lungs, in case I have to give birth within 48 hours. I also received an infusion that was supposed to stop the contractions and bleeding. But after more than an hour of examination, the product still had no effect and I was literally bleeding out. I was then transferred to the delivery room. After three hours of waiting, I began to experience contractions and a strong urge to vomit. At the same time, I could hear my baby’s heart slowing down on monitoring. The midwives explained to me that my baby and I were in danger and that they would therefore have to give birth as soon as possible. I burst into tears.

I dared not touch him

In principle, a pregnancy should last nine months. So it was not possible for my son to arrive now. It was too early. I didn’t feel ready to be a mom. When I was taken to the OR, I was in the middle of a panic attack. Feeling the anesthetic rise through my veins was almost a relief. But when I woke up two hours later, I was lost. My partner may have explained to me that Liam was born, I was convinced that he was still in my womb. To help me realize, he showed me a photo he had taken on his cell phone seconds before Liam’s transfer to intensive care.

It took me over eight hours to meet my son “in real life”. With his 1,770 kg and 41 cm, he seemed so small in his incubator that I refused to admit that he was my child. Especially since with the pile of wires and the probe which hid his face, it was impossible for me to detect the slightest resemblance. When it was put on me skin to skin, so I felt very uncomfortable. To me, this baby was a stranger out of nowhere. I didn’t dare touch him. Throughout his hospitalization, which lasted a month and a half, I forced myself to take care of him, but I felt like I was playing a role. This is probably why I never had a rush of milk … I only really felt like a mother. his discharge from the hospital. There, it was really obvious. ”