Overwhelmed

One of the things I still struggle with is having a heightened anxiety level. It doesn't take much to get me worked up. Anyhow, I'm really struggling right now. It's really nothing PTSD related - it is work related. My company is undergoing a merger / buy out. Since I am a shareholder, that means a lot of financial decisions to make in a very short period of time without enough information to make good decisions.

To top it off, no one really knows anything about the company that's buying us out. They're very large, almost 9000 employees. It's going to be weird to be just a number instead of the CEO knowing my name. In my current position, I'm 3 steps away from the CEO. Now, I'm probably 10 steps away from the CEO. I don't know if I'll be asked to move or to travel. I don't know if my duties will remain the same or change.

I also just found out that I may be invited to participate in new company's employee stock plan. They're inviting 40 employees to join, and I was invited to the preliminary meeting. I thought initial stock offerings would be in the $25,000 - $50,000 range, but they're looking at $120,000 to $250,000 range. I don't have THAT kind of cash sitting around. They're supposed to make offers by the end of the month, and I only have until June 30th to decide. At that time, I will have worked for this company for only 45 days. Do I really want to jump into bed with them?

Anyhow, all of this uncertainty has me on edge. I just want to crawl into bed, and hide under the covers. That won't be happening anytime soon, but it sure sounds appealing.

Struggling

I'm really struggling right now. I'm finding it difficult to control my edginess and irritability. It's creeping into my interactions with my daughter and with the dogs. Usually, I can find my zen when I get home, but the last couple of nights the dogs have ended up in timeout, and the peanut has been kicked off of my lap for squirming.

I'm not sure how to deal with all of my feelings right now. I don't know how to stop the edginess from manifesting itself in my life. My husband knows something is wrong. I disappeared to the computer last night after the peanut went to bed. He knows I'm disconnecting, and so do I. I probably need to think about counseling again, but I kind of want to wait until I receive the records.

Just when I think I have this thing under control, something makes me feel like the PTSD has smacked me in the face with a baseball bat.

What do I do now?

I orginally got a copy of my medical records from my daughter's birth just a few months after she was born. At that time, I read them, discussed them with my family practice doctor, and decided to enter counseling to learn to cope with my experience. I put the records away, and completely forgot about where they were.

Last summer, things were really getting to me again, and since I couldn't remember where my records were in addition to them being somewhat incomplete, I requested a new more complete copy of them. By the time I received them, I was back in counseling, and I'd relaxed enough that I didn't really feel the need to read them.

When I was sick over Thanksgiving, I found the new set of records. I paged through them, re-read the narratives, and threw them out. I noticed that they specifically mentioned me "consenting" to procedures. However, I didn't remember that being in the original set of documents. However, the other day, I noticed the original set of the records was buried at the bottom of a drawer in my daughter's changing table. I made a note of their location in the back of my mind, and went about my business.

Yesterday morning, I woke up a little bit before the alarm went off. As I was laying in bed, it suddenly hit me. They'd changed the original records. It bothered me a bit, but I had work to do, so I put the thought aside.

This morning, I grabbed my original copy of the records, and re-read the notes on my daughter's delivery. In the original narrative, there's no mention of the doctor obtaining consent for the D & C, manual removal of the placenta, or fixing the uterine inversion. However, I'm positive that the current records have been altered to include "consent" issues.

What do I do? I don't know if I should request another copy of the records. I'm not sure if I should file a complaint with the hospital, state medical department, or find an attorney. I had registered a complaint with the state medical department a couple of years ago, and I'm sure my records were altered to avoid punishment at that time.

I don't know. I'm perplexed, frustrated, and angry right now. I feel like I've been re-violated because they're unwilling to face up to their own actions.

Here we go again, but I see improvement

I was triggered yesterday. I have to admit that I was struggling a bit before I set foot in the door. Once I left work, and started to drive out there, I found myself having some intrusive thoughts about running into my former OB. My concern with every new doctor is which section of the clinic they work out of, I'm terrified that I may bump into my former doctor on my way to an appointment with a new doctor. Anyhow, I saw the only doctor at my clinic that does the essure procedure. (Thank God, it was a woman.) We were discussing my candidacy for the procedure, and she went back through my hospital notes in great detail. That was a sure-fire way to make me feel like a freak of nature. Then suggested having another child by c-section - since no one would blame me for making that decision after my difficult first delivery. When I turned that suggestion down, she suggested I bring my ipod along to "relax' me during the actual procedure. She had no way of knowing that my husband and nurses used my ipod as a distraction for me in the first couple of hours out of surgery, so I wouldn't ask a lot of questions about what had happened. (I had a brief flashback in the appointment over this one.) And, followed all of that up with a quick exam to analyze my anatomy for the procedure.

By the time I left, I was really struggling. I was shaking, edgy, anxious, and having intrusive thoughts. I was planning to take the rest of the afternoon off, but I made the decision to go back to work instead. Within a half hour of getting back to work, the worst of the intrusive thoughts had gone away, and the shaking had subsided. I was still a bit edgy, and anxious, but those symptoms take me longer to deal with than the others.

Overall I was better in a couple of hours because I've learned to read my body and symptoms. I've learned how to deal with them - acknowledging them, and switching them up. And, finally I've learned to cut myself a little slack when it happens. I still find an occasional new trigger, but the disease itself is becoming manageable in a way I never believed that it could be managed.

By the way, I also managed to advocate for myself during this whole encounter. I was upfront with her about my PTSD diagnosis, and I made her aware of my need for a great deal of communication to cope with medical procedures. I also made her aware that my daughter's birth caused the PTSD, so she was really trying to be sensitive of my needs. She didn't quite make it, but she definitely tried.

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put Humpty together again.

I caught the last 20 minutes of Trauma last night. One character told the other that he needed to go get help. The other character responded, "what if once I let it all out I can't get it all put back in?"

That's the way I feel now about my PTSD. In the early days, I talked about my trauma. It gushed out of me on a daily basis. It was like I had to find a place for it to go that wasn't inside me, so I talked, and talked, and talked some more. I had friends tell me to let it go, and still I talked. I had people tell me it didn't matter what had happened to me, and still I talked. I thought that by talking, I could get it all out.

Now, I know that there's more to it than that. Talking about it was like opening the vent on a pressure cooker. It allowed me to open the appliance safely. However, now I worry that I might let something out that I don't want to have to put back inside me.

PTSD became the filter that my thoughts were processed through. PTSD became the glasses that I saw the world through. PTSD became my dirty little secret. It became my binky.

So, now I have to find away to allow myself to break enough that I can re-assemble myself into the person I want to be. I guess I'm ready to take that fall.

33 weeks of memories

I had an email from my sister-in-law yesterday. She’s pregnant for the third time. In my head I know this is a good thing. They want this baby. They’ll do their best for this baby. However, it’s making me anxious, edgy, and upset. I chickened out of calling her yesterday. I sent a brief Congratulations e-mail. I didn’t put it together until this morning, but her baby is due on the same day Peanut was due.

That’s what has me freaked out. They have the same due date. Each week I’ll be thinking about my disintegrating pregnancy and birth. There’s no reason to suspect that her pregnancy will go the same way that mine did. It’s incredibly rare for that to happen, but for the next 33 weeks I’ll have that reminder of ickiness.

I have to find away to break my association between those dates. It’s not my pregnancy. It’s not my birth. It’s not me. But it hurts. I’d love to have another child, but I know that neither my husband nor I can face another pregnancy. We’ve decided to have the big V performed this year. I know this is the best decision we can make. But I’m still sad that I will only have one child, one pregnancy, one birth.

Thirty three weeks of memories…

Is birth women's war?

I’ve been thinking on this post for a while. I’ve started writing it, and put it away because I couldn’t find the words. However, after reading this blog post, I decided to pick it up and try again.

Is childbirth women’s war?

When I was pregnant, I asked my grandmother about my mom’s birth. At 85 years old, she could still vividly remember that day and her experience. My mom can still relate the stories of my and my sister’s births. My best friend can pull her memories of each of her children’s births at a moments notice. When you get together with a group of women at a baby shower or a wedding shower, it seems like birth stories come out of the closet.

I believe that we’re genetically programmed to remember the experience of giving birth. The combination of the hormones, the pain, the fear, the anxiety, the joy, and the love imprint those memories deeply into our brains. It’s not that big a stretch to believe that those memories can sometimes be improperly stored causing PTSD.

All over the internet, on discussions of PTSD after childbirth, you’ll see an argument stating that this cannot be a mental health disorder because it’s a natural occurrence in a woman’s life. However, no one debates the validity of PTSD in soldiers returning from war. Men have been going to war for thousands of years. Why is their experience considered to be out of the norm, but a woman’s childbirth experience is dismissed or trivialized?

Men have found some interesting ways to cope with the fallout of the experiences long before the PTSD diagnosis was made during the Vietnam War. They formed and joined groups like the VFW or the American Legion. They go, and hang out with others who have had similar experiences. It’s a safe place to discuss the horrors of what they saw, the feelings they had, and they can process the events.

Yet, women don’t have these types of places to go. In today’s society, new moms are often isolated from society. We’re left to navigate this new terrain by ourselves. Our parents are working, so we frequently don’t have our moms or dads to rely on in those first few days. Our husbands go back to work typically a few days or a week after the baby is born. We struggle to establish breastfeeding, caring for the other family members, and try to get enough sleep to function. There are days when just getting a shower seems like an insurmountable task. Is it any wonder that those memories can get hung up under those conditions?

I’ve heard some people wonder if PTSD after childbirth is a rich nation’s problem, but I don’t think it is. I think no matter where women give birth, that they’re at risk of developing this condition. Women in third world countries know that childbirth isn’t safe. Their entire pregnancy is spent in an atmosphere of anxiety. Will I survive? Will my child survive? If something goes wrong can they get me to a doctor or a midwife? They live with those fears for months. Those months of anxiety set them up for developing this condition when their childbirth experiences go awry. Just because they don’t have the resources for diagnosis and treatment doesn’t mean that they don’t develop the condition.

Others have blamed the medicalization of childbirth on the development of PTSD. However, I know that medical procedures don’t cause PTSD. It took months of counseling to admit this, but my PTSD had nothing to do with the medical procedures that were performed. They were entirely the result of the way that I was treated while I was in the care of the doctors and nurses at my daughter’s birth. The PTSD was a result of a lack of communication, a lack of understanding, a lack of consent, and a hostile birth environment.

Yep, I did call it a hostile birth environment. This is something that doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, and support people can change. Medical professionals can choose to treat a birthing mom respectfully. They can choose to speak to her with honesty. They can accurately, and without coercion, discuss her options. They can choose to allow her to make a choice, so that she can own that decision. They can choose to make sure she understands the positive and negative consequences of her choice.

A Trip to the ER

So, last week I ended up in the emergency room of the hospital where Jennavive was born. I've been having problems with dizziness, and I'd seen the doctor the week before. She thought it was just vertigo - be patient, and it should go away on its own. However, I started having a lot of tingling, numbness, nerve pain in my face on my way to counseling Thursday night. I called my husband, asked him to pick up peanut, and went home. When I got home, I looked in the mirror, and my face was completely lopsided. My husband got home 1/2 hour later, and I asked him to take me to urgent care. As we started to head out of town to the clinic urgent care, I changed my mind, and asked him to head to the ER.

We stood behind a couple of other families waiting our turn to get checked in when the triage nurse came out of her room to start prioritizing patients. She spoke to the family in front of us, told them to stay in line, and came back to talk to me. I explained about my face drooping. She grabbed my arm, told my husband to check me in, and dragged me into the emergency room. I sat down on the bed, and she started strapping monitors to my chest, a blood pressure cuff around my arm, and taking a quick history. Two minutes later, the doctor was at my bedside asking questions and listening to my story. He told me that they were going to do an MRI. Another nurse came in, and started setting me up for an IV. (Doesn't anyone ask permission anymore?) I balked. I told her that I'd had a rotten birth experience, and I really didn't want the IV. I got lucky, the lab tech walked into the room to do a blood draw, so she told me that as long as the tech got a sample that they'd skip the IV.

I’ve been having problems since then. I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. It’s not a big deal. It goes away on it’s own over time. It’s not pleasant, but not dangerous either.
But, it’s causing me nightmares, the feeling of being objectified, the feeling of being controlled, the feeling of being dismissed or ignored all coming raging back to me. I’m struggling to cope. My In-Laws have very graciously moved into our home for this week since I’m not allowed to drive. They’re making meals, performing projects around the house, mowing, and cleaning. It’s great that they’re willing to do this. I appreciate all of their efforts, and yet I feel like screaming – “GET OUT, I can do it MYSELF”. Except I cannot do it myself, and I know it. I know it’s the PTSD talking. It’s the dichotomy that I live with. My rational brain knows that everyone is looking out for me, everyone just wants to help me get better, but the irrational side feels like a little kid fighting off a temper tantrum. I want to fling myself on the floor, kick my legs, and scream at the top of my lungs.

Hopefully, acknowledging it will let it fade.

The good news is, I did advocate for myself in the ER after I got over the initial shock. I did get them to explain things to me. I did avoid an unnecessary IV. I did manage to keep myself in the present, and fight off the flashbacks. Even though my blood pressure skyrocketed to my PIH days of pregnancy, I kept my calm. I did ask a ton of questions the next day at the clinic appointment. I can hear my counselor telling me that I did a good job. My husband feels like I did a good job. The rational part of my brain knows that I handled this better than Jennavive's birth. I just wish the fall out was a little bit easier to handle.

Acknowledging Irrational Thoughts

Wow!

I feel so much better. Putting a face on why I'm feeling the way I do, acknowledging my feelings instead of stuffing them makes them so much easier to deal with on a daily basis. It's completely irrational to be afraid of a billboard, a piece of mail, or a tv ad. I know that in my head. It's why I was stuffing everything down. It's too irrational to deserve being voiced. It's much easier to be angry. To blame everything except what's happening in my own head.

Denying irrational thoughts doesn't eradicate them. It reinforces them. Getting rid of them means accepting that the thought is real, and debunking it. I know this, but sometimes I get caught up in the feelings and stop listening to myself. I just feel.

Change requires constant monitoring of my thoughts. I requires that I debunk untrue thoughts and that I reinforce accurate thoughts. That's the only way to get past this.

I was never in danger driving to work, well no more danger than anyone else on the road is in on a given day. I was never in danger while watching TV or getting the mail. I must remember to reinforce those accurate thoughts to make it harder for the irrational ones to get through.

Why can’t I just get away from all of this?

My 20 year high school class reunion is coming up in August. My husband and I have decided to attend, so I’ve spent the last couple of weekends, blame Stacey and Clinton from TLC’s What Not to Wear (my husband does), looking for a dress to wear to the event.

It’s been difficult to find a dress. To start, I’m a larger than average girl. Not a lot larger, but large enough that I can’t fit into the dresses in the regular misses department at the stores. Therefore, my selection is pretty limited. Added to that, I was a wall-flower in high school, and I don’t want the dress that I buy to reflect that part of my past. I’m not that shy, scared girl anymore. I’m a wife and a mother. I own my own home. I have a career that I’m good at and enjoy. I’m a PTSD survivor. I want a dress that has people seeing the confident woman that I am now. I want them to see that I’m not shy and retiring, but willing to put myself forward the way I am now acknowledging my own faults.

I had bombed out at 12 different stores two weekends ago. I tried on approximately 80 dresses, but nothing hit all of the right notes. I’ve spent the last week grumbling about it to my co-workers. It was so frustrating to have one little thing wrong with so many dresses.

So, last weekend I dragged my husband to the local Macy’s store. We went through the entire store, and grabbed every single dress they had in my size (between 30 and 40 dresses total). I tried on sleeveless dresses, short sleeved dresses, and long sleeved dresses. I tried on casual sundresses, work type dresses, cocktail dresses, and even mistakenly tried on a prom dress. (We were just grabbing, not really looking at the dresses.) I tried on dresses that I would typically never consider. I’m pretty modest, so I don’t wear sequins, tight, or sleeveless clothes. However, given my insatiable desire to find the “right” dress, I ignored all of my own rules. So, I started trying all of these dresses on in the dressing room. I showed my husband each and every one of them. One of them had my husband’s jaw hitting the floor. It was like va-va-voom – totally sexy, slinky, sex-kitten dress, and I looked GOOD! Actually, I looked gorgeous. I’ve never seen myself like that. I’m not ugly, but I’ve never thought of myself as pretty. Anyhow, it just happens that this dress was on clearance for $40, so I decided to go ahead and buy it.

Monday morning rolls around, and I’m talking to a couple of co-workers about finding this great dress. I told them that my husband’s going to get a sitter, so we can go out for my birthday next month, and he’s even thinking about springing for a hotel room. In my mind it was a pretty innocuous, non-triggering conversation to be having, when Chantel says, “woohoo, baby number two making night”.

AARGH! I’m talking about a dress, not making baby number two. I’m not going to intentionally have any more children. My husband and I have decided that neither one of us in comfortable with the risk. My pregnancy and delivery were complicated. In fact they were more complicated than my hospital had ever seen. It’s not like they were just a little bit more complicated than usual, we’re talking almost off the charts complicated. The odds of having that many complications in a single delivery are higher than the odds of winning the lottery. For me, the risks of dying are very real. When your medical records record a conversation about placing mom in the ICU, she’s not making up stories, or exaggerating about nearly dying when giving birth. It’s rare, but moms do sometimes die. There’s no point in giving birth to another child when my odds of not being there to raise that child are so high.

Anyhow, I’m just frustrated. I know Chantel doesn’t know my birth story. I know she didn’t mean anything bad by saying this. She’s working under the typical assumption that most people have their children two to three years apart. It’s just that the casual way she said it kind of tripped me up a bit.

I’m so much better than I was. This experience has started fading into the background. It’s still there. I know I still filter every new experience through it, but it’s not like it was before. I guess I’m just a little naïve in thinking that as my daughter gets older things will stop triggering me. I keep thinking that it’s in the past, and yet I’m having a conversation about a sexy dress, and birth pops up. When are people going to stop talking about it? How old do I have to get before it stops being a common topic of conversation. It’s not that I can’t talk about my daughter’s birth. I do talk about it, but I don’t see the need to go into details with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that walks into my life.

Birth Rape Rears its Ugly Head Again

After two years of living with the consequences of my OB’s actions I really should know better than to Google Birth Rape. It seems like every 9 – 12 months something stirs up the discussion fires on this topic. This time, Café Mom seems to be the instigator. There’s poll, a forum, and a journal / blog post on the topic. Now, at least one L & D nurse is weighing in on the subject as well.

There seems to be some misconceptions about what women are referring to when they define their birth experience as a birth rape.

1. Just because someone, a nurse, midwife, or doctor, breaks your water doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because birth is painful doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because you have a cervical check doesn’t make it a birth rape. Most of the time, healthcare providers ask permission to do these things. If you consent, it’s NOT rape.

I had my water broken, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had an IV, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had several cervical / vaginal exams, but I consented. Those procedures were not birth rape. I was asked to lie on my side during the majority of my labor, but I consented. That was not birth rape. I had continuous fetal monitoring and EFM, but I consented. Neither of those were birth rape. I had a vacuum assisted delivery, but I consented. That was not birth rape. As long as you consent to the procedure whether it’s verbal or written it’s not rape. Just like when I consent to having sex with my husband it’s not rape.

2. Women who call it birth rape deserved what they got. After all if the baby has to come out, so whatever is done in that process is acceptable. If you go to the hospital as long as someone with an ID badge does it to you it’s okay.

Where I live, we have a Patient’s Bill of Rights. Competent patients have the right to decline any and all medical procedures. Competent patients have the right to be told what their diagnosis is, what the treatment options are, what are the risks associated with those options, and allowed to make their OWN decision. Therefore, the doctor, midwife, or nurse is not always right. They don’t have the power to force a woman to submit to procedures that she doesn’t want. They don’t have the right to coerce a woman into submitting to any procedures, and they don’t have the right to abuse their patients.

3. Women are just whining because they didn’t get the experience that they wanted to have.

What? There are a lot of things about my daughter’s birth that didn’t go the way that I wanted. I didn’t want to be induced. I wanted to go into labor on my own. However, complications prevented this from being possible. Did that traumatize me? NO! Did that result in a need for counseling? NO! It was simply a disappointment. Do I label any of those procedures that I didn’t want, but consented to, as birth rape? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

4. If it’s a rape, why don’t you report it, and have the perpetrators prosecuted?

I did report the actions of my doctor. I reported them to the State Medical Board, the hospital where he practices, and I sent him letter. However, the State Medical Board has the same attitude that a lot of women on this forum have- he’s the doctor, so he’s right. My report was denied because I didn’t have enough evidence to prove it. Doesn’t that sound like a typical rape case? It’s my word against yours. It doesn’t make what happened to be less truthful or less traumatizing. As to why I didn’t sue him, well like a lot of rape victims, I didn’t want to re-live it. I didn’t want to sit in the same room with him. I didn’t want to bare my emotions, and mental issues in front of a jury that doesn’t believe that birth rape happens.

5. You don’t develop mental issues from a bad birthing experience.

Actually, I did develop mental health issues as a result of his decision. I spent 18 months in counseling for PTSD. PTSD doesn’t go away. You learn to live with it, you learn to cope with it, but it doesn’t go away. I’ll have these scars for the rest of my life. They’ll gradually fade with time, but they will never go away. I live with nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation, and anxiety. I have panic attacks when I go to the doctor. I have had flashbacks during sex – what a mood killer. I’ve denied my husband sex because I’ve been terrified of having another child. My marriage was nearly destroyed because of the severity of my symptoms.

6. So what do I call my birth rape?

For me, birth rape refers to a specific procedure at a specific time that was performed without my consent.

My daughter was born at 11:32 pm. Approximately 15 minutes later my doctor asked the nurse to tell him when ½ hour had passed after the baby’s delivery. At that point in time, he knew that the placenta wasn’t detaching properly. Did he discuss this with me? No. He just kept biding his time waiting to see if it would change. Shortly thereafter, I notified the doctor that his ½ hour was up. Did he tell me then, that there was a problem with the placenta? No. He attempted cord traction to get the placenta to release. The umbilical cord tore off the placenta leaving the placenta attached to my uterus. Did he notify me then that there was a problem with the placenta, and offer me the opportunity to choose between treatment options of having him try to manually remove it or have it surgically removed? No. He just shoved his hand inside me, and tried to pull it out himself. Why wouldn’t I have seen this as a rape? He wasn’t saving my child. She was already born. He wasn’t saving me since at this point he didn’t see this situation being emergent. I was competent, and capable of consenting. He chose not to allow me to consent.

The pain of this procedure was extraordinary. It’s beyond the realm of anything I had ever experienced. It sent me into a place where I was incapable of providing consent for any additional procedures. Even though I didn’t consent to the D & C, even though I didn’t consent to the re-installation of my uterus, even though he spent almost an hour with his hand elbow deep in my hoo-ha trying to shove my uterus back into place, I’ve never considered those procedures to be birth rape. The situation had become emergent, I was mentally incapable of providing informed consent, and I was at the mercy of his skill, knowledge, and competency.

You see, Birth Rape is about power and consent. It’s not about sex. It has nothing to do with sex. In some ways, birth rape is worse. You’re in a place and surrounded by people who are supposed to keep you safe, but you’re not. You can’t advocate for yourself if they don’t tell you first what they’re going to do. You can’t fight for your rights when they deny them. My doctor wasn’t evil. He wasn’t trying to harm me. He got caught up in the complications, and all he saw was a problem. He forgot that I was a person, and only saw the complications.

Birth rape is real. Birth rape is evil, and eventually it will become prosecutable. Right now it’s impossible to get anyone to believe you.

ER - The Final Episode

I bet you're thinking you stumbled across the wrong blog. I don't usually write about frivolous things like the latest TV show. However, it's pertinent in this case to my healing.

I remember watching the first episode of ER. I was hooked. I loved the interplay of Dr. Greene, Dr. Ross, Dr. Benton, and Dr. Carter. So many things in my life have changed since that day, but that has been one of the constants - Thursday night at 9 pm. I haven't watched consistently in a long time, but I decided to watch last night's episode.

It started off okay. They got to the twin labor and delivery, and I was okay. (I can finally watch re-enactments of the happy deliveries without freaking out.) I watched them deliver the second baby, and I was still okay. The first gush of blood came out of mom, and I started to get a little tense, but I was okay. The second gush came, and I'm starting to think maybe I should switch to something else, and then... gush number 3, uterine inversion, mom starts losing consciousness, call for blood, start IV's... I jump off the sofa, grab my daughter, and run for the stairs. I rush to get her put to bed, and run back downstairs to change channels before the commercial is over. I'm shaking, edgy, panicking, and trying desperately to calm myself. I was up half the night crying.

Right after Peanut was born, I kept asking my husband and best friend questions about my birth. I have no visual memories after the attempted manual removal of the placenta. I have some memories of sounds, but no pictures. My nightmares were terrifying to me because I didn't have the pictures, so I kept looking for them to give them to me. I'd ask, What did they do? What did it look like? Anything to get a description of what had gone on. I've accepted this lack of visual information. I've gotten used to the missing time frame. Having that visual experience last night totally has me freaked out.

I'm achy, hollow, anxious, edgy, and exhausted. I want to hide in a small dark place, and forget what I saw. I want to forget the fear, the anger, the panic. It was like they wrote MY story into the script. The baby was in the warmer, Dad standing to one side watching, and it all falls apart.

I haven't been this bad in a long time.

I HATE feeling like this. I HATE being this new person. What did I do to deserve this?

I wrote this on Friday morning. I'm glad to say that by noon, I was feeling better. Still edgy, but not jumping out of my own skin edgy. By the time I got home, the stranglehold was gone. I could think about other things, talk about other things, be myself.

I sometimes forget how far I've come. It came in such small, baby steps that you miss where things began to change. Despite my being triggered, I'm grateful to realize that this experience doesn't control me the way it did in the past. Within 36 hours most of the intrusive thoughts were gone. I didn't have another nightmare, and the flashback was only in the immediate time frame of being triggered.

My husband wants to delete the recording from the DVR, but I won't let him. I know I have to watch the entire thing. I won't watch it today, and probably not tomorrow, but in the future I need to see it. In order for me to be free, I have to face it.

This was my story. It may have a few tweaks, but it's the story I live with everyday.

De-Briefing Tool (Part 1 Question 2)

What happened in the events leading up to the birth?

My pregnancy was never easy. It was unplanned. My husband didn't want to be a father. He sucked it up, and accepted it, but he was never supportive, excited, or happy about it. It was stressful knowing his feelings on the subject, but I just kept plodding along.

At 13 weeks, I had a scare. I had some spotting over the weekend. About the time I thought I should go get it checked out, it stopped. I went to the doctor right away on Monday morning. He did an ultrasound, figured that some blood got trapped behind the placenta, and put me back on the routine prenatal visit schedule.

At 19 weeks, I had my "big" ultrasound. They diagnosed me with partial placenta previa. Since it was still early, I knew there was a possibility that the placenta would move, but I started researching c-sections. I put off my childbirth classes until I could find out if it had moved. It seemed silly to spend all of that money only to end up with a c-section.

At 27 weeks, I went in for my partial placenta previa follow-up ultrasound and the one hour gestational diabetes screening. That night, the doctor called me at home. I had failed the one hour test, and had to schedule the three hour test. I failed that one too, so off to the dietitian I went. No candy, no cake, no ice cream, for Pete's sake I'm pregnant, but I can't eat anything but vegetables and meat. No more eating cereal for my bedtime snack. No more drinking OJ. Nothing. It sucked. The good news was that the placenta had moved, so I'm back to looking at a vaginal delivery. This is also the time when the doctor first mentioned that he "didn't think I'd make it to 40 weeks". What a crock, of course I was going to 40 weeks. I had been 3 weeks late, and I expected that peanut would be 2 weeks late as well.

Because of all of the GD issues, I started seeing the doctor weekly instead of bi-weekly. We finally got to week 33, and he told me that I could skip week 34's visit. Woohoo! I went to my family baby shower, and after I got home I noticed that I was really swollen. My legs were the size of watermelons. My husband hounded me to call the doctor, so Monday morning, I give him a call. I left a voicemail for the nurse, and not an hour later, she calls back. COME IN NOW! I'm thinking, it's just some swelling. Everybody swells up at the end of their pregnancy, what's the big freaking deal? But, as a dutiful, if resentful, patient, I trot my 34 week belly into the clinic. I walk in, and got on the scale. I gained weight. Finally, 34 weeks had gone by without me gaining any weight. I'm thinking I'm finally acting like a pregnant woman. I sit in the chair, they take my blood pressure, and it's high - too high. All of the sudden, he's telling me to go immediately to the hospital for an NST - what the heck is that? I drive up to the hospital parking lot, and call my husband in tears. I don't know what's wrong. I'm at the hospital. They're going to do some tests. I'm scared out of my mind. He tells me he's coming, and I head up to Labor and Delivery. I get to the desk. No one from the clinic has called, I'm trying to remember what the doctor said to have done. They get me into a room, hook me up to the monitors, and I just sit there alone, staring at the TV, crying, and hitting the joystick thing-a-ma-jig when peanut kicks. My husband calls, he's at the hospital, but can't find me. They didn't "admit" me as a patient, so the reception desk is useless. He finally makes it up to the floor, and into the room where I am. The doctor comes in, and says no more work, stay home, keep my feet up, no anything. Great - NOT. He says they'll induce, but they want me to make it to 37 weeks. He's kind of vague, and my husband hates him on sight. I'm frustrated because this wasn't part of my plan, but I'm a good girl, and head home.

My husband arranges for my in-laws to take the dogs for the remainder of my pregnancy. They're German short-hair pointers, so extremely energetic. There's no way for me to stay off my feet if they're at home.

I hang out at the house, watching Dr. Phil and Oprah. I'm bouncing off the walls with boredom. I feel like I have nothing to talk about. My husband keeps asking me for answers on when the baby is coming, but I don't know, and the doctor is vague. I only get out of the house twice a week. Once for the doctor appointment, and once for the NST.

A couple of weeks go by, and finally we get my induction date. My best friend comes to the house to help me with my "birth plan". What birth plan? This isn't the spontaneous experience that I wanted. I'm going to be hooked up to every monitor imaginable, there are no more choices to be made. I tell her that all I want is to walk out of the hospital as a healthy mom with a healthy baby. Whatever we have to do we'll do.