Perinatal Mental Health Week 2024: Hannah’s Story

Content warning: This birth story discusses trauma. Topics discussed include severe tearing, sexual assault, PTSD, lack of trauma-informed care, and mental health struggles. If you are seeking support for your birth trauma, we have downloadable resources here or you can join one of our free Peer2Peer Support programs.

---

 

It is unfortunate that sometimes in life we can experience something so traumatic coexisting with something so wonderful. How can one event in our life be two things at once? This happened to me , and I know it’s a common experience for many other women. I know it is common because women are starting to talk and share. Women are seeking validation and support. It is my mission to share my story to bring awareness to an issue and work towards a solution.

I didn’t know I was allowed to tell this story unedited. I thought birth stories were exciting, happy and sometimes a bit gross but in an endearing or funny way.

My whole life I had been sent the message that the days on which your children are born are the most incredible days of your existence. These memorable days are flooded with joyous memories that somehow overwhelm the pain associated with labour. However, after my second baby was born, I was so traumatized that I unconsciously shut the memory down. It was twisted and minimised in my brain to protect me, so that I could carry on in my life as a mother.

I would try to tell my birthing story with humour. I thought I was protecting future mothers and partners from the reality. I thought I was protecting myself from the horrors that floated around in my mind. It took me years to acknowledge how deeply my birth trauma affected me and what it trigged from my past was debilitating.

Of course, I had heard the phrase birth trauma before and assumed it meant something terrible happening during the child birthing process, to the mother or the baby. My experience is slightly different, so I’ve started to call my experience ‘afterbirth trauma’. By making this distinction, I can process the memories of my baby being born, and separate what happened to me after the labour process and in my past.

For better or worse, we are built by our experiences. Our lives are filled with events, and I believe these moments leave a mark on us. This is how we form our perspective and learn to manage new outcomes for challenging moments. Everyone has good and bad experiences stored in their memories. A new event can be powerful enough to trigger an old memory. A memory that is almost forgotten and buried to protect yourself, a memory that is not understood completely from your childhood. In my case, a traumatic memory was trigged during my after birth experience, and my damage was revealed to me.

The birth of our second baby is a story filled with eventful anecdotes about all the regular and expected things. I woke early in the morning with cramps. My sister was visiting from interstate, and she was convinced her presence was enough to send me into labour a few days early: you know, before she flies back home and misses out on the main event. The cramps developed into noticeable contractions that my sister timed while my grandmother made me cups of tea. We started to leave frequent messages with my husband’s work to let him know he needed to get home and take me to the hospital.

By mid-afternoon my water broke. I rolled off the lounge because I didn’t want to make a mess – and I felt that goop fall into my underwear. By this stage, I really wanted to get to the hospital. My sister and grandparents don’t drive, so I was contemplating calling a taxi when my husband rushed through the door. I could just hear him yelling over my moans of agony that he’s going to have a quick shower, get changed and eat something, because you know it’s such a long time waiting around for the baby to be born. I was doubled over in pain as I took a good look into his eyes, and he changed his mind on the whole shower thing – it was time to go! Speeding along the motorway, I was holding myself up off the seat hanging onto the hand grips on the inside of the car. This baby is coming out, I screamed! My sister had jumped in the back seat and was excitedly updating her social media status.

Arriving at the hospital, I hobbled into emergency and was immediately wheeled into a labour room. Begging for pain relief, I peeled off my pants and climbed onto the bed. The wonderful midwife told me she’s looking into pain med while also telling us there’s probably no time for them. My sister-in-law arrived with a picnic hamper and asked if I wanted to Skype with the in-laws, but then added she thought now was not the time, after she heard the sounds I was making. My sister asked the midwife if I was dying because I sounded like an animal stuck in a barbed wire fence trying to escape.

A couple of pushes and involuntary primitive sounds escaped me, as I felt the red hot burn intensify and the electric shocks ran up and down my body and ripped right through me – our baby exploded into the world and into our lives. Immediately I knew something was wrong, but I ignored these feelings and held my baby. What a wonderful feeling to have, your newborn baby placed on your chest. Those moments of first contact are unforgettable.

Someone in the room remarked at how big the baby is. I recalled being told at multiple phase of my pregnancy that the baby was on the bigger side, but no-one ever indicated that this was a risk or a concern for me. My husband took the baby for his first cuddle. My sister-in-law was now laying on the bathroom floor trying not to pass out. My sister held my hand and let me squeeze while the midwife asked if she could check me. The room went silent for too long. The midwife left to get a doctor. The doctor’s hurried entrance was followed by an inspection of his own, and a few quick injections to make me feel more comfortable with his procedure.

‘Oh great, now I get pain relief!’ was the thought that came to my mind along with the unsettling feelings of having a stranger’s fingers inside me. The doctor declared that I was torn. I didn’t fully understand what he meant. What was torn? How much was torn? What happened now? Those unsettling feelings came back as I imagined more strangers would have to attend to my most private area.

The midwife told me I was going in for surgery. No more details were outlined to me at this stage. I thought, ‘I am off to get a few stitches and I’d be back on the ward for dinner’.

As I was wheeled away from my newborn baby and family, I began to feel anxious. I asked the nurse if I would be put under. No, she replied, it’s just an epidural situation. This made me panic. I attempted to hide my emotions, but the tears escaped as I requested to please be knocked out for the procedure as I didn’t want to be conscious while they repaired me down there. How many surgeons will there be? How long will it take? What exactly is the damage to me? All questions unanswered. My panic was rising, and I asked if I could have a support person with me. Unfortunately, this was not allowed.

I needed someone to comfort me, take care of my emotions and worries. They seemed so focused on my physical damage they couldn’t see the mental turmoil I was in. I felt scared, venerable, weak and alone. Something felt familiar in a terrifying way. The vulnerable feeling was overwhelming. I had no control. I was powerless and uninformed.

I was dressed in an oversized gown and prepped for the spinal injection. I was laid down in the brightest, coldest room, with tears flooding out and pooling in my ears. I really needed a tissue and was told to just use the gown to wipe my nose. At this moment the smell overpowered me. The powerfully clean smell of chemicals to keep the room sterile. It reminded me of the smell of an indoor pool. My body tensed up and my legs moved together as my dress was pulled up and a screen was placed over my mid-section. I didn’t feel ready for this. I didn’t know what was happening or about to happen. No one had even told me what this procedure was going to be like. I was lifeless from the waist down and I struggled to even lift my hands to cover my face. I tried to disassociate from the situation. What felt like too many people entered the room. I wished one of them was there to hold my hand and tell me I am safe.

One or two surgeons, and three student surgeons who stood to the side, were all around me. I realized it must be more than a few stitches. I was not mentally prepared for this. When would they tell me what they needed to do and how long would it take?

I can’t remember them even speaking directly to me as they lifted my legs and propped my feet up. I felt the bed tilting and moving. I felt exposed and cold while the students talked amongst each other about cocktails and overseas holidays. I felt and heard splashes of water as they got me cleaned. The water, the smell, and my lack of control triggered my emotions. A memory of swimming training flashed in my mind. As I squeezed my eyes shut an image of a burning man was bright in my memories and I was terrified. I opened my eyes and the surgeon told me to stop shaking. I felt like I was in danger while the surgeons began making jokes with the students. I closed my eyes again and saw the man on fire as the smell of the room made me feel ill.

It felt like a ton of bricks were on top of me, I felt exposed, cold and scared but I couldn’t move. I got the sense that if I just laid still, it would be over soon. More water was splashed onto me, reminding me of the swimming pool again. And that’s when I realized who the burning man was and why I felt so scared. I begged for it to be over, and they told me the procedure was about halfway done. I wished I would pass out. The students were now talking about how many coffees they consume in a day and how luckily the surgeons don’t get shaky hands from caffeine. The surgeon who was working on me told the room how he hoped to get this procedure finished in time to make his flight to Fiji.

I was ‘the procedure’, not a person lying in absolute mental panic needing a different and additional type of professional care. They all joked about how good this surgeon was and that he could hold a pina colada in one hand and finish the surgery with the other. I felt like a lifeless slab of meat on a cold tray. All my humanity was ignored, I wished for unconsciousness.

Finally, it was over and they left the room as a nurse came in with a blanket and tissues. For whatever reason, the nurse had to use a remote control to move my bed around. Apparently, this was the first time they had used this control, and they apologized as they banged my bed into doorways and corners, as I was jolted from side to side. I am told it was nearly midnight, and that the surgery had taken a bit longer than anticipated. I had no energy to ask what the surgery involved. I was too afraid to speak about it.

I saw my husband holding our baby. As I held back my tears, he asked if I was ok. I told him I was OK because I didn’t want to worry him. He left for the night, and I was there holding my new baby close, trying to forget what happened.

I couldn’t sleep. The baby next to us was crying all night. My baby was a lovely distraction from my thoughts. As my legs began to warm up so did the pain inside me. The mother next to me couldn’t get her baby to rest. I laid up all night silently crying and feeding my baby. I remembered the surgeon’s last words to me were to get some rest. Well, that was basically impossible there in my shared hospital room, with a stranger and her crying baby.

As the weeks slowly passed by, I was struggling in the haze of newborn life. Sleep was a luxury I could not afford and when I did get some, I had terrible dreams about the burning man.

When I was young, I enjoyed swimming. I was good enough to be on the swimming squad at the local pool. It was a massive commitment for a pre-teen. I trained before and after school and we travelled all over the state for competitions. Our coach would spend extra time with us. We all looked up to him, respected him, but also felt we would get into trouble if we didn’t do everything he asked.

One morning my dad told me that my coach had sadly passed away during the night. As the days went by, I was given the details by other swimmers at my club. Our coach had killed himself. He drove out bush, poured fuel over himself and set himself on fire.

Our coach would get us to lay down on the benches by the pool to practice swimming strokes. Or sometimes up against a wall. Sometimes, to show us better, he would have to get close to us, lay on us and touch us. I didn’t know what was happening at the time , but I remembered I didn’t like it. But it was easier to just stay still and quiet until it was over. He said we were special, and we had to keep our training sessions secret. I don’t know for sure, but I felt like what happened to me was connected to his suicide. I would go to sleep thinking about what it would have been like for him to die that way, to be a burning man.

As I child I was able to forget about this abuse, because I didn’t even know it was abuse. All those years later, my traumatic experience in surgery trigged some of the same feelings I had at the hand of an abuser. My mind connected the events and the burning man. My memories were triggered because of the chemical smells and my emotions of being powerless, venerable and anxious. Uncomfortable memories relived through an adult mind revealed the complexities and horror of the situation I was in as a child.

At a memorial for our coach, I was told by an older squad member to try not to be sad, that our coach was in a better place. They told me, whenever I think of our coach, to look up at the moon and see the smiling face watching over me. The moon was now a constant reminder of my abuse.

Today I still think about what he did. I couldn’t go swimming for years. Even the smell of a pool would make me nervous. I’m incredibly frustrated that I’m affected by these events every day, It’s hard to explain or get any understanding from the people around me because they can’t see anything wrong. It’s not a noticeably physical issue that can be repaired. It’s all internal. It’s mental.

Being a victim of sexual assault is a life sentence. I feel like a prisoner in my own mind. While I can’t invite anyone in to see my memories, I can get help from a therapist. Imagine if there were a psychologist on hand to help woman at their most vulnerable and scary times during the birthing process? What if, as well as providing women with the best healthcare for physical health and trauma during childbirth, we also provided real-time mental care?

While my physical wounds healed long ago and I’m very grateful for the surgeon’s work, I can’t help but feel that part of the treatment I received contributed to unnecessary, long-impacting trauma, that was neglected in my days staying at the hospital.

My psychological wounds are still healing. I’m fortunate to access trauma counselling and ongoing therapy. But I still go to sleep hoping that the next day I won’t think about what happened to me. And it isn’t long before a simple visit to any medical related treatment triggers my trauma.

There is no box to tick on any of the medical forms to let the health professional know I need to be treated with sensitivity. Imagine if you’re hit in the head with a hammer and now you have a massive cut in your head. Everyone can see it, they can see you’re hurt and need physical care. Mental trauma is often hidden and it’s up to the victim to raise it as an issue of care. Sometimes I feel like my cut in my head will never heal and it’s only a matter of time before I get hit in the head again. I’m walking around with a gigantic wound in my head no one can see it.

Women are going into frightening, unknown situations when they go to a medical facility to give birth. Yes, we are monitored and put through so many physical tests to keep us safe and healthy throughout the pregnancy and birth, and any physical issues are usually attended to. But what about on a psychological level?

Attending to the psychological issues surrounding and trigged by giving birth could prevent inflicting unnecessary mental trauma and possible PTSD. I am lucky to access trauma counselling and ongoing therapy to help me move beyond my PTSD. Speaking with a psychologist regularly has begun the healing process. But I wish I could have been offered this support earlier. I wish the hospital staff had ways to find out that my suffering was not just physical, and that their treatment has hurt me far beyond the time I was in their facility.

Please don’t confuse what I am trying to get across today. I am not trying to compare abuse and surgery. The message I hope to bring awareness to is that the feelings associated with being a victim and survivor of abuse are often similar to the feelings associated with receiving medical treatments: scared, nervous, anxious, powerless, submission. These are very triggering emotions and need to be treated with the same support and care as anything physical.

Having a health professional going bed-to-bed, room-to-room, before, during and after labour, offering psychological support, would be extremely beneficial to all patients. I feel this would prevent inflicting avoidable mental trauma – or even help heal existing mental traumas.

Not that long ago I looked at the moon for the first time through a telescope. I saw the details I had never imagined before. I saw past the perceived smiling face, and, instead of being crippled with painful memories from my past, I marvelled at the beauty. That night I witnessed the moon eclipse. It disappeared completely and returned as a brilliant red full moon.

This was a powerful healing moment. It was like the moon was reborn as I watched. And in a way, so was I.

 

 

NOTE: Hannah is ABTA’s Advocacy Coordinator. 

---

 

If you’d like to chat to someone about your birth experience and start getting support today, please reach out to one of our friendly Peer2Peer Support Team.