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The Vine: January 23, 2013

Submitted by on January 23, 2013 – 10:29 AM76 Comments

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I married a great guy, T, in 2008. In 2010 we found out I was expecting. I had a completely normal, if barfy pregnancy. I had a terrible doctor (that problem is taken care of; I have a new ob/gyn), but soldiered through until the end. In December I went into labor, and everything was all normal and hunky dory, if painful, until my kid was born via C-section after 42 hours of labor (don’t judge, I pretty much had thrown in the towel at that point, 42 hours of being awake is a really long and exhausting amount of time).

Upon his entrance into the world, he collapsed both his lungs, didn’t breathe for seven minutes, went septic, got revived and transferred to a nearby big city, where for five days he was put on a hypothermic treatment. He’s totally okay now, he’s a charming, silly boy who loves to give hugs and kisses and make animal sounds and has a fixation with Elmo. We can’t imagine life without him.

My husband and I have been talking about how we’d like to have another kid. We’re both on board for the whole pregnancy, and sleep deprivation, etc., but where we have a difference of opinion is the delivery room. My husband left me in there, which was a little traumatic for me. I understand why. Our kid was in the corner while people are shouting things like “No breath sounds” and “Charge to 500” and he was floppy and purple. My husband was also told, “If you’re gonna vomit or pass out, you need to let us know so we can get you out of here” prior to the C-section. I’m not mad, or frustrated or disappointed by his past behavior. If I could have left the room, I would have.

However, when the new-baby topic comes up, he says very vehemently that he doesn’t want to be in the room. I would like him to at least try. I’ve suggested therapy, I’ve even offered to go (I’m a social worker and I think we both have a little PTSD from this), and maybe an Rx for him for while he’s in there to calm his nerves, and if after he’s in there, if he really can’t handle it, he can leave. He’s completely against it, the therapy and the being in the room.

We live far away from our parents, and while I love both my parents and my in-laws, I really don’t want either set in there with me. They would seriously just stress me out. Sure, I could ask a friend, but I’m in that cohort where most of my friends have young children and can’t really leave them in the middle of the night to go to the hospital. So it’s really just me and my husband…

Can you and the TN peeps help me come up with 1) a strategy to convince him to go see someone about this? 2) a workable compromise about the delivery room? (No suggestions of a birth class…we won’t be doing that again…unhelpful, expensive, and we aren’t people who are into the whole “birth is a beautiful natural process” idea.)

Thanks,
Expecting To Expect Soon

Dear Expecting,

What happens if he won’t go to therapy, by himself or with you, and he won’t consider going into the delivery room? Do you decide to go forward and just gut it out (excuse the pun) on your own in there? Or do you tell him that this vote needs to be unanimous and you won’t go through the delivery-room experience without a wingman?

I think you need to get clear on that for yourself, then make sure he’s clear on where you’re at, because I think it’s possible that he’s actually not so hot on the second-kid idea, and he thinks that creating this roadblock will…create a roadblock, I guess. You mention that it’s really just this one issue, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, or that you believe otherwise…but at the same time, if it is just this one issue, why won’t he just go talk to somebody about it for an hour or two? I mean, the C-section is not your elegant arthroscopic two-stitches-and-a-shot-of-whisky procedure. You got sawed nearly in half, following which your son skated close to death. He has every right not to want to watch a rerun (and so do you). But given how well it turned out, you have to wonder if that’s in fact the real issue, especially if he won’t deal with it head-on. And if it is, you should obviously try to ascertain that now, versus, you know, in the car on the way to the delivery suite.

So, as I said, I would do some thinking for yourself about how you want to handle it and proceed (or not proceed) in the event that he continues to refuse to cope proactively with the issue. See a therapist your own self and make sure you’ve got everything untangled. Urge your husband to get honest with himself and you about what’s really got him hung up here.

And if it really is just straight-up anxiety, I’d say extract a promise from him that he’ll at least try his best, and not rule out keeping you company entirely — and then find a good midwife or doula, one who has relationships at your local hospitals, knows the drill from long experience, and can ease everything from labor to running interference with hospital staff to knowing when it’s time to send your pale-green husband down the hall for some ice chips and quiet time.

All of that said, I have no children of my own, and if I did, I’d be taking the “I’ve hauled Junior around for nine months, so you’re gonna to stand where I fuckin’ tell you, hoss” stance, which makes decent copy but isn’t super-productive maybe? So: readers! Is this a surmountable problem? How hard should Expecting push this? Is Mr. Expecting scared of the labor/delivery, or is something else going on?

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  • JenK says:

    I’m chiming in here with all the doula suggestions–ours was wonderful. We hired the same doula for both of my pregnancies, and she was a great help. My husband had read all of the worst-case-scenario information possible during my first pregnancy and was not exactly a calming source for me because he was so stressed about all the stuff that could go wrong. She was great at keeping me calm and relaxed. Of coure, with the first pregnancy, after the hospital stupidly gave me an Ambien and told me to go back home because labor was slow and could take another 24 hours, we stupidly sent her home to get some rest, and the kid was born 3 hours later in the bathroom in the presence of a bunch of firemen and two freaked out parents, so she missed the actual birth. But she stayed with me for a whole day of labor with kid #2 and talked me through the delivery after I decided I just couldn’t do it any longer.

    So, yes, hire a doula, regardless of what you work out with your husband. If he decides to give it a go, she’ll be able to work with both of you; if he tries but has to bail, she’ll be there to keep you company; if he says he can’t even consider it, she’ll be there to support you the whole way. My doula met with me at least once a month throughout the pregnancies so we could get to know each other and make labor and delivery more comfortable. (Also–she was a massage therapist and gave me massages as part of those monthly visits and I looooooved her.) Definitely talk to her if you’re looking at a planned C-section to make sure you’re both on board, but you should be able to find a doula who will work with you.

  • Rebecca says:

    First I just have to say, as a doula and a big-time doula advocate, I am kvelling a little to see all the love for doulas. Yay!

    I’m so sorry that you had such a difficult and scary first birth experience. No one should have to go through what you did, or ever feel that they would be judged for it. The VBAC vs. repeat c-section question, in terms of weighing the risks and benefits to both, is very personal and there are some good resources out there in terms of thinking about it. Just as a first step, I think this post does a nice job of exploring the different feelings that people might work through in making their decision: http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2011/6/5/vbac-vs-repeat-cesarean-try-on-both-choices.html

    Either way, a doula could be very helpful to you both. There are absolutely many doulas who are happy to work with people who are having a planned c/s (in fact, the best way to weed out the dogmatic jerks who give the rest of us a bad name might be to call them looking for whether they would support/have experience with supporting someone who is doing an elective repeat c/s.) With advance planning (often involving the hospital’s nurse manager and/or anesthesiology department) the doula may be able to be a second support person in the OR, or just be with you before surgery and in recovery; and if your husband suddenly panics or if he needs to go elsewhere with the baby, you know there is a second, familiar person nearby to step in. For a VBAC, I would of course also highly recommend a doula for all the reasons that one would get a doula for any labor.

    Also, having worked with people who had a traumatic first birth experience, I know a doula can be extra helpful because we often spend time processing how things went last time during the prenatal visits. It is not therapy by any means, but it’s a chance for everyone to hash through what happened and how we can make things different this time.

    For anyone looking for doulas, I recommend starting with dona.org, cappa.net, tolabor.com, and doulamatch.net. Also ask your OBs/midwives for doula recommendations (and it is a red flag if they tell you “you don’t need one” or “I don’t like doulas”), local childbirth educators, and friends who’ve had babies recently. And please, please – contact doulas early!! I get e-mails all the time from people who have no idea how early doulas can book up and are searching and searching for someone who is available for their due date. It depends on where you live, but you would be surprised at how hard it can be to find a doula in some areas.

    Another thing that might be helpful for you both is a change of hospital, if possible; if you are thinking about VBAC you will need to do some investigation as to what hospitals are VBAC-supportive, but even a repeat c/s bears some investigating. (Especially because when you plan a c/s you don’t need to worry about getting there during labor so you can be extra-choosy about your hospital even if it’s a bit of a drive.) In the area I work in, there are two hospitals within an hour’s drive of each other; in one, after a c-section, baby can go skin-to-skin with mom immediately after delivery, stays with her in recovery for nursing and bonding, and goes with her to the postpartum floor. In the other, the baby “has to” go to the nursery to be “observed”, bathed, weighed, etc. for 6 (!) hours. You can probably see how one experience might trigger your PTSD more than the other. It might also help just to not be in the exact same hospital as last time in terms of avoiding triggers, and if it’s important to your peace of mind you could try to be at a place with a high-level NICU so that even if baby were to need special care, you wouldn’t be separated.

    Best of luck with all of this. I hope things go so much more happily and smoothly the second time around (they so often do.)

  • anonymouse says:

    Oh, Expecting, I am right there with you. I also had a complicated first delivery, long labor and emergency c-section. The trauma for us came from me being… hmmm… how do I say this without traumatizing the entire Nation? Let’s say that in the beginning of my operation, my pain was not properly managed. So my husband heard and saw some extremely unpleasant things in the OR. We were both pretty traumatized. Almost 4 years later, I still feel like I can’t breathe when I think about it. Sweaty palms, the whole PTSD thing.

    The second time around, I made sure that everyone involved (doctors, nurses, family, etc) knew why we were extra-nervous. Everyone was very reassuring and the scheduled C-section was SO MUCH BETTER the second time around. No screaming, my husband was behind a curtain with me so he couldn’t see anything… it was very surreal, but no pain for me and no trauma for him. So the first thing I want to say is that it will probably be much better the second time around.

    But this is something that my husband and I got through together, as a team. Even if he felt somewhat useless both times, I really needed him to be there– and there was no question that he would be. Truthfully, if he hadn’t been able to get past the first trauma somehow and couldn’t be there with me for the second delivery… something would have been permanently changed, for me, in our partnership.

    I am with @Matt. If my husband had failed me, especially when we were both at our shakiest and most scared, there would always be that asterisk next to his name. And your husband probably feels like the asterisk is already there, even though you say you don’t blame him. Even if you don’t have a second child, this is something that needs to be brought into the open and talked about– probably with a professional– so it doesn’t fester.

  • J. says:

    My husband was not in the room for the delivery of either of our children, who are now 12 and 15. We have been together for 20 years and it has never bothered me that he didn’t want to be in the room! I knew he was squemish going into it and I didn’t want to see what was going on “down there” either..so I couldn’t blame him.

  • c8h10n4o2 says:

    Rather than talk therapy, behavioral modification therapy would probably be much more helpful. It’s a lot shorter, and works especially well for phobias and anxiety. Look for anxiety specialists in your area, and that’s likely what they do. Just to say that even though you both know what talk therapy is like, and he probably feels that it won’t help with this situation, there are other options.

  • Ix says:

    @Sharon: “let your husband maintain the illusion that things are always beautiful and clean in the area between your navel and your knees!”

    Just revisiting this because it’s striking me as really weird, and as a 25 year old who isn’t planning on having kids for several years still, it’s the only part I feel like I have any room to comment on.

    But “let your husband maintain the illusion that things are always beautiful and clean” down around your ladyparts? Look, I like Victoriana and neo-Victorianism as much as the next woman – I love steampunk – but there are some aspects of Victorian-era anywhere that I think are best left there. The “illusion” that women don’t have bodily functions (and that we should hide the existence of such as if being human, rather than ethereal dolls who sup only on pure light) is one of them.

    I don’t know about your husband, Sharon, but my fiance is a grown man who is quite aware that I am a human being, complete with bodily functions – I use the bathroom, just like he does, and for about a week every month, I’m cranky and sore and bloody, and can’t wear fun underwear.
    And you know what? He’s fine with that!

    How would you propose maintaining such an illusion anyways, in the modern era? I mean, commercials and ads alone pretty much puncture the illusion that menstruation isn’t a thing or that it’s not messy and uncomfortable (and inexplicably blue, if you believe the commercials). I’d imagine you’d need at least two bathrooms, and probably be obligated to go on vacation or something during your period, just to avoid puncturing that “illusion”.
    Which is stupid and really not feasible for most people.

  • Kristin says:

    Before I even comment on the whole thread, I must commend @ErinW for the biggest laugh I’ve had in a while:

    I fainted once in the vet’s office while my dog was getting her anal glands expressed.

    Are you sure, Erin, that it wasn’t just from the smell? :-)

  • Kristin says:

    Expecting, it sounds to me like both you and your husband went through an incredibly difficult ordeal, and I am thrilled that your son is so happy and healthy today!! I think that the suggestions of a doula are great, and I don’t know where you live, but I know a doula who’s definitely able to deal with non-granola types, so let Sars know if you want my email (OK to give, Sars) and I can try and hook you up with her; if not the same area, she may be able to help find someone in your area.

    I don’t have any children, but I’m sure that every child in the world cares not one iota about how they came into it (vaginal, c-section, whatever). They just care about having loving parents and you are obviously that!

    Best of luck to you.

  • Erin W says:

    @Kristin: Glad you can laugh at my weakness! ;) In answer to your question, while the smell did not help any, believe me, I think it was mostly the invasive medical procedure I was witnessing that brought me down.

    Also, since yesterday I thought of another time I passed out while getting blood drawn. Maybe I need more iron or something.

    In all seriousness, it is a form of anxiety that I have, and I still think we shouldn’t discount that Expecting‘s husband might also have a very real physical manifestation of intense anxiety. We all feel for laboring mothers, but he might not be able to fight the physicality of what is happening to him any more than the laboring mother can fight what is happening to her. (It’s not an equal burden, OF COURSE, but it’s certainly overwhelming and not something he can necessarily power through just because he’s a big boy.) c8h10n4o2‘s recommendation of behavior modification therapy is right on the money. Possibly he could grow to be desensitized to this stuff in time to be a real participant in the event.

    Good luck with everything, Expecting.

  • Momcat says:

    I’m 66–probably a lot older than most posters (just to put my comment in perspective). I had two kids, both by C-section. My husband and I were prepared to go the natural childbirth route, but when the C-section turned out to be necessary, the hospital put him out of the room. Here’s my take: Your life as parents is long; the time in the delivery room is short (although 48 hours isn’t short by any measure!). If he’s a great husband and dad in other respects, why not cut him some slack in this one?

  • MizShrew says:

    I don’t have children, so I can’t even bend my mind around how difficult your first birth was, Expecting. I think others with more relevant experience have offered great suggestions. I think I’d be in the “I’m going through the hell, you can suck it up and stand by me” camp, but I didn’t go through that first birth, so… not judging.

    I agree with @Matt: I imagine the first birth experience is eating at Husband. My husband would never forgive himself if he left me in the midst of a terrifying situation like that.

    @Sharon: I really hope your post was a failed effort at satire or parody. You honestly would like us to maintain the fiction that every female function — including childbirth — is a 1950s Summer’s Eve commercial? If you are less than 90 years old that is disturbing. This is not to say that it’s wrong if *as a couple* they decide that it’s OK for Husband to opt out of the delivery room. But the idea that men must be shielded from female reproductive reality? Come on.

  • Amanduh says:

    I do have one question that I don’t think I saw anyone else ask (though maybe I overlooked it): have you actually asked your friends if they’d be willing to go, or are you just assuming that they’d laugh at you? Even if you got pregnant tonight, the delivery would be 40 weeks away. Their little kids will be 40 weeks older and better able to handle being away from mommy for 16 hours. And they would have 40 weeks to look into taking time off and making sure they have someone who can watch the kids for them.

    I agree that it would be best if he would work through whatever fear/horror he has, and come into the delivery room with you. But there have been a couple of times when I let people guilt me into doing something that I desperately did not want to do. I tried with every fiber of my being to pretend that I was doing OK. But one of them later said, “Under the frozen smile, you looked ready to cry, and you radiated so much unhappiness and tension that everyone else was unhappy and tense too. I’m sorry I told you to suck it up and do it, because it actually made things worse than if you hadn’t gone.” And that wasn’t even a potentially life-threatening situation.

    Therapy isn’t a magic bullet. Your husband could spend 6 months going to weekly visits, and yet still not be able to get over the feeling that the next time he goes into a delivery room, he’ll have to watch you die.

    If you haven’t actually asked your friends, you may want to. You might have one who shouts YES because they’re thrilled and honored to be asked; you might have one who still thinks birth is a precious miracle and would like to experience it when she’s not the one who’s exhausted and in pain. And based on my own life experience, I’ve come to feel it may be better to be with a third-choice person who is excited to be there, than have my first-choice staring catatonically at the wall in obvious distress, making ME even more stressed.

  • Shannon says:

    @ferretrick – too right. I am very, very lucky to have a husband who, despite a fear of needles and blood that makes him physically ill, managed to switch it all off cold turkey during my two c-sections. It’s, um, kind of terrifying to get cut open. He held my hand, talked to me, reassured me, and later told me he wouldn’t have traded seeing his daughters born for anything. You man up and get the hell over it when you need to.

  • M says:

    I strongly believe that it is just as important for there to be a happy, healthy mother at the end of delivery, as it is for the baby to be well. So, I would build from that perspective.

    It may mean that waiting to conceive and working on any mental blocks is what’s best for the 3 members of the current family.

    Side note: My dad missed most of his childrens’ births due to a tendency to faint at blood. He was able to hang out up till the births and was right outside the door. Except for the baby that was an emergency C section for a preemie. He went in the OR and and didn’t look around at all. He is a great dad. Though it must be said, when we had to go to the ER for stitches, my mom drove.

  • Illi says:

    I don’t have the link, but after I gave birth someone emailed me an article that said that a recent study found that women who undergo difficult births can suffer from PTSD. I don’t remember if the article addresses the birth partners but I would not be surprised if the other parent may also experience some form of Post Traumatic Stress. For many of us, birth is the only time in our lives when we find ourselves in such a high-stress, high-peril situation and for so long. The outcome is also the biggest joy we’ll ever know, but that doesn’t change the difficulty of the process.

    I mention this because, while I can’t speak for your hubby, I can imagine he may not be trying to be unsupportive, nor may he be resistant to having another child. For him, it may just be that experiencing your first child’s birth was actually that traumatizing. If he is resistant to therapy that makes it hard to find a solution but I’m sure with more honest, non-judgemental discussion you guys can get there.

    I had my husband and my sister in the room with me and they were both wonderful. Having an extra person was really nice for all of us, they could take breaks, go get a coffee, etc. And for the tougher parts, one could refresh the cold cloths or bring me more water while the other stayed with me…

  • Cora says:

    I wonder if Sharon’s husband is the Richard who inspired this video, which I think is one of the more hilarious things I’ve seen in a LONG time.

  • dk says:

    Just a note to the pregnant women reading this thread – ignore Sharon. My husband still finds me plenty attractive, despite having been present when our son came out of my vagina. All is well. Jesus.

  • Erin McJ says:

    Ditto to dk. Actually, I think my husband finds me *more* attractive. The rockstar/goddess/superhero glow is a real thing.

  • Tanya says:

    Doula, doula, doula. Even when things go right, having someone who’s experienced and on your side makes everyone’s lives a easier. Also, given that you will have a toddler to deal with, you’re going to need a ton of help. This is not the time to try to go it alone.

    I understand wanting your husband with you. But the second birth will probably be easier, and you will also have your first child do deal with. At the very minimum, I’d ask your parents or in-laws to be available for babysitting, and mentally prepare yourself for the fact that your husband now has responsibilities for three people, one of whom will not be in the hospital with you. I’m expecting my second as well, and we are basically prepared for the fact that my husband cannot provide the same level of support he did with the first one, because he needs to balance our daughter’s needs vs. mine.

  • JT says:

    While I totally understand why your husband wouldn’t want to witness a potential repeat of your last childbirth experience, can he honestly say that he’d be able to live with himself if something terrible were to happen and he hadn’t even tried to be there? I can’t imagine a situation where telling himself, “At least I didn’t have to see it!” would be much consolation.

    But I too am in a cohort of friends with young children, and most of us would absolutely be available at any hour to be a birthing partner to a friend who needed one. Most of us have partners who can swing a night of kid duty on their own. Don’t rule out that option before you’ve asked.

  • Candace says:

    My son also didn’t breathe for many minutes after he was born and he had to be transferred via ambulance to a different hospital. I was hemorrhaging and had to stay behind. My husband did what we both wanted him to do and went to the other hospital with our son. That was 8 years ago and I still remember so clearly what that felt like, to be so exhausted and scared and alone. We didn’t have a choice and I still felt abandoned.

    I think you should wait to have another child until your husband can find a way to stay with you through the delivery. Hopefully your next birth will not be so traumatic, but he needs to be there.

  • lemon says:

    I think there is a lot of reaction against your husband on this thread because he isn’t “manning up”, but what if the roles were reversed? I think most posters would say that a man who demands that you do what he wants you to do, no matter how emotionally horrific it will be, is not a good husband. If he genuinely cannot handle the emotional trauma, it’s a bit cruel to say that he has to in order to be a “good” husband.

    If he really can’t be there, maybe you could treat the situation as if it were a physical impossibility for him to be there: what would you do if he broke his leg a week before your due date and had to be in traction and literally could not be in the delivery room? You wouldn’t refuse to go into labor, and you wouldn’t be mad at him forever, you would call someone else and ask them to be there to support you, right?
    It may feel like you’d be giving up everything and he’d be giving up nothing, but he’s the one who is so terrified he can’t bring himself to see his baby be born, so he’s not exactly winning. I think you should make plans that don’t require him, and then see how things turn out; he might change his mind and he might not, but I don’t think him being in the delivery room or not should have the power to ruin your marriage or keep you from having more children.

    Good luck!

  • MizShrew says:

    @lemon: On the one hand, I totally see your point. No one would want a husband who demanded that his wife do something that terrified her. But that’s just it, too: The roles *can’t* be reversed. They both want another child, to achieve that Expecting has to go through with the labor and delivery in spite of her (very reasonable) fears and her traumatic experience last time around. She doesn’t have an out. That’s why it feels so wrong for her husband to throw up his hands and say “nope, can’t deal with it, won’t even try to address it, no can do.”

    Again, I think the awesome parents here at the Nation have made fantastic suggestions. Hopefully Expecting and her husband can come to an agreement where Husband can avoid the delivery while Expecting gets the support she needs. And a marriage is a lifetime, not that one day. But still. This is one of those moments when you expect your partner to have your back at all costs, and he’s not up for it. I don’t blame her for feeling unhappy about that. I would too.

  • Karina says:

    I had a c-section after long labor with my first, and my doula was allowed in the OR with us. For the second I tried for a VBAC but ended up with another c-section, and our doula was not allowed in the OR with us (different hospital, different rules I guess). I definitely agree that you should figure out the hospital policy before hiring a doula.

  • Emmers says:

    DOULA DOULA DOULA This is what they are there for.

  • amy b says:

    I also had an emergency, unexpected c-section for my first child, and it scared my husband half to death. He is already squeemish, and the idea that I was going to have any kind of operation really disturbed him.

    The second time, I had an unexpected natural birth (generally c-sections are the way to go for the next kid, if you’ve already had one), and my husband handled it much better, perhaps because it seemed more predictable and in control – not that it necessarily was. Maybe the fact that it will (hopefully) be less dramatic this time might change his mind.

    If not…well, sometimes you have to kind of try to accept someone’s sensitivities. I wasn’t planning on insisting that my husband come in either time, because I know how worried he gets. He was probably equally afraid that something would happen to you.

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