so you had a c/sec ....

Was it necessary?

What if you needed another one?

How do you feel about the prospect of further surgery? Do you think you could handle it better or worse? Why?

My first wasn't necessary, and it left me in a puddle of ptsd and pnd. So I thought I could never handle it again, and had a panic attack during the second surgery, which was necessary due to genuine distress. It was different from the first one because I actually laboured, I wasn't drugged to the eye balls, the baby needed it, and a few other reasons.

How would I handle another one? I'd be really disappointed, but I would know that it was needed because I will only hire trusted care providers and I know a darn site more than I did before.

Was it necessary?

Perhaps it was, in the end...but it shouldn't have become so!

What if you needed another one?

I'd have to be pretty thoroughly convinced that it was necessary...

How do you feel about the prospect of further surgery? Do you think you could handle it better or worse? Why?

I think I'd be devastated...though next time around I'll be giving myself a much better chance to avoid it.

Great topic Morgaine. There's so much emotional material that gets involved here, on an individual and societal level, so it's important to deconstruct it.

Was it necessary?



Perhaps it was, in the end...but it shouldn't have become so!

This is a great example of what I am getting at. Many people may take a pro- or anti-caesarean approach to this. And it's completely okay and wise to have a stance of things like caesarean, given that the stance is researched, takes into your own intuition and experience, and isn't a blind copy of someone else's opinion that you haven't fully considered for yourself.

Looking at the whole context of the caesarean, like Kirkie has done here, is so much more useful as a learning experience than deploring the caesarean, that it should never have happened, and ending at that. This kind of attitude limits us.

Kirkie will now be able to look at her experience, see what helped to create a situation in which a caesarean became the option utilized, and if she chooses, avoid or deal with these kinds of things next time. And it's not just looking at the physical context: the emotional, spiritual, social, psychological...they all have a role to play too.

So let's talk about the context too!

I could have posted that exactly about both of my surgeries Kirkie!

From a hindsight perspective I know that I handled it totally differently the second time. I often wonder whether or not that was because I was older, I planned differently (I transferred from a homebirth) and whether the natural birth process - which I only encountered during my second birth because my first was the whole cascade of interventions and the second was natural onset, natural labour then eventual necessary c/sec.

I thought I would fall apart if I needed surgery again. I had undiagnosed ptsd from my first birth that lead me to a place where I was physically unable to consider the possibility of needing another surgery. I had a massive panic attack in the operating theatre because I was so fearful of all the terrible, painful (emotionally and physically) things that had happened 8yrs earlier. But it was different.

I have several explanations for that - as I said above - but in the end all the matters is that it was different. I wish I could proscribe a path for women who are in the position I was in, but the truth is that no one can. The only way to know how you will handle potential re-surgery is to go there. And I certainly hope to help women avoid THAT!!!!