#359 | When VBAC Comes with Medical Assault: Abby's Birth Story

In this episode, Abby shares her VBAC birth story following an emergency cesarean. Determined to experience a vaginal birth, she prepared carefully while navigating limited provider options in Alabama. What unfolded during labor and delivery underscores how provider behavior, rather than maternal physiology, often determines birth outcomes. Abby describes how a manual vaginal extraction caused a nearly catastrophic fourth-degree tear, requiring three subsequent surgeries in the months that followed and significantly disrupting her early postpartum period with her newborn.

We ask Abby whether she has considered legal action against the doctor and hospital, and we explore how birth trauma shapes future decision-making. Abby explains why she is choosing a repeat cesarean for her third baby after this traumatic vaginal birth, and what autonomy and dignity can still look like within surgical birth.

She also reflects on how faith, support, and intentional processing helped her move forward, and what she hopes other women will take from her story.

Learn more about Abby here: http://www.abbyevelynphotography.com

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, birth educator, advocate for informed consent, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Show. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

My name is Abby, and I’m a mom of almost three. My third is coming this summer, and being a mom is the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s incredible. For a time I didn’t think I wanted kids, and I can’t believe I ever felt that way. That’s so crazy. I’m glad that it didn’t turn out that way.

I love to watercolor and read, and those are all things that have spilled over into motherhood that I get to do with my kids too. So, yeah.

You’re here to tell a birth story. Are you not? So which baby’s birth is?

This is my second baby. It was my more intense story. She was a VBAC. I had an emergency cesarean with my first, and that was really crazy in and of itself, but I decided I was not going to miss out on a VBAC. I was going to do everything I could, and so I did all the prep. I got pregnant six months post C-section, so it’s pretty quick, and I felt lucky to have found a doctor that would let me VBAC that early after C-section, and I fought really hard for all the things I thought were important and it did not go as expected.

Tell us a little bit about how you chose the VBAC provider.

Well, in Alabama, there’s not a lot of options. Almost no one was open to being a provider for VBAC, so my options were pretty limited, and I scoured Facebook and mom groups and Reddit and everything you could think of to try to get personal stories about doctors. This one lady stood out as being VBAC friendly, and more VBAC friendly than anyone else around. And so that was kind of my only choice.

I met with her, and she was supportive. She was a little wary, I think, maybe partly because of the timeframe, and also because so many things that I wanted were quite crunchy. She didn’t love delayed cord clamping, and she didn’t love a lot of things that I had opted for.

Okay, wait, I just have to jump in. I mean, maybe consuming your placenta raw is crunchy. Delayed cord clamping is not crunchy.

In Alabama, it is. I think this is fascinating, because to us, this is like, how could any provider be so uneducated as to not know today that that is so much better for a baby, and how could they also not understand that VBAC is so much safer for the mother and baby, and that’s why I asked that question about how you chose your provider. Because what we do know about VBAC and VBAC success has much more to do with the provider who’s attending the birth than it does with the mother’s ability to give birth vaginally or not. So given that you were in Alabama and had very limited choices and some still outdated health care, you were up against a lot. You had a lot of roadblocks, I’m sure.

Yeah, it was. I felt like an enemy every time I walked into the office, even though they were like the nicest in regard to my situation. So I don’t know that I could place all the blame on them. I think I was pretty wary myself, because my cesarean experience was brutal. I had been in labor for 72 hours. My son’s forehead had gotten stuck on my pelvis, and so he was not coming out. And there were no spinning baby experts in that hospital, so no one could help me. And so it was very intense, very emergent by the time we reached that point.

And so I think I was just already scared, and I was scared to let anything go. Like I had to have my way with the VBAC, because I couldn’t experience that again, what I’d done before. And so I’m sure they felt some pushback from me as well.

But yeah, she seemed on board with a lot of what I wanted, even if it wasn’t her favorite thing, she still said, okay, like we can make that happen, and so we move forward. And she was pretty supportive.

Up until the very end, she pushed me on a couple interventions that I was not going to do. I actually opted to skip most of my appointments at the very end, because they were pushing for, they wanted to make sure the baby came right at 40 weeks and no later, and so they were going to try to make that happen. And so I just canceled. I don’t even think I rescheduled. I think I just said I’ll call to schedule my appointment, and walked out of the office and never called.

And I hate that. I hate that there wasn’t a safe enough feeling to just see a doctor. Like you have to lie and manipulate and feel like you can’t tell them, I’m not comfortable coming, I just won’t be there. That was disappointing.

But she seemed great, and then she left. Her shift ended four hours before my baby was born. So right when I got my epidural, she said, see ya if you’re still here in the morning. And so she left.

And the OB who took her place, we were made to believe she was the only OB available in hospital. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s definitely what they implied.

I don’t even know where to start with her. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. Not one time. Not one time did she look at me. I vaguely remember her face, but not very well. And I think it’s just because she never looked at me. The only time she looked at me, we’ll get to that. There was one time, and only once.

But she talked around me. I would ask questions, like pointed questions, and she would answer it to my doula or to a nurse in the room. It was so strange.

What the heck was going on with her? This is a bigger deal than it sounds. This is a big deal. We can’t really control our eyes that much without conscious effort. It’s part of the nervous system. So if she’s not engaging with you, and the way the eyes are the windows into the soul, if you want to connect with someone, you’re always looking in their eyes. If you want to know how your children are doing, you’re always exploring their eyes. And the fact that she was not making eye contact speaks volumes. What did it say to you? Was she just antisocial awkward or was there something more?

Definitely me. I think they had a copy of my birth plan. They didn’t appreciate it. The nurses, I think, probably had spoken ill of me to her prior to her coming into my room.

I was a very loud laborer. Very loud. I scared myself a little bit.

Hold on. They were speaking ill of you because you were a loud laboring woman.

I was told several times that I was going to scare other women on the floor. And they didn’t want me walking around the hallway. They said I needed to stay in my room.

And by the time I got the epidural—

I was not caving. That’s not caving. That’s choosing an epidural. That’s a legitimate choice. That’s okay.

I felt that way because I was scared that it would ruin my VBAC, that it would—

I got it. It does slow labor. It does make another C-section more likely. I see what you’re saying.

I’ve been refusing cervical checks. I had been kind of touchy about, I didn’t want them. I didn’t want continuous monitoring, because they were, it was crazy how much they were in there fixing it.

Then they manage the machine instead of attending to the woman. That’s exactly what happens. They’re watching the output of the machine and not the output of the woman. It becomes the thing in the room rather than the human being giving birth.

It’s true. So I do think the nurses already had a bad taste and probably communicated that like, oh, this is going to be a bugger of a patient. I don’t know, but she came in with an attitude. She wanted to get in and out. She did not want to deal with me.

And I had learned over the course of preparing for this VBAC that I had to stand up for myself. My husband was incredible, my doula was great. But I’m the one who did all the research and all the prep, and so I was not backing down. And I think they weren’t used to that.

Like I said, it’s very much not a community that gives any room for more modern approaches, more evidence-based approaches. They’re just sticking to what they’ve known for a long time.

So actually more old-fashioned approaches. Outdated.

Let’s just call it what it is. They just aren’t keeping up with the science.

I’m just saying when you call it modern, to follow it’s evidence-based, yes, it is technically modern from society’s perspective, but it is all that humans have ever experienced for hundreds of thousands of years. So it’s the most old-fashioned of the methods.

So anyway, she—

Let me just ask one more question before you proceed. I don’t think you told us briefly how you went into labor. There was pressure to go into labor by 40 weeks. You talked about not showing up for all your prenatals. But how did labor actually begin for you?

I stayed home, and it started around midnight one night, and I hung out until 7 a.m. and then headed to the hospital. My contractions were pretty close together and consistent.

How many weeks were you?

I was 40 and five for my second pregnancy.

So you had not gone to that last appointment, and then you did not have another one. You just walked into the hospital when you were in labor.

Okay, beautiful. Great. I’m glad I asked. And so she came in.

I already had my epidural at that point, and it was time for me to push. And I could still feel my contractions. My epidural wasn’t terribly strong. It took a lot of pressure off, but I could feel my contractions still. And so it was time to push.

And she came in and would not look at me, would not talk directly to me, and said, okay, it’s time to push.

And I said, I’m not pushing on my back. I have to get off my back. Somebody’s got to help me off my back.

And she said, she just sat there, and she was like, no, we’re not doing that. You’re delivering on your back.

And I said, no, I’m not going to push until I’m off my back. I’m not doing it. I was terrified of tearing. And so I was like, somebody—

And my husband started to try to help me off my back, and they yelled at him. My husband is big and strong and scary, and I was so appreciative of him trying, but I also was scared that the nurses would, if he fought back too much, they might kick him out. They might say they felt threatened or whatever. At that point, I was just worst case scenario in my head.

And so he tried, but they put that to a stop.

What did they say to him?

Oh, you’re not a medical professional. You could tear out her epidural. You could XYZ. You can’t do that. You’re going to make things worse.

And so my doula couldn’t help me, and I didn’t want her to get blacklisted from the hospital. And so none of the nurses would help me.

And one of them tried. She came over, and she goes, well, you could move this way. And the doctor just, I don’t even remember exactly what she said, but I remember hearing her snap at her, and the nurse left the room.

So the nurses I was left with were ones that wanted very much to do whatever the doctor was saying they should do.

And so she started threatening to take me back to a cesarean. And of course, that was like my biggest fear in all of this. And so I lost everything. I lost all of my gumption.

She—this is the one time she looked me in the eye. She sat between my legs on her little rolly stool, and she stared me down. She crossed her arms and glared at me in the eyes.

And I kept talking to her, kept asking her questions. Silence. Wouldn’t even talk.

And so a couple threats in, you know, we’re going to have to go to the OR, I was terrified. I was like, I can’t do it again.

And so I just started to push.

And I was not purple pushing. I was using my breath. And they didn’t like that. You’re not doing it right. You need to hold your breath.

And so I remember so vividly, trying to make it look on my face like I was purple pushing, even though I was letting my breath out. Wow. Why was I worried about that?

That could be wanting to be left alone. You were trying to find a way to follow your instinct and get them to shut up.

Yeah. And so anyway, I pushed. I’m not really sure how long. My husband thinks it was about an hour.

And I remember my husband and my doula and I all very specifically told or asked the doctor, like, you aren’t going to pull the baby out, right? Like the baby can be born in two contractions, one body and another.

And she said yes to all of us. And it was, all three said it during the pushing phase.

So I birthed my daughter’s head, and my body took a break. I was not contracting. There was no shoulder dystocia, there was no cord around the neck, there was no complication. My body had stopped contracting after I got her head out, and the doctor pulled my baby out.

Your body took a pause, yeah. Didn’t stop contracting, but your body took a pause, and she couldn’t tolerate the pause.

It was very clear to everyone. I could feel my contractions. I knew I wasn’t contracting. The machine was obviously showing everyone in the room I was not contracting.

And she just whipped my baby out.

And my husband remembers, he saw it. All he saw. So I ended up with a fourth degree tear. He saw my feet just go as she did it. And he remembers saying, like, why? Why is she being so aggressive with our baby? Like, there wasn’t anything wrong.

And he’s not nearly as engaged in all of the birth information as I am, which is fair. And even he was like, that was unnecessary. She did that just because she wanted to. It was so obvious to the room.

You don’t have to be highly educated in birth or have listened to our podcast or read all the birth books to be able to identify when somebody is abusing another person’s body, when somebody is doing something so unnatural and unnecessary that it feels wrong viscerally. How could that be right? How could that be how a baby has to be born? And look what it did to your body.

Yeah, I’m feeling a lot of suppressed rage right now. It’s not about how I feel, but I just have to stop and say I’m feeling so much rage. I’m still feeling so upset and angry about how she stared at you, how she purposefully stonewalled you and intimidated you with eye contact for the first time. She leaned back, crossed her arms and stared you down. What kind of devil is this woman?

But the fact that she then pulled your baby out, I feel rage that she did that to your baby, that she did that to you.

Can you tell us how that actually was for you? Did you feel angry?

I felt angry for a long time. I don’t really feel angry anymore.

That’s good, but why not?

Because I serve a God who is faithful and merciful, even when every circumstance around me would say otherwise. I live in a broken world with a broken hospital system and broken people. And I think the relationship I have with my daughter, I can’t even put it into words. It is so unbelievably healing. She is everything that I needed to get over this. She’s just like this little healing beam of light. She’s so sweet.

It took a lot of time. I had to really actively choose to forgive this woman, over and over and over. And eventually it got easier.

I wrote a lot about it, I prayed a lot about it, screamed a lot about it in my car, and I was alone because the aftermath was the hardest part. And the hospital experience was rough, and being treated that way was rough, and especially the postpartum.

What happened after that was that they removed my epidural and then they sutured my fourth degree tear. My husband was a football player, and he has experienced a lot of intense surgeries, and he knows it’s easier to get ahead of the pain than to try to catch up with it. He begged them to give me pain meds as they were stitching me up, so that when I got into postpartum I would have a head start. They flat out refused. We don’t do that.

And so they repaired me a couple hours in the delivery room. That same OB was the one repairing the tear.

She was punishing you from the beginning.

It was completely on purpose. It all was. I know people could disagree with my birth preferences, but I don’t know what has to reside in a person’s heart for them to let that be enough of an excuse to show that kind of evil intent for another human being. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.

I hope she’s okay. I hope there’s not something so terribly wrong in her life that she’ll always treat people that way, and if there is, I hope she gets over it, because no one should go through that.

Speaking of faith, you’re the embodiment of grace. I know it took a long time. I’m glad to hear you went through the emotions of anger. You’re a human being, and you’re supposed to have a healthy response when boundaries are crossed.

When we talk about the problems in modern birth and particularly in obstetrical care, we’re typically blaming it on pressure from the system, their education, the philosophy they’ve been trained under. They don’t understand birth, they don’t respect physiology, and they have pressure from the hospital and liabilities. But this is a malicious person. This is a person who purposefully harmed you and your baby because she didn’t like what you were choosing.

This is what’s happened to women in birth. You take a woman in her most vulnerable moment, you put her on her back, you take away her power, you control her, you dominate her. What other way can you keep women down than by doing that? And to have another woman do it to a woman is enraging. It’s so horrible. It’s so sad. I’m so sorry you experienced that.

Thank you. I remember reading that only 2% of women experience fourth degree tears, and I was like, really? That’s a really small amount. I don’t know about that.

I do know after the repair, by the time they sent me up the elevator into the postpartum ward, I was in such intense pain. I was speaking gibberish. Literally could not make English sentences. My husband thought that I was having a stroke.

He called the postpartum nurse in. The postpartum nurses were awesome. The postpartum nurse came in. She goes, what’s wrong with her? And my husband was like, it’s possible she’s having a stroke, but I think she’s just in pain.

And she goes, why didn’t they give her whatever? And he said no, they refused. They wouldn’t do it. They said she couldn’t have anything till she got up here.

That nurse went straight to the phone that’s on the wall. She was in my room. She called down to the delivery floor and screamed, don’t you ever send me a patient in this much pain before or again. What do you think you’re doing? How dare you send a patient up in this condition?

Wow. I remember thinking, okay, maybe I’ll be okay when I heard her phone call.

And what hasn’t been said yet in that scene is that you were assaulted. We have to call it what it actually is. It was plain as day. They take you when you’re vulnerable, they put you on your back, they open your legs, they invade us, they pull the baby out. This is the very definition of medical assault.

It’s very painful to hear your story. I’m so sorry that this is your story, but go on.

When she got angry, did you feel like, okay, this is not just me. Like this was not supposed to happen this way. What did that do for you?

I definitely felt validated. It felt like everyone in the delivery floor was against me. Everyone was on her side. The nurses were awful. So when I heard that, it was like, there’s an ally. And not just an ally who would be nice to me to my face, but one who was willing to say something out loud.

And I was delirious. I was in a really bad way. So I don’t think I probably have a whole lot of clarity on those specific memories, but I do remember thinking someone’s going to do something.

My husband, poor guy, was probably just beside himself, did not know what to do, and was so supportive and sweet and incredible and fought for me. I remember hearing him leave the room a bunch of times and yell at nurses, like, give her something. Get her something. Get in this room.

And so postpartum was really hard. My mom moved in with us for three months because I could not walk.

I had three subsequent surgeries after the initial repair to try to fix things.

Three additional surgeries.

Yeah.

How come? Why did you need even the first additional surgery?

She didn’t do it right. I really should have been sent to a colorectal surgeon because of how severe the tear was, and I wasn’t. She did it herself. And so I had to have several surgeries with a colorectal surgeon specifically after that to try to fix all of the function that had gone wonky.

And so that was excruciating. I remember there were times in that recovery, those three months, where my mom was essentially just taking care of my kids.

I think that’s the hardest part of all of this. I missed a lot of time with my newborn baby and with my sweet son, who was still a tiny baby at that time because they were so close together. I missed his first steps because I was in bed. And I think that is the hardest part to get over, is the stuff that I missed while I was recovering.

There were times in that recovery where I didn’t know if I was going to make it through. There were several times I thought I would die. I was on heavy amounts of Percocet, and it was not even touching the pain. And I really started to lose hope.

And my cousin sent me a book. I don’t know how. I guess my mom had mentioned things were bad. And she sent me a book called Breath as Prayer. Everyone should look it up. I’ve sent it to so many moms since reading it myself. It’s a book that has teeny tiny prayers. Like, you created me. You sustain me. That’s the whole prayer. Like you can breathe it in and breathe it out.

And I think that’s really what it took to get me over the edge of despair, because I could not come up with the words myself. And I thought everything my mom and husband were saying to encourage me, they were saying because they had to, not because it was true.

And so knowing that when all you can do is breathe and you can’t come up with words, you can’t even think straight, you can’t process what you’ve just been through, that book really was a great aid for me, because I didn’t have to say anything. I could just breathe. I could read the prayers as I was taking a breath in and a breath out, and it was a really sweet way to just keep going.

So that was a really long recovery. I was in bed for 10 solid weeks. And a couple weeks after that, my mom left. That was really hard because they live five states away, and so they’re very far away.

And I have still like a lot of complications, pelvic complications from it. I’ve been to PT. I don’t know if it will ever be enough to help or not.

But I remember, we were in the postpartum room. This is the craziest part. I have tried multiple times to get my records from the hospital, and I have never received them.

That’s the law. They have to. I would call the American Medical Association and report that.

I think it’s partly just the system they have, like a third party team of people they’ve hired who are very hard to communicate with. They might be in another country. I don’t know. It’s like when you call a billing office and it’s obviously not in the office where you had your appointment.

Okay, but they have a certain amount of time, whether it’s 30 days or whatever, they have to get it to you by that time. I wouldn’t be lying down.

You can call the Department of Health of your state.

Yeah, I definitely intend to keep going until I get them, because I want to know what they say. Because I would bet a good chunk of money that they don’t say what actually happened.

And I never saw anyone again. The doctor I’d seen in my prenatal care came in when she got back for her next shift and said, oh, I heard things were rough, but you had a great, you were in the best hands. And that’s all she said.

And I knew they were best friends before any of this happened, and so I wasn’t going to talk to her about it.

And one of the postpartum nurses said, okay, the OBs are doing their rounds, so your OB is going to come in and check on you. And my husband stood up out of his chair. He was on his phone. We’d been there for days because I had such a rough go, I had to stay a long time.

He popped out of that chair and he said, if she walks in this room, there’s a good chance she’s not going to walk back out. Do not send her. And so we never saw her again.

My six week appointment was with my prenatal care OB. I remember him being so scared that I would just see the OB who delivered my baby when I went in there, and so I just kept my eyes on the floor, tried to get in and out of the appointment.

And so it was all really hard.

But now I have another sweet baby on the way, and there was so much fear for a long time. We love the age gap between our first two. It is so sweet. They are obsessed with each other. And if this second birth hadn’t gone so roughly, I think we would have stayed a little bit closer to that gap.

But this baby will be exactly two years, almost exactly two years apart from my second. It took a long time to get over the fears of what does it look like to get pregnant again, and could I get pregnant again, and could my body, would my body fall apart, I don’t know.

And so we just trusted that the Lord would sustain my body if he so chose to give us another baby, and he did.

And I’m so excited. I was scared for like a week, the first week I knew I was pregnant, and then it just all went away.

I am disappointed to move forward with a scheduled C-section. It breaks my heart. I loved being in labor. I thought it was awesome.

But I can’t risk not being around for my other two kids for that long again.

And truly, as crazy as it sounds, I do consider myself lucky. A lot of women that I’ve met through this process have ended up with colostomy bags and other more intense complications, lifelong complications. I’m not even in that same boat. I feel like I can’t even complain, and so I don’t want to risk that. I don’t want to risk anything getting worse, because we want a lot of babies, and I’m so thankful.

I went to my first appointment for this pregnancy yesterday. I’m halfway, so I’m already 20 weeks.

But I went to my first appointment yesterday, and the OB was awesome. He said I could have everything I wanted. He said I could have delayed cord clamping. I could have immediate skin to skin. My arms wouldn’t have to be strapped down this time.

There were everything I asked for that I was terrified. I had my questions on my phone, and my hands were shaking because I was like, what is he going to say?

And he was like, yeah, of course. Yep, that’s good. Yep, that’s normal. And I was like, oh my God.

So I’m a little sad, but I can’t take back my experience. I can’t make it any better than it was. It happened already.

And so I can make the best of it. I can share whatever is helpful to other women and move forward with wisdom. And I think in this case, that means having a C-section.

I’m thankful it’s an option given my circumstance. So we’re excited. We cannot wait to meet this baby, and I feel hopeful that I won’t have the intense need to advocate for myself quite as much this round.

I have two questions for you. You talked about your choice to have a C-section this time, and the way you characterize that decision was that you can’t afford to be away from your babies. Totally understandable.

What in your mind would cause a scenario where you wouldn’t be around your babies? What if you had a better provider? Again, I’m not trying to sway your thinking at all. I know our listeners want to hear your entire thought process.

Women grapple with this decision after traumatic vaginal birth, understandably, and no one wants another traumatic vaginal birth. Many women say their C-section was way better than their traumatic vaginal birth. Trauma is trauma.

But my question is, how would you envision the next birth? Obviously, the damage was done unto you. So if you weren’t on your back, if you didn’t have an abusive provider, which you would make sure of this time, what do you envision would go wrong this time?

Do you believe that because of the damage she caused, you would have a higher propensity of tearing? What’s your thought process? Because I didn’t catch it.

Sure. Yeah. That’s mostly what it comes down to. I have heard a lot of women who went on to have another vaginal birth after fourth degree tear, who just had first or second degree tear. And that gave me a lot of hope for a long time that maybe I could do it.

But I went to see a urogynecologist specialist, and she said that the way the OB repaired me, it made my perineum so short that there’s basically no hope. And she said, I want to tell you that you can, but I think that you would put yourself in a lifelong handicap. You would, like, this is not—also because I am still experiencing—

That makes sense. You didn’t just have a standard fourth degree tear.

We talk on the podcast about women who have third or fourth degree tears and go on to have vaginal births with no tear. It’s very possible, but your level of trauma around this and the way it stole three months of your life and your baby’s life and your early mothering, that’s a whole different ball game.

And knowing she wasn’t sewn up well by the abusive—

Potentially intentionally bad, or this woman just didn’t know what she was doing and did it anyway. And multiple surgeries, not just one stitch. This isn’t a different category. This is a fifth degree tear.

I had another question, but now I have two more questions. So I remember my second question, and then I have another one.

My second question is, have you and your new provider considered having you go into labor naturally and spontaneously this time, and then having a C-section when you’re in labor? Because you said you loved being in labor.

So have you considered that option? I’ve had a lot of clients with breech babies who chose that option, and it was very satisfying for them. Or do you feel that’s too much of a risk because the third baby could always come quickly and it’s a risk you don’t even want to take?

Given my history and labor, I don’t think a third baby would come terribly quickly. Even my second labor was like 27 hours. So that’s not a concern.

It’s interesting you asked that. I was actually just thinking about that this morning. What would it look like if I did that? And I don’t know the science behind what a C-section looks like while you’re in labor versus before you’re in labor.

Well, that’s how most of them are happening, right? Women find it to be a very empowering, satisfying experience. So if it tempts you, if you find yourself thinking about it, if you thought of it this morning before even coming on this podcast, give it some thought. Give it some consideration, and then talk to your provider about it, because it really might make a difference for you.

The thing I want women to know when they’re having a C-section is they still have options. You want to put a lot of attention into the bonding afterwards. But you even have birth options, and the conditions of the C-section should be lovely and beautiful, and obviously your arms should be free.

It’s appalling to me that they ever tie a woman’s arms down, honestly. But like music playing and everything that makes you feel happy and relaxed.

But do see about that, because it seems like you already came up with the idea. I always tell everyone, pursue anything that comes to mind, because your unconscious is revealing something to you. See it through. Make a conscious decision not to do it or look into doing it.

My third question for you, I think everyone has on their mind, is: have you thought about suing the doctor and the hospital?

Yes. I don’t think it’s possible to go through what I went through and not fantasize about what that would look like.

I spoke to a lawyer. I presented all of the evidence. I had everything, my husband had everything, the doula had. And her advice was, you will waste your life and your money and your heart on this, because you will not win.

And this is a lawyer who stood to make some money off my case, but she had done a lot of medical law before.

And I think we all know that the hospital protects the doctors, and the doctors protect the hospital, and the nurses protect the doctor. And so there’s that level of it. But I also, there just wasn’t enough hard evidence to bring anything, to have any momentum at all.

And I had been through so much emotionally. I think that’s kind of what did the full stop. Like I’m not going to pursue this, because I did report her, but I didn’t pursue legal action because I don’t think my heart could take it.

I had been through so much, and I was continually going through even more as I went back to the hospital, I had more surgeries, and struggled to take care of my children by myself. And I think it was a weight I couldn’t take on at that time.

And the problem is the medical input, the medical authorities or whoever is looking at the case, is going to say, this is how babies are born. The head comes out and you pull the baby out. That’s normal for them. That is normal for them.

It’s wrong. And she did it in a way that was abusive, disrespectful. I don’t even want to go back to that visual, but the lawyer was right. They’re not going to see it that way.

Yeah. What do you want to say to women who’ve gone through completely traumatic births where they’re just enraged?

Trisha and I do birth story processing sessions with women, and we’re very close to women who share things with us. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel so much compassion for a woman who’s got to live with so much anger.

So I know faith was the main thing for you. Do you have anything to say to them about it? Was it purely faith? I’m sure you can’t imagine having gotten through without your faith. What do you say about it? What should they do?

Yeah, I can’t imagine if I did not know the Lord. I don’t know that I would have gotten through it in the way that I did and been in the place I am now. Or maybe it would have taken longer, if at all possible.

But I think: find people you trust that can hear all the ugly stuff. I said some stuff to my mom I wouldn’t say to anyone else in the world when I was angry. Find people you trust that you can be so ugly in front of and it’d be okay, people who will let that happen for as long as it needs to happen.

Write about it. Go in your car and drive and scream about it. That really did help, actually.

And also your anger will hinder you from all of the good things that come after you have your baby. It is not worth holding on to. It’s hard to let go of. It takes time and intentionality, but it’s worth the hard work, because it will steal everything from you if you let it.

And the doctor who did it to you, or the nurses or the system or whatever it was that caused your traumatic birth, does not deserve that much of your life. They’ve already taken a little bit. Let that be all that it gets.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.