Sara’s story
I Watched a Hundred Births as a Lawyer. Nothing Prepared Me for My Own
It’s ironic that I was once a lawyer on One Born Every Minute. I watched loads of births – unedited. I looked aghast at the ones that went wrong; the worst of which became my first birth experience: shoulder dystocia. A process not unlike a calf being extracted forcibly from its mother by a strong-armed vet, and with as little dignity.
Apart from my time legalling One Born, I had little understanding of how traumatic my first birth would be. I was passionate about natural and hypnobirthing; my birth plan was to refuse all medical intervention. We turned up with lavender oil, and if it got bad, frankincense. My husband now retches at the smell of lavender; a Pavlovian trauma response.
It started badly – the baby was in a strange position because the shooting sharp pain was not the gentle surging I was expecting. We met a dismissive triage midwife, rolling her eyes at my husband who was led to understand I was just being difficult. We refused pain relief until I felt I could manage no more. There followed a few hours of what I’d describe as blissful bath-birthing and then a midwife shift change and pressure to perform meant I started pushing and then: stuck. Today, my son, aged 13, is almost 6ft, and he was 98th percentile in length when born. I am 5ft 5in heels. It is not a crazy thought that he might not fit well in my pelvis, so as they tried to ventouse him out he was wedged there; shoulder dystocia, or the calf birth that had sent me pale from the One Born viewing room.
An emergency call button hit, running feet, the junior midwife looking at me with sheer panic, shouts to push, strangers’ hands on my knees forcing them to my chest, an argument between obstetrician and head nurse, and us – first-time parents – bewildered and terrified. All I could think was: I can’t do this. Just rip him from my flesh and let me die. That scene in House of the Dragon where a birthing Laena Velaryon asks her dragon to send his fire to end her misery? I got how she felt.
And then he was out and we were left. My baby with a bruised head, my husband alone at home wondering how this was so unlike the beautiful experience the natural birth teacher promised. And me, in a noisy shared ward sobbing to my son for failing him.
There was no aftercare and the focus was all on the baby. Cuts in GP support, health visitation and postnatal treatment meant that even though I was at high risk of postnatal depression, any mental health support I wanted I had to pay for privately. I returned to work a broken woman.
What follows was a spiral that I believe was grounded in my stress response. I suffered six recurrent miscarriages, and was diagnosed with an immune condition, itself stress-related. I was angry, anxious and frequently triggered.
I was lucky enough to have two more children, but reader: the story gets worse. Both of those births were traumatic, but in different ways. A hat-trick of birth complications. In Victorian days I would have died each time.
For my second, I had a massive obstetric haemorrhage due to placenta praevia; a blue light ambulance across Richmond Park led to her premature birth, my husband only just arriving in time in too-small scrubs.
And my third – a planned caesarean section – this will be easy, we said! Oh, how the universe laughed. When she was born, the blood loss wouldn’t stop. Undiagnosed placenta accreta – the placenta sticking to my womb, no doubt to the scars from its previous traumas. I lost four litres of blood – almost my entire body’s store – in 24 minutes, only saved by the four units they pumped back into me. The flashbacks persist – hands stabbed with hastily inserted cannulas, listening to the shouts of the anaesthetist telling the porter carrying the blood bags to RUN, the feeling of the blood rushing out of my vagina and my head so I couldn’t breathe. When they ushered my husband out the room with my newborn, he believed he would soon be a single dad. Again, my body didn’t know I was in a hospital environment trying to be saved. I felt only that I was going to die.
After my third birth, the lovely obstetrician who had saved my life told me: if you get pregnant again I will be professional. But please don’t get pregnant again.
But my story is one of survival and even thriving. I went from an anaemic, traumatised, exhausted shell of a person, to seven years later head of TV & Film at a legal AI clearance company, mum of three, and one of the strongest people I know.
After years of EMDR therapy, breathwork, somatic healing and leaving London for the calming nature of the Jurassic coastline near Lyme Regis, I have healed myself. What happened to me was a shit-storm of trauma, and the help I received from the state was negligible. The only shoulders offered to cry on were a small number of empathetic midwives and health visitors. My GP just waved a prescription for anti-anxiety meds in my face and bemoaned cuts to health services. My husband received no support at all.
As well as remaining a tv and film lawyer (though not for birthing shows), I am now chair of the trustees of the Birth Trauma Association, a charity that provides training and support for hospitals and midwives, lobbies for regulatory improvements and supports shell-shocked parents by providing peer support and advice. It is a lifeline for many and I feel passionately that we need to do more to fund maternity care and support traumatised parents.
I write this story so you understand the impact of birth trauma; so you can support those loved ones who have had traumatic births. You may wish to lobby the government to improve maternal and post-natal services. Ask parents their birth story and let them tell it. Be gentle when parents return to work. Know trauma is stored in the body until it is healed. As ever the NHS would spend less money to focus on healing the wound rather than applying a plaster to the symptoms. Other countries like France provide far better postnatal support; recognising that the health of the mother improves familial wellbeing generally. And if you are touched by birth trauma, go to the BTA for help. Peer supporters can hold your hands. You can find trauma-informed counsellors, advice and training, and if you need it, litigators. You are not alone.
Sara Vandore-Mackay is a media lawyer and the chair of the Birth Trauma Association trustees.
