I believe every woman should have an informed choice!!

I had an awful labour with my DD1, in labour for 47 hours, vomiting nearly continuously as she was presenting back to back, I had absolutely no urge to push and was just told to by the midwife when she saw the contraction on the monitor, after trying unsuccessfully to push for over an hour they realised my DD1 was completely stuck and it was manic panic stations with the surgeon coming in and doing an episiotomy (cutting right through all major muscle in the vagina and anus) as she was so stuck and then putting his foot on the end of the bed to pull her out, she was born screaming with severe cuts and bruising to her face and head and by then I had lost consciousness due to blood loss!! After a blood transfusion and a stay in hospital of 7 days as I was so anaemic and DD1 was in SCBU I was allowed home. It took me a long long time to recover both emotionally and physically and contributed to severe PND (I still have some physical issues from the birth). When I got pregnant with DD2 I was adamant from the start that I would have a caesarean as I was pretrified of the same thing happening, luckily I had a very sympathetic obstetrician who agreed with me and DD2 was born quite calmly by caesarean at 38 weeks. I was out of hospital within 3 days with no problems whatsoever and recovered completely very quickly. I also suffered no PND. I know not every woman has the same experiences but in my situation it was definitely the best thing for me!

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Student Midwife 2008