"Horrible birth experience"

I had a very horrible birth experience in February with my little one. I won’t go into too much detail but I felt very unsupported at times from the midwives during my birth. I had planned to have my baby at home, so being in the hospital made me very stressed and upset. Long story short; I ended up with an emergency caesarean section. The build up to the surgery was terrifying, and after my baby's birth a lot of my preferences were ignored and I felt so belittled.

In April I had a birth debrief but this was very skimmed over and I felt like the doctor was trying to cover their back and not really providing me with the answers or supported I needed. I left the appointment feeling worse than I did before.

In August, I had an appointment with the birth reflection midwives, as advised by the feeding team. This was so helpful and positive. 

It gave me this chance to be open and upset around midwives who were able to listen to me and explain/tell me things I didn’t know during my birth or even my debrief. It was so in detail and I’m thankful that the midwives were more sympathetic than the consultant was during my debrief.

There were things that they could not find a reason as to why/apologised for because of the lack of care. They have told me they will feedback to staff in the labour suite and theatre, and plan on having chat with the midwife that had my care during my daughters birth. Unfortunately, there was information that wasn’t given to me at the time of birth about my daughters position in the womb and the severity of the meconium that was in my waters. They were very much convinced from 9:00pm  that I would have a c section but didn’t communicate this and continued to let me labour without discussion.

If I had known some of this information, I feel it would have been easier to process.

However, I finally feel like I have been listened to, and they have given me reassurance that my next birth has options.