"My pregnancy care was absolutely excellent"

I just wanted to say that my pregnancy care was absolutely excellent at Royal Stoke University Hospital. Initially, I was marked as low risk but disclosing my mental health issues changed that to high risk.

I had growth scans and physically everything was fine right up until 36 weeks where I was diagnosed with obstetric cholestasis with wildly deranged ALT results and then blood pressure issues and proteinuria.

I came in for some blood results only to be triaged with really high blood pressure and admitted. The staff managed to get me a side room due to my mental health but when my waters broke unexpectedly they had meconium in them. I was then rushed for an emergency induction which didn’t work after 15 hours of trying so I needed a caesarean. As you can imagine, this was horrifically traumatic and I was in a really bad way afterwards- I was in hospital for a week and my blood pressure was really difficult to stabilise. 

Honestly I couldn’t have had better care. Everything was so frightening but the midwives reassured me and made me feel safe. From the MAU to the wards, everyone was so kind and supportive even when I literally broke down wanting to go home. I was a mess after my c- section and I the midwives and doctors were so incredibly kind. I had to have a lot of blood tests with really poor veins which was really emotionally difficult as I have a lot of trauma around it- but I always felt the staff were trying to be understanding. 

Things could have gone so badly for me and my daughter, and my birth was so frightening. I’m always going to be grateful I was in the right place when everything went down.