"The Birth of my first child"

My baby was due in 2022. I had a midwife app at the beginning as the due date had passed, and she phoned for me to be induced and was told there was no availability. She fought this and I was told to go in a week later for a morning appointment - it appeared that I was forgotten about and around mid afternoon they sent me to have lunch and come back 1hr later, which I did. Again it seemed that they had forgotten about me and a few hours later I was told to go for a walk around the hospital grounds and come back. I did this very heavily pregnant, swollen feet/legs and pelvic girdle pain, and when I returned I was told that I now couldn’t be induced as my BP was too high and I was being kept in, once it went back to normal I would be induced.

I waited until later that evening for a bed on the ward I was told I’d be induced in a few hours this didn’t happen. Then my waters broke and I informed a member of staff, who informed me and the other 3 women sharing the bay that I had wet myself - and changed the bed sheet. I knew I hadn’t peed myself as I had just been to the toilet, I was then left until the next day to be induced. I was told very early that morning that I would be induced in a few hours but this didn’t happen, the morning staff came later to induce me, and when they observed me they realised I was 3cm dilated! I explained that I had told staff that my waters had broken, they then asked if I had any discharge, I explained that all night a mucus had been coming out and they then checked and realised it was meconium.

I was told I’d be moved to the labour ward. I was moved in the afternoon and had two members of staff who made this experience worse. They realised it was my back waters that had gone and they would have to break my front waters, the first did this and then said she was unsure if she had gotten it all, the other one told her to check again, as she still couldn’t figure it out. The other staff member tried with the same instrument I had to tell her to get out of me as she was causing me serious pain, her response was that she'd need to go get a senior member of staff. I said please do, because I couldn’t feel her in me twice the way that they'd done it.

They then came and did the same using the same instrument and managed to get the last wee bit. I was at 6cm and they decided to give me a hormone drip without any discussion with myself, I had strep B so thought they were putting in the antibiotic drip. They waited until my partner was out of the room to do this. I was in excruciating pain, I had been managing the contractions on 4 paracetamol and gas and air until then and I thought my baby was imminent and knew I wasn’t fully dilated. 

Another member of staff explained that they would never give the hormone drip without pain relief and suggested I take something. I then accepted morphine, then the epidural. I then began vomiting everywhere and my temperature spiked. A Doctor was brought in the room and said I was less cm than midwife had said 7cm and said they recommended a C-section but you are getting a C-section and to sign some paperwork. I was then taken for an emergency C-section where my daughter was born. I had blood loss, sepsis and an acute kidney injury - which no one told me about my partner just over heard as everyone rushed around me and he was left with our baby who was screaming. 

In HDU no-one would help me lift my baby when they sent my partner home. I couldn't feel from my waist down. I was then moved from HDU in the middle of the night as they needed the bed, no checks to ensure I was well enough - which I wasn't. 

Moved to the ward 202? The staff nicknamed my baby 'squawker' as she hadn’t stopped screaming since she was born, no one checked her. Turned out she had CMPA (they kept feeding her formula when I was trying to breastfeed), colic and silent reflux and at four months old we found out that the reason she couldn’t lie on her back was due to her being misaligned when being pulled out of me and after adjustments from a chiropractor she stopped screaming and slept for the first time on her back for 1hr 30mins (before then she would only sleep 10mins in 24hrs - no joke). On day 3 in the ward I had to ask for my catheter to be removed as no one had emptied it and it was tugging on me and making me bleed. We were told we could leave in the morning on the last day, we didn’t get to leave until early evening as they hadn’t done the paperwork, but everytime we asked it was it will be done in 10 minutes. When home I ended up with an internal infection too. 

Based on this experience I would never have another baby at this hospital - I have also spoke directly to the hospital through a birth debrief meeting where we felt the staff at the meeting were on the hospital's side & the doctor there wasn't even present at the birth or any other aspect of my stay.