"Problems during my son's birth"

I fell pregnant in October 2006 (my first child, and only at the moment) had to go into hospital at 38 weeks, as I had preeclampsia. I was induced at 38+4days on the 22nd July 2007 at 6pm, was in labour till 9 am on the following morning. The first midwife was lovely, no complaints. She exchanged with a lady at 9pm, who seem as though she didn’t know what she was doing. I had some fluid drip thing in my hand to bring on my contractions and she kept turning the machine up and down, so my contractions weren’t right all along. Then in the morning at 7/8am, the 3rd midwife came was ok, or so I thought. I had to have a emergency c-section, as my cervix's wasn’t fully dilated and my baby’s heart rate was dropping.

My son was born at 9.58 on the 23rd July 07. After he was born, I didn’t hear the midwife suction any fluid out of his mouth, so I assumed he was ok. After I was taken into the recovery room, the midwife came around to see me and my baby, about an hour after. I told her there was something wrong, as his chest was rising very fast and he wouldn’t take any milk. She said “he’s ok”. It wasn’t until 2 hours later my first midwife came to see me on her break, as she promised to come see me, that I told her about his chest and she noticed that something was wrong and called for the paediatrician to come and look at him. She came down and said that is was probably due to excess fluid on his lungs and that it should go on his own. So that was that.

I had fluid drips in my hand done by a doctor, but they were not done right. They ended up falling out and one didn’t go in to my vein, it sat under my skin and cause a bubble sort of thing under it, which went as soon as I took it out. I went up to the ward 6 hours later and my son was still the same. He had taken no fluids, and kept making a funny noise when he was breathing. So they called for the paediatrician, after I notified the staff to the problem again, she came up once again. She said he had to be taken down to the neo-natal unit, as he wasn’t very well. When I was finally allowed to go see him, they told me he had a pneumothorax in his right lung, which is caused by accumulation of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the lung. They said he had fluid there, so the surgeon or doctor had tried to remove it with a long needle, which did not work and in turn had got air in to the space then. So he had to have a chest drain in, to remove it. Then, as he was on his left side all the time, that lung began to collapse, so he had to be turned on each side at a certain times. The neo-natal staff were brilliant. My son was in there for 2 weeks. He had been tube feed on oxygen etc. When he was able to come home at 2 weeks old and they was performing a heart scan, I asked what they were doing, she said “just checking his murmur before he is discharge” I said, what do you mean? as I wasn’t told and wasn’t until then I was told he had a heart murmur and a whole in his heart, however, that has since closed up on its own.