"Maternity Nightmare 1"

I had my first child at Kingston in June 2014. I was a very relaxed as first time mum to be and thought I'd elected to have my baby at the best place in choosing Kingston. Due to a pre existing medical condition, some of midwife appointments were replaced with consultant appointments. I attended three of these appointments. At the first appointment I saw a registrar. They seemed incompetent from the off, for example they were unable to log on to the computer. I was around 13 weeks pregnant at this time & age told me that because my last smear had ended up as a biopsy I would miscarry in my second trimester depending on what sort of biopsy I had had. They would not contact the hospital where this smear had taken place, despite its close proximity (St George's) & told me I could do it myself if I wanted. As you can imagine I left distressed & had to see my GP in order to sort it out. They asked Q's which immediately told them that the biopsy would have no affect on my pregnancy. At the second consultant appointment I saw another registrar who quizzed me about why, at the previous appointment, my medication had not been increased. I didn't know of course & I had to begin taking the increased amount of thyroxine ASAP. When I arrived at the third appointment the receptionist informed me the clinic was running two hours late. I waited a while but couldn't bear it & eventually left. I saw the community midwife who was brilliant & they were able to clear it with the consultant so that they & my GP could take over my care. I was much happier. I saw a few community midwives who were all really good & with whom I developed good relationships. At 42 weeks pregnant they called me in for induction. I was made to stay at the hospital for the entire night despite the fact I was not being induced until the following day. I didn't understand why & after a fitful nights sleep on a trolley they took me down to be induced shortly before 8am. My waters were broken (the midwife made several attempts & then got the Dr who made short work of it) natural labour did not ensue & so I was put on a hormone drop to further induce Labour. The midwife was again unable to insert the drip & called the anaesitist who once again managed the job fairly easily. I was then connected to a monitor, a sort of 1960's contraption which was only able to monitor my baby's heart rate of I lay in a single position & did not move. I was not allowed to use the lavatory & had to wee in a bed pan. My incompetent midwife kept smiling at me whilst I lay there in agony. Induction can often be a much more painful labour. They berated me for having taken 2 paracetamol (the community midwife had told me to take my own supply) & said I couldn't have any other pain relief as a result of taking them. Another more sympathetic midwife covered their break & I asked for an epidural. They said I could have one but of course I never got one.