"I felt scared and alone"

I gave birth at the royal London hospital in January 2021, during the pandemic. I was young and a first time mum. I had had an epidural for the pain, and could not feel my contractions. When I started pushing I was initially told when I was having a contraction to know when to push as I could not feel it, but after a while I was no longer told when I was having a contraction and didn't know when I should push. I pushed for over two hours not always knowing when to push as I would not be told. 

When my baby was born with assistance, they placed him on my chest and left me and my partner alone in the room with our baby for almost 6 hours, without checking if my baby had eaten, if he had latched on well, if he was okay, absolutely nothing. My baby didn't eat for the first few hours as I didn't know how to feed him properly and no one assisted me or checked in for hours. 

Finally after almost 6 hours of waiting I was sent to a postpartum maternity ward, where they sent my partner home, I was absolutely terrified, I had never even held a baby before I held my own, I didn't know how to change a nappy, or how to make sure he was latched on and eating properly. I was in the verge of a panic attack the entire time I was in the ward. After getting to the ward, a doctor came in to check on my baby, and as I was still drowsy and tired I didn't quite understand their accent, and they raised their voice at me for not understanding which only highlighted my anxiety as I was already very scared and didn't know what I was doing.

When my baby needed a nappy change I asked a nurse for help as I didn't know how to change it, as I had never changed one before, and they simply told me to just change it, and walked away, refusing to help me at all. Everytime I would ask for any kind of help I would be met with rude, abusive, horrible responses, and I spiraled into an even deeper fear and anxiety, knowing I was completely alone and clueless as to what I was doing. 

I had never interacted with a baby before, felt scared and alone, my family was living in a different country, I had absolutely no one. I couldn't sleep for the entire five days I had to stay in the ward, and I mean, I didn't sleep a blink. It even got to the point that I started hearing voices and seeing things that were not there due to complete lack of sleep. Everything around me was just muffled noises and sounds and I was completely out of it. I started having very serious suicidal thoughts as I felt so horrible and sick and scared, and felt alone.

I tried telling nurses that I was not okay, but no one would help me. The night staff was especially the worst, they were the rude, unhelpful and I felt they were downright abusive at times. 

On the first night at the ward my baby screamed the entire night as he was starving and wasn't getting milk from me as my milk supply was very limited from lack of sleep and food. The hospital has a kitchen with the possibility to make bottles with formula that I was never even told about, no one informed me that I could use that room to make bottles for my baby, that they had formula they provided and bottles that they provided, I only found out about it because my partner stumbled upon it one day while visiting.

My baby was very jaundiced as he didn't eat and didn't get enough milk, and he only started getting better after I was able to start making him bottles and feeding him regularly as I was shown by my partner not the nurses how and what to do. 

After finally getting out of that horrible hospital I had spiraled into postpartum anxiety and depression that was all offset by my horrible stay at the hospital. The way they made me feel is as if now that the baby is born you're just completely insignificant as a person. I was shouted at, laughed at, ignored, nurses would roll their eyes at me, refuse to help me, the same doctor that had shouted at me the first night told me i was wasting the hospitals formula by giving it to my son, even though that formula was given to me earlier by a different day time nurse. I snapped at the doctor and asked why they thought MY baby having the formula was somehow a waste, and they went quiet after that.

I had never felt more insignificant, scared, and alone as I did at the maternity ward at The Royal London. I had my second child in another country, in a hospital where I was treated like a human being both during and after delivery.

I want to end this by saying while it was a small handful, there were some nurses, one in particular, that was amazing, supportive and understanding and made me feel like i wasn't always alone. But these nice nurses were really only there during the day, and it was at night that things were especially bad.