"My partner's long ordeal in childbirth"

I'm a father of now four children. I've watched/seen a total of four epidurals take place in front of my eyes, so from a spectators point of view, I guess you could say I'm experienced in this field of work.

My fourth child was born in March. During this process my partner did nothing but suffer, due to the doctor who was available at the time.

Never have I seen any doctor fail as many times as they and walk away from it seemingly unfazed. I found this totally unacceptable and cause unnecessary suffering to my partner at a time she needed professionalism, in my eyes. 

First epidural attempt resulted in my partner's spine being scraped with the needle which lead to her losing consciousness and fainting. Luckily me and the midwives prevented her from falling forwards as she was positioned on the edge of the bed. Never seen this before until that day. When she finally came around, she said she could feel the needle scrape her spine. I can't remember reading that this may happen during the process. Is this normal? Not to mention the fact she was given the precautions leaflet to read herself before signing. Previous doctors would've read this to the patient due to the state of mind the patient was in at this moment in time, disoriented to say the least.

Second epidural attempt appeared to be successful although the doctor didn't look/appear to be confident about it which made me think of asking how many times are you allowed to get this wrong? But I didn't want to create an atmosphere in the room for my already frustrated partner.

A few hours pass by, the epidural top up button is pressed and pressed during this time to aid pain relief. She switches position to accommodate the midwives observations and feels pain/discomfort from catheter. More time passes, pain relief button pressed multiple times, midwives arrive to do an exam to see how far she's now dilated and literally jumped up the bed with discomfort, stating can you feel that darling? You shouldn't be able to feel that, I'll have to get the doctor back to check your epidural. 

Upon entering, the doctor established via midwives and my partner she's been using the button to aid in pain relief, to no avail. Then the doctor revealed they had a more powerful pain relief than that being sent through the epidural.

Before connecting the syringe to feed into her epidural they stated this is a lot stronger pain relief, so if you don't feel relief from this, we will have to re-site it again (for 3rd time) as the pain relief will be going somewhere else.

Now it wasn't until I later thought about this properly to myself: where has all this pain relief fluid actually been going? Is it safe? Will her body reject it if its in the wrong place? Can it cause her injury? (all these questions I asked myself has lead me to voicing my experience).

A short length of time passed with the doctor monitoring the stronger pain relief, and that was also to no avail, which led to a yet another re-site, more pain and discomfort, more unnecessary suffering on my partner's behalf. 

Third epidural attempt, I've totally lost faith in the procedure and just want to get my partner out of there as I've seen her suffer enough. The epidural is re-sited yet again, blood everywhere, 4 holes in her back and bruised.

We're told it was successful, she starts to feel a little numbness in her legs, we both just feel like we've had enough now, this is supposed to be a happy time of bringing a new family member into the world yet its been pain and frustration from the start. 

Midwives shifts change over, my partner is 2-3cm dilated but relaxed. Less than an hour later, midwife asks her to turn onto her side, she does so, she's in pain all of a sudden and reaches for gas/air, she says she wants to push, she's on the gas/air now, turned back onto her back as the midwife says to do as your body feels, few minutes later she turns around onto all fours (is this normal if the epidural is working correctly?) and wants to push, my partner felt everything throughout this whole process. Every millimetre of our baby being pushed out too, which made her question if the 3rd epidural attempt actually worked?

Fortunately our baby arrived safely and unharmed but did she have to endure everything she did? Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided?

During the induction, her waters were broken via midwife, which my partner described as very painful, and it hurt a lot. Now she's not one to complain about pain unless it really hurts.

After giving birth, a clot was noticed and investigated by senior members of staff, which resulted in theatre and cervix being stitched up front and back with additional clots removed from her womb. Could the induction/waters being broken have caused this? Is there a way to find out? Will we ever know?

Monday evening we arrived and Friday late morning we left. We have been put off from ever wanting kids in this hospital again due to experiencing  this ordeal. I hope nobody has to go through what we did as we're actually strongminded people.

 I remember Midwives being Superhuman and Over Competent 👏👏 Well Done Ladies, Outstanding Work. 

Also Super Doctor who found the damaged cervix was. Truly grateful for your expertise during our birthing process. Without him doing his job correctly, my partner could've got very poorly very quickly, Incredible/Professional Human Being 👏👏 Thankyou👏👏