"Our birth experience"

This story is regarding our recent experience at Dr Grays Hospital. We recently gave birth here and wanted to share our thoughts.

All through my pregnancy we had such good care at Ward 3 regarding scans etc. I attended the maternity ward for a sweep, as being overdue, and was told I was 4/5cm dilated. We had on our birth plan that we had intended to give birth at Dr Grays, all going well and no complications, the midwives we spoke to were delighted that was our option.

My contractions started and things moved very quickly, we called hospital to let the midwives know we were on our way. And we arrived, we were greeted by a midwife, who informed us they would be our midwife that evening. We were took into a treatment room for an examination and the midwife told us I was 2/3cm dilated. However, after my sweep 2 days prior I was a bit confused that I wasn’t further along as I had been told I was 4/5cm that day.

The treatment room was very hot and I was getting very uncomfortable as my contractions were getting stronger and quicker. We were left for a short while but being so uncomfortable my husband went looking for the midwife to ask if we could get into our room. We were shown to our room and cooled down the room by opening the windows and getting myself undressed and more comfortable into a gown.

My contractions started coming even stronger, quicker and lasting longer. I knew myself that my labour was going to be very quick again. The midwife tried to examine me whilst I was having contractions, which was painful as I wasn’t getting much rest in between contractions.

My husband then asked if we could get the birthing pool ready, the midwife said it wasn’t the right time as it would stall my labour. My husband made it clear that I was definitely ready and needing to get into the pool. It was such a great form of helping with my labour pain the 1st time, I knew myself I needed to get into the pool soon.

Upon arriving at the birthing pool my husband helped me in, then noticed multiple dead flies, floaters and black specs throughout the water. He then made the midwives aware of this and was asked if I wanted to get out. At this point myself and my husband knew there wasn’t time for me to get out the pool and refill it. My husband scooped the flies out the water. The water was not clean, and clearly hadn’t been checked before filling. I personally feel this could have been avoided, I felt it was a rush to get the pool ready for me getting in. Even though I had made the midwife aware when I arrived at the hospital that the birthing pool was on my birth plan.

On my birth plan I had said that I requested my husband to tell me the sex of this baby once the baby was born, however before my husband had a chance to tell me, the midwife had said it's a him. This was very disappointing, but even more so as the midwife was incorrect and it was in fact a little girl.

Once arriving back at our room I was enjoying the newborn skin to skin and on 2 occasions the midwife came into our room and made it clear I should be getting my baby changed. I really felt like that skin to skin time was being rushed.

When the midwives had changed shift we were then greeted by such lovely and helpful midwives. They then informed us on the registration form that the previous midwife had put down that our baby was a male and it had to be changed to female.

We feel we had a number of different issues with one particular midwife, and we wanted to make it clear of our situation. Other than this we had such a positive experience and I felt very lucky that giving birth at Dr Grays was an option with us with little complications. Our little girl arrived safely and we were both doing well after birth. Our care the day following our birth was so positive and the midwives were happy for us to leave at lunchtime. We can’t thank them enough for our time on the maternity ward.