"I felt abandoned with my pain"

My pregnancy was a bit more complicated because of the disabilities I have. At roughly 36 and a half weeks I was seen in the antenatal clinic and due to bad pain and exhaustion an induction was booked for approximately 10 days later with a review in the clinic 7 days later. At that clinic review the decision was made to bring forward my induction to that day, and I was given a time to come back to the hospital later that day.

I arrived at the hospital late in the afternoon as arranged, but my induction did not start until into the evening. Quite soon after the induction my contractions started and I had the misfortune to experience coupled contractions meaning the next one would start before one finished. These continued through the night, with several contractions happening in quick succession followed by a couple of minutes break before they started again. The pain was intense and I repeatedly asked for help and was told to take paracetamol, and have a bath.

Due to my pain I was reviewed by a doctor during the night but wasn’t progressing. In the morning,the hormonal pessary was removed and I was examined - the decision was made to take me down to the labour ward and break my waters ASAP. I was told this was likely to be fifteen minutes to half an hour - just waiting for a bed to come available. I was relieved because it had been at least twelve hours overnight of frequent painful contractions, when I’d already barely slept for a week, and hadn’t slept for 36 hours beforehand. And then no one came.

It took 12 more hours after that before I was taken across to the labour ward. I was given an epidural within a couple of hours but this failed, no one is sure as to whether it was a reaction to the medication, a failure in the siting of the epidural, or if it was solely related to malfunction of the pump which occurred (when this was eventually resolved several hours later the epidural still did not work). I tried to tell the midwife, who I feel showed an astounding lack of compassion and basically told me I was being dramatic and of course it was working.

I repeatedly asked for help but the anaesthetist was not available to return to check on the epidural until around 6 or 7 in the morning and they decided to push more of the medication and give it more time - unfortunately by the time that review would have come about it was too late and I had to start pushing, while exhausted, sleep deprived, vomiting everywhere, and ready to give up. This means I did my entire labour with 36 hours of coupled contractions without adequate pain relief.

Most of the time on the other ward I did it with the most basic painkillers. During labour, with basically only gas and air, and diamorphine when I could. This just made me sick, and sleepy. I would half fall asleep between contractions and then wake up mid contraction in unbelievable pain unsure of what was happening. After about 30 hours of almost continuous pain with very little progression, deeply sleep deprived, and terrified I told my husband that I wanted to die. I couldn’t take it any more. I had to repeatedly ask to check progress and was told repeatedly it would be done at specific points. I kept being told the next time would be a number of hours later. I asked if I could have a C-section at this point.

The next time they checked I was at 9 cms. After an hour of pushing, and not getting anywhere, exhausted 35 hours after the first close contractions, I asked for help. The doctors intervened, but didn’t explain much of what was happening. I was given an episiotomy but never told that that is what was happening. After 2 hours of pushing, half an hour of which was assisted, my baby was born with assistance, not breathing. Unfortunately my baby was born with an airway obstruction and was not breathing, although their heart was beating. This required the neonatal team to carry out resus (they were already standing by in the room as is the hospital’s protocol for an assisted delivery).

My baby was handed to me, grey and limp, and I thought he was dead. I prepared myself for the worst, on top of days of lack of sleep and after all that pain. He was resuscitated and is doing well. Despite this, I am not. I felt dehumanized by the first set of midwives, though the ones who came on shift at 7 am were lovely. I was in so much pain that I wanted to just die, and no one listened.

After being stitched up from the episiotomy that I hadn’t realised was about to happen, I managed to get up and walk away at which point they were like, wow that epidural really didn’t work. It's taken more than half a year to get to the point where I can talk about what happened without having a panic attack. When I had debriefs, the midwives and OB blamed the anaesthetist, and vice-versa. I was told that everyone followed hospital policy so it was fine and I just couldn’t handle the reality of birth. I was told that the contractions didn’t count because I wasn’t progressing so they weren’t real contractions. Both my partner and I are showing signs of PTSD, and have developed anxiety since. I don't feel there is any accountability for what happened.