"Left me feeling really sad and anxious in what should be a happy time"

I experienced my waters breaking during early labour and my labour didn’t properly start in the next few hours. I think this was related to the conflicting advice I was told about where and when to go for a check which was really quite stressful.

In the end I went up to Ninewells. I was told it couldn’t wait until the next morning in Perth even though I asked for that. I felt bullied into going up to Ninewells. I had a long drive in, then waited in the waiting room for an hour, was then left on a monitor for an hour, and then had to wait for the doctor for an hour, all when I was told this would be a very quick check.

It was really obvious my waters had broke and still the midwife told me they had to do an internal check despite my preference being that we didn’t. Despite no issues with the monitoring, the midwife made me wait to see a doctor who was happy to tell us risk after risks, and I don’t even know why I needed to see a doctor, it wasn’t even 24 hours yet.

Overall, I felt I wasn’t listened to and I felt like I was just another woman to process there. Nobody even asked my preferences of things. It’s no wonder with this approach of what I feel was bullying, scaremongering and lack of information and support that my labour didn’t then start. I was so scared and worried.

My labour and birth did not then go at all to plan, and I think this was down to all the stress with the conversations with everyone there and trying to get some information, care and a plan! The stress of all of this, and just feeling totally not listened to or supported has left me feeling really sad and anxious in what should be a happy time.

After everything, we had a debrief and the midwife said that women shouldn’t be coming for checks at handover and it should be in the daytime if everything else is well and that this was going to be told to all the midwives. They also said I didn’t need the internal exam because this can cause infection and that would be fed back to the midwife.

I felt nobody gave me any information about what my options were and everyone seemed to have a different opinion. The staff were rushed and gossipy and didn’t seem interested in the women there.

They say that the induction pathway is changing but I don’t believe changes are seriously happening in Ninewells, even though they reassure you they are.