"A bad maternity experience"

To start my bad experience, I was told it was non-negotiable, with no glucose test done, I had to go to a gestational diabetes session. This was my 2nd pregnancy, and my first I tested negative but did the daily glucose testing anyway as a precaution. When speaking with the dietician, who said we shouldn’t tarnish everyone with the same brush and it certainly didn’t look like I had gestational diabetes at all, told me to stop the glucose monitoring. I was also told by several members of the beech team to stop testing based on results.

However, every consultant questioned this and I had to go through it repeatedly every time as to why I had stopped. There was nothing added to my notes about this until much nearer the birth. I made a deal with the consultants that I would only resume testing if there was a medical reason to, as I clearly didn’t have gestational diabetes. 

I also had Hyperemsis, and was admitted to hospital several times to go on a drip due to ketones on my urine. Every time the triage team just told me to eat more, only offered me the lowest dose of anti sickness (I had to have it upped 4 times to stop me being so sick) and my notes were never looked at. They also kept telling me to eat ginger. Ginger was a big nausea trigger for me, and doesn’t work for hyperemisis. I think this condition needs to be understood more by all midwives and not just seen as “morning sickness”. 

I went to triage, at the start of November 2023 with regular contractions, every 30 mins for 60 secs. They got a consultant to do an internal exam and they were so rough with me internally it left me traumatised. I wasn’t dilated at all and the labour inductor test said it would be at least 3 weeks before labour would start. I believe I was around 37 weeks at this point (I had my first baby at 35+2 spontaneously so though this baby might come early too). This consultant could have been gentler with me internally to make this far less traumatising.

Fast forward a few weeks and I went in for an induction at the end of November 2023. The experience left me traumatised. I was left on a heart rate monitor for 5 hours solid on arrival. No one explained to me why. After 4 hours and asking 5+ plus times, I was told it’s because my temperature was higher than expected. I had numerous internal exams too - I was told were non-negotiable - by midwives who also never told me why. One was very very kind and gentle with me, who understood when I said I’d been traumatised previously. It seemed the others couldn’t have cared less. 

During the induction I was not allowed to speak to a doctor at all - being told that this is because it’s a midwife-led unit - to share my concerns. The midwife told me this is what happens in an Induction and I was given paperwork to consent to first for this. I was told NOTHING and given no paperwork. All I knew about an induction was from research I did myself online. 

Luckily, my husband contracted covid and passed it to me, which halted the induction after 2 days and 0cm dilated. I was told when I asked before that they can’t stop it once an induction is started - so I feel lied to.I pushed for a planned c section instead to save myself from more trauma. They sent me home for 5 days and said there’s nothing they can do in this time frame. There was a lot of pressure from them to restart the induction, not go for a section. I was told I was a very high risk of an emergency section due to baby not being in the right position (head down but head not engaged) so I don’t know why they were pushing something that was unlikely to go smoothly for me.

The planned c section was a wonderful experience. The doctor and the whole team were great with me, from keeping me calm (I was scared of the spinal injection!) to looking after me afterwards in recovery. They made the whole thing a lovely experience, when had I continued the induction it would have been a horrendous experience that left me with worse PTSD than it already did. 

I’m still left traumatised by anything inside my vagina, and my husband and I no longer have a sex life while I seek counselling at my own expense to recover from this.