"I feel like I really was just a number"

I don’t know where to begin when I write this.

Do I go into the details of each day? Do I go into the details of how I was made to feel?

Do I start from the beginning or work back from the end?

I don’t know what to complain about or who to complain about.

I feel there is systematic flaws that have left me devastated and irreparable.

All I know is I am left with this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m assuming is heartbreak or anger or jealousy, I don’t really know to be honest.

Heartbreak - at the fact I didn’t have the birth I desired. I know labour and birth are unpredictable but I wanted to feel empowered, heard, respected and supported. I wanted it to be a positive experience no matter what the delivery was. I did not feel that way.

Anger - at the fact I sat for days in a hospital bed not fulfilling the plan I had of an active birth. Anger at the fact I didn’t have a Midwifery led birth in the midwifery led suite.

Anger at the fact I wasn’t empowered, I wasn’t heard, I wasn’t respected and I wasn’t supported.

Jealousy - at other people's positive birth stories. The love, care and attention they received antenatally and postnatally. (I only felt this from my community Midwife and Health Visitor). Why couldn’t that have been me?

My story is long, and I feel my story is complicated.

I laboured in December for five days.

Sadly, my story is longer the 1000 characters and doesn’t fit in on this but I have my time line written out, and willing to share if needed, the comments that were made, the incompetency of staff, the unprofessionalism, the lack of respect, dignity, support that was shown.

I had debrief with a sister and doctor, and I have to say I left the meeting and wanted to draw a line under it all. But I have lay awake at night more than I did before it, mulling it over in my head more then ever.

I was informed that I was not started on ABX on ward as they wait 48 hours before commencing ABX. I know this is not the truth - risk a pregnant woman of getting sepsis when her urine was positive for nitrates, leukocyte, blood, ketones and protein!

I feel if they would tell me this, what other mistruths have I been told?

If RM had not made the mistake of thinking I was 8cm with bulging waters, how long would I have gone on labouring?

In the debrief I was told that nothing would have been different because my contractions were within a suitable pattern/time. I don’t know how they knew this when no one stayed with me long enough to count. I was timing them and they were still sporadic when I went to the delivery suite.

I started counting my contractions from the Monday morning and I have over 400 contractions until 11pm on the Thursday.

What were the bulging waters? Because later that evening when scanned and waters attempted to be broken there were none.

Were my subsequent high BPs from labouring for so long?

Was my PPH from my uterus contracting for hours and days on end?

Were these things preventable?

I feel like I really was just a number, a H&C number. I’ve read my notes and they do not reflect how I was feeling or what was actually going on.

I feel I was gaslit, told I'm a first-time mummy and this is normal. That doesn’t take away the fact that I am human, I am in pain, I am scared, I don’t know what is laid out in front of me.

I don’t care about other women, other labours. Don’t compare me to that.

I feel like the carrot was dangled in front of me several times that I would have help in some way with getting my labour going.

I don’t know what it is but I just feel so angry and sad at my birth to the point where I physically and mentally don’t know if I could go through it again, or more to the point, put my husband, son and family through the stress of not knowing what was going on through the lack of communication and details given to me by staff.

If I knew then what I know now, I certainly would not have chosen Craigavon hospital to deliver my baby.