"Birth experience"

I didn’t have a great pregnancy and was high risk, baby girl was breach at 37 weeks and had to have her manually turned and the staff who did this were fantastic! 

However after this I kept having a lot of contractions that would last for hours and I would have a decrease in movements so I would phone triage and go in to be checked, more than twice I was forgotten about and left for hours before someone came to see me or put me and baby on a machine. 

I kept being sent home even though I knew something didn’t feel right but felt they implied that I was wasting their time.

At 39 weeks I started again to have contractions that lasted 3 days at less than 5 minutes apart and I was scared to ring up in case I was wasting time again but then I started to heavily bleed so I phoned the triage and was told to come in straight away.

When I got there I explained who I was and that I had phoned in advance and then made me sit and wait for 20 minutes before being seen. I had to repeatedly buzz the bell to get someone’s attention as I was still bleeding down my legs and only when I started to cause a fuss was I let in and they rushed me to labour ward.

Most of the staff there were fantastic however I had one staff member shout that I was being too loud and it wasn’t fair on other people who would hear me, even though my contractions were coming fast, my baby girl was in distress, they couldn’t find her on the monitors and I was panicking! 

The anaesthetist who did my epidural was so patient and I really could not thank him enough. 

Everything was a blur as I had so much going on during my birth but when it came time to push, the two midwives (one qualified, one student) who were left in the room with me just stood at the bottom of the room and talked about their day while I was in agony trying to push out my baby after I had haemorrhaged! 

My care from most of this maternity unit was absolutely awful and I wouldn’t wish how I was treated upon anybody.