"I am emotionally scarred from my experience"

I never feared labour, as I knew when all was said and done it would be over and I would have my child. But now almost 3 years on I am emotionally scarred from my experience at Altnagelvin Hospital and dread the day I have to go back through those doors when I expand my family. I have looked into private care and other surrounding maternity units but unfortunately our health care system is on its knees so one by one MU's and closing and or being shifted. 

To explain, my son's father ran for the hills and has been running ever since he discovered we had conceived our son. So I went into my pregnancy alone and entered parenthood alone, scared but determined to be a good mum, to raise a kind and gentle human. So when the time came I asked my mum to accompany me during my labour as it was her first grandchild and it would be a great bonding experience. We often were told stories about single mums or younger mums being treated poorly, but my mum and I were sceptical of these statements as we always said treat people kindly and they shall do the same. I wish I would have listened because I was stunned from the attitude, lack of empathy and the nonchalant response to my labour.

To put it mildly I knew something was wrong 6 hours into being in the antenatal unit, my whole body would shiver and shake while I sweated buckets, even while this was happening and my mother growing more concerned for her daughter and grandchild, the nurses seemed to react in a way that would make any mother extremely upset, for I couldn't speak as I couldn't even gather my breath for how much I was shaking. My mother demanded I be examined after 2 hours of pressing them that I was not ok, and with that they realised I was leaking brown liquid, so yes a meconium birth. I knew by how I was reacting then my baby was not reacting well either, and with a shocked and embarrassed face the nurse hit the red button and the maternity nurse came quickly. 

Now my experience was not all negative, for I am grateful for the midwife I had as she had great bedside manners. My labour was not smooth, my son was extremely distressed and I was very weak, my epidural had failed, the tens machine did nothing and the gas and air made me sick. But my son was born, he was healthy and I was happy. 

Unfortunately that did not last, as I was the put into postnatal, now I knew when you get your own room the saying goes it's usually because of the trauma you've just experienced and to give you more privacy to recover. I was happy to be in my own bubble with my son, but when it came to my little boy needing fed I was not sure how to make him latch with the catheter still inside me. I needed assistance to transfer him from the cot to my chest and with some support I hoped he would feed. I pressed the button and I had a staff member come in and say we're a little busy we'll be back soon. Time passed, my son cried so again I pressed it, well I wish I could have teleported and got my son myself out because to this day the sheer level of inhumanity I received from this dreadful staff member still makes my brain numb.

They lay my son on my chest and  clearly vulnerable, alone and I exhausted, I held my son and cradled his head into my breast. Their response? Placed their hand at the back of my head and pushed it and said, you couldn't feed like that, could you. To this day I can only picture how much my face had dropped when they did that and i distinctly remember saying "no". They visibly grew frustrated with me as I couldn't get him to latch.

Already disappointed in myself I thought if my son needs to eat then I will just bottle feed him now. I asked them to retrieve my bag for me and if they could sterilise the bottle, I had sterilised them prior to entering the hospital but I was in labour for 24 hours and they need to be  sterilised again after 24hrs. They tutted and said they don't have public microwaves, I said do you have a break room and they said yes but they don't use them for patients. This is when "kindness" was swapped for "maternal instincts". I replied, well my son needs to eat, I can't clean it, I'm stuck in this bed, can you go and assist me by cleaning the bottle so I can feed him or should I ask for a doctor. They cleaned the bottle, gave it to me with a belittling look and stormed off. They never again entered my room.

My son was born in the early morning, I had a 4th degree tear and I signed myself out of hospital just 14 hours later because I could not fathom the thought of seeing that wretched staff member again. Safe to say that experience from the postnatal ward has stayed with me every day since. I wanted to breastfeed, I had everything to do it, but they made me feel so worthless and useless I didn't even attempt when I got out of hospital, I didn't tell anyone about the experience in the post natal ward until 2 weeks later, my mum cried when she realised why I was so anxious and didn't try to breastfeed because she knew how much I wanted to. 

To finish I want to apologise to all the women I did not believe when they said they had a bad experience with the nurses, I support you.