"Thank you to an amazing medical team"

We had planned to have a natural drug free birth in the Birthing Centre unfortunately my delivery did not work out how we planned. We started off in the birthing centre and then after several hours moved to the labour ward. Having spent 23 hours in labour my husband and myself came in to contact with a number of members of the medical team including several midwifes, doctors, anaesthetists, paediatricians and theatre staff.

I just can’t thank them enough for their professionalism, medical knowledge and compassion.

These amazing midwifes/doctors (lets remember they are “human beings” not robots) work under the greatest amount of pressure with increasingly limited resources and have the greatest weight and responsibility on their shoulders to deliver babies and look after women every single day, so yes sometimes they won’t be all smiles and yes sometimes they may be abrupt however lets remember they are not there to entertain us: they have a job to do deliver our babies safely. Most of the time they know best... it helps to listen to them!

Sometimes our birth plan doesn’t work out. My delivery was nothing how I imagined, one minute I was walking around our lovely suite in the birthing centre breathing gas and air the next minute I was restricted to a bed in the labour ward with monitors and tubes everywhere. The one thing that was consistent was the professionalism of the medical team and how they dealt with every changing situation.

A huge thank you to all midwifes at the birthing centre especially my midwife who I had also come into contact prior to going into labour, she stayed with me until her shift ended even though I was no longer in the birthing centre and even came to visit me the day after on the post labour ward to see how things went. A huge thank you to my second midwife, her support and positive spirit got me through what was a horrid few hours and my last thank you goes to the three doctors (and theatre team) on the labour ward that delivered my baby boy in theatre. Two ladies and a gentleman who’s names unfortunately I did not have the chance to take. Although it was an assisted delivery with forceps they did everything they could to avoid a C-section that I did not want. They all spoke to me before and after the birth and at no point did I feel like “ just another patient”.

The hospital is very clean; my only negative observation would be that the midwifes on the post labour ward (Edith Dare) are under extreme pressure with a great shortage of staff. They desperately need extra resources.

Just a huge thank you to you all....

I can’t thank you enough you are all doing a wonderful job and you truly are all assets to your profession, NHS and QCH. I cried when I left the hospital ... it really is a special place.