"maternity nightmare"

You know those stories you hear of women having babies in taxis cause they didn't make it to the hospital? that could've been me if I listened to the midwives who tried to send me home when I was in active labour.

I had my baby at the birth center and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

My contractions started at 2:30am and were constant and more frequent and painful throughout the night until they were 1 minute apart which is when we thought we should head to the hospital.

For context I should mention that during my antenatal appointments we never saw the same midwife twice, always a different one and most were lovely but always quick and somewhat vague. One of them was terrible and left a bruise on my arm that lasted for a week when she took blood from me and was quite brute when feeling my belly - this was my 36 week appointment and also the first time I asked lots of questions about labour and what could happen, I asked about emergencies, episiotomies etc and to every question I received a vague reply and "not to worry" because in the moment "I'd have no choice but to trust them anyway", made me feel like I shouldn't be asking those questions at all.

Such is my luck that when we got to the hospital at 7:30ish am that day, she was the one on shift. This woman, without having checked me for dilatation at all, and dismissing the fact that my contractions were regular and 1 minute apart, said that she thought I should go home cause I was in "early labour", luckily a change of shift was coming and I said I'd wait for the next midwife to check my cervix, and so half an hour later another midwife checked me and said I was "fully effaced but only 2-4 cm dilated" and she also said I should go home.

Mind you, the pain at that point was unbearable and I could hardly walk.

We stayed in the corridors for about 40 minutes until I desprately asked for an epidural and to be transfered to the labour ward. The midwife said ok but ran to attend to someone else and said she'd be back.

By the time she got back (maybe half an hour later or so) I was 7cm dilated and in extreme pain,

transferring wasn't an option because she said she didn't know what the queue was like in the labour ward and apparently to get an epidural and be transfered could've taken like an hour and I knew I didn't have that time.

I finally got "admitted" to the birth center then, and an hour later the midwife left the room "because of an emergency" and I was there with my partner without any assistance for about 40 minutes, then shortly after she came back I pushed my baby out.

I wanted to use a birth pool (for relaxing and pain releif in active labour) but by the time it was full I was in the pushing stage and only got my legs in it for a couple minutes before getting out to push.

I only used gas &air and it was all extremely painful, the midwife didn't help with opening my birth canal either, and she didn't debrief me after labour.