"While we were just unlucky, King's failed on many points"

After a problem free pregnancy, my wife who was hoping to do hypnobirth had a meeting at the Fetal centre at 40+2 and was basically bullied into an induction by the consultant. We were made to feel we were bad parents if we didn't. My wife had volunteered for the statin programme and as such we received extra scans etc. Because my wife (on her extra scan at 39 weeks) showed the baby might be slightly big and her blood sugar suggested she may have developed gestational diabetes, this was used a stick to be induced. This turned out to be a blip and my wife didn't have gestational diabetes and the constant blood pricks and meetings with the diabetes specialists signed her off as such.

We turned up the next day at Kings for the induction and the nightmare began. How a woman can be told to go into labour in a loud busy ward with women coming and going at all hours, women 20 weeks gone with some problem and their families crowding around them eating take-away food and making a ton of noise on mobile phones. My wife was a wreck. This was literally the opposite of what Kings preach in their antenatal classes, to go into labour, your home is best, relax, a safe place, music.

After 2 nights of failed induction, my wife was a nervous wreck, crying constantly and distraught. We asked the doctor could we go home, we were told no, despite they planned to do nothing for the rest of that day, we were due for waters to be broken the next day. At this point, I had enough and we discharged ourselves, after the consultant on duty basically saying we were risking our baby life. We signed the form discharging ourselves against medical advice, but promised to come in the morning.

We turned up the next morning at 10 am, at least we thought we could go to the labour ward and have our own room. We were wrong. After waiting for hours in reception , a nice midwife took us to another bed in a mini ward, even more cramped and loud than downstairs. By this point my wife had so many examinations, one the previous day had drawn blood and had been very painful by a doctor, we were told after the waters were broken, they would give us 4 hours to go into labour or my wife would be put on a hormone drip.

The nice midwife told us to go for a walk, and after a walk to the park and back, my wife started having enough contractions to finally be given a room of our own. Once inside we had a blissful hour, our own music, low lights and 1 midwife, my wife was making excellent progress. Then there was some clotted blood passing, a consultant came and ordered an emergency C section, my wife's greatest fear. She was put into an induced coma, scared, confused, terrified. The moment she went under, I was kicked out the theatre, taken to a room, alone , not knowing if my wife and baby were alive or dead.

My baby was taken to IC and all I could do was hold her hand briefly before she was wired up and put in an incubator. 

My wife was broken the next morning, when she woke up in a busy maternity ward, the room full of women with their babies, she hadn't even touched her baby. I had to fight to find a wheelchair to take her to the IC so (13 hours later) she finally got to see her baby for the first time.

The emergency C section was not needed, we were later told, an old clot that they couldn't take a risk of placental failure, the placenta was in fact in perfect condition. When asked where this old clot came from the doctor shrugged. I suspect the sweeps and numerous pessaries shoved up my wife may have had a part.

The only positive was the staff on the IC ward (as my baby was born by emergency C, she didn't have the opportunity to squeeze her lungs free of all water and was being monitored. They got a screen for my wife and she could have skin to skin and breast feed, she was a flood of tears. 

Although I had been asking constantly, (and saw empty private rooms) we were finally given one. Then we were kicked out after being there a few hours, as we were being moved to the transition ward, later that night our baby came out of IC and we were finally together. The nurses and midwives in the transition ward were excellent and we finally went home a couple of days later.

While we accept the emergency c section was a precaution and we were just unlucky, Kings failed on many points.

1) If women are being herded to induced, why can't they go home between each pessaries ? Other hospitals do this and it would have greatly reduced our stress.

2) Women who are being herded into hospital to be induced ( if Kings policy is to keep them in until baby is born), should be given their own quiet area, an induction ward on the 3rd floor.

3) If women are given general anesthetic, and birth partners are not going to present at the birth, why not get one of the many staff to take at least one picture of the baby's first moments?

4) A protocol that at least some look at the birth plan is looked at in emergency C sections, in my wife's birth plan skin to skin and seeing her placenta was important. I understand my baby had to go to IC, but why was the placenta just dumped. My daughter was breathing and even a few moments laid on my unconscious wife would have been something.

5) No medical study supports prolonged separation between mother and child, yet I had to organize getting my wife to her baby.

Kings talk the talk, but we were left with trauma from the birth and I would NEVER go back to Kings to give birth.