"Good when few people there, pretty bad during..."

I've given birth more than a year ago and didn't get around to leaving a review until now for a fair few reasons but I still feel strongly about this so I figured I should do so now that I have the chance to.

We're based in Grantham, so we had to travel about an hour to get to the ward.

The first thing that I think impacted my experience negatively is that when I called the hospital to ask if I could visit prior to giving birth I was told that I couldn't because I was so far away. According to the woman I spoke to at the phone some times expectant mothers would arrange a visit but the ward would be busy when they got there and they'd get upset for the distance. I said I'd be OK and just go shopping, but they didn't want me to.

I travelled a first time on my due date. The contractions slowed down and I went back home. It was about 5 PM and, while the wait at the reception was long and the chairs there unsuitable for a heavily pregnant woman, it was a fairly relaxed experience.

Not so on the actual birth: the midwife in triage was exceptionally curt. She took ages to get me pain relief despite me repeatedly crying and asking for it. She scared me when I asked about water birth and I can still remember her "That's out of the question" to this day. I went in fairly relaxed and got anxious really quickly. There was meconium in my waters (which she broke and then forgot she did) but nothing serious. Our son didn't ingest it.

I was so beside myself I forgot to hand in my birth plan (which I could have done prior had I been allowed a visit) and ended up giving birth on my back, which I really didn't want to do.

On the ward rules weren't enforced: other partners showered in the patients' shower, watched videos night and day on their phones and had many more visitors than allowed, making the experience anything but relaxing.

To top this all off, they forgot one test for my son, so I had to drive back again, painful as it was with all the stitches. I really didn't want to do the trip again so soon.

Afterwards, I kept thinking of the experience and, when I ended up with severe postnatal depression and in an MBU, I wondered how much this affected my recovery. Another patient had given birth in the same hospital and had a similar experience in triage, which further made me wonder, as we both thought back about it.

Additionally: there are no facilities for partners to buy gluten free food on the premises, and with people coming from further afield, this seems like a big flaw. I didn't want to be left alone for hours on my own and my husband, diagnosed with coeliac, couldn't find anything other than crisps in the hospital that he could eat.

Were I to feel that I could have a second child, given the negative first experience, I would definitely not do so at this hospital.