"Some of them were lovely"

I had been in labour since 8am and went into Treliske at 9pm. I was dilating steadily but contractions slowed down when I got into the birthing pool. They suggested breaking my waters to speed things up so I agreed. By 5 or 6am I was fully dilated but nothing was happening and the midwife was clearly perplexed, tired and wanted me to have it before she finished her shift at 8am. She kept saying "but the head is SO low!". She suggested an intermittent catheter - that my bladder must be full and that was stopping me wanting to push. She fiddled around trying to insert this catheter FOUR times. In the end she had to get a colleague to do it. I am told by my friend who is a nurse, that three attempts at anything is the golden rule. Anyway - it was unpleasant and I wasn't very happy about it but by this point I could hardly speak I was so tired and sore. By 8am a more senior midwife swapped with her and must have realised I needed help as she kept going to the door to speak to someone and eventually transferred me to the delivery ward. 

Once on the delivery ward the obstetrician took one look and in about 30 seconds said "this baby is facing sideways, he won't be coming out without some help". I couldn't believe that no one had realised this, I'd been up for nearly 30 hours and none of the midwives had apparently noticed he was wedged sideways. They suggested an episiotomy and forceps and very rapidly got me into theatre. The obstetrician, head midwife/nurse and the anaesthetist were delightful - professional, funny, sincere and made me feel like I was finally in safe hands. They also didn't muck about and got on with it, which was a huge relief. My baby was 9.8lbs - every midwife I had seen for the last 9 months had said "oh no, it's not a big baby, I can tell by looking at your bump".... 

I can't fault this team and was relieved to finally be in their hands. I do not understand why I wasn't moved earlier? Why didn't any of the midwives know the baby's head was sideways? Why was I left for as long as I was. My baby was delivered at 11am. 

I had lost too much blood to be sent home so had to go to the horror that it the Treliske postnatal ward. I thought it was their job to check on me and my baby, not for me to call them when I needed help. They said the baby needed a feed every three hours. I was exhausted but set my alarm to feed him but he wasn't hungry. I told them this in the morning and was chastised for not waking him up / changing his nappy and making him feed. I had never had a baby before! No one told me this is what I needed to do and I had hoped that the nurses / midwives would take it upon themselves to check on me and my baby through the night. Instead, I was left on my own and then told off in the morning because I didn't know what I was doing. 

One midwife (some of them were lovely) showed me how to feed lying down, then another midwife came in a few hours later and told me off for having the baby in the bed with me. Confused and conflicting advice from the same team. Once the catheter was removed, I was told to pee in a pot and bring it back for them to look at. I did this and proudly brought my pot of pee back and flagged the attention of a maternity support worker to tell her. She said it was nothign to do with her. I said - well, your colleagues told me to do this so here it is". She looked flustered and walked away, pee in hand. Later on I realised she hadn't recorded it because I was asked before I was discharged whether I had managed to pee after the catheter was removed. I had a thermometer shoved in my ear with no warning plenty of times, and every time told my temp was low. When I asked what that meant they said "it could mean an infection but these machines aren't very reliable". When I had heard this line about 6/7 times, I asked them to go and get a machine that worked and for heaven's sake tell me what my temperature was. It was like something out of a sketch show. 

The poor girl opposite me had just had a c section after being in labour for 3 days and when she asked them to help change the baby because she'd been sick, they told her to do it herself! It was appalling. All these poor women in floods of tears, without their partners, feeling like they were an imposition and not being looked after. Not only had we all had a terrible delivery, we'd been awake for HOURS. 

A junior gynaecologist came to see me to feel my uterus and ask me a few questions about bowel movements. When I asked him questions about infection risk, where exactly the incision was etc. he said, honestly, that he was so junior he actually didn't know the answer to a lot of my questions. He was frightfully nice but just clueless and again, I felt neglected and like I wasn't getting professional, experienced care. 

I had to hassle and hustle to be discharged. They said in the morning they were going to discharge me once my iron levels had come back but they had 'paperwork' to do. I wasn't discharged until 8pm and this was after constant constant badgering of staff to ask how long the paperwork might take and if they had spoken to the relevant consultant etc. When I was finally discharged, I was walking up the corridor and realised there was still a canula in my arm and had to ask them to take it out. 

I do understand it must be a staffing issue. There were some lovely midwives on my ward, who had an excellent bedside manner ("do you might if I stick this in your ear to take your temperature" instead of shoving it in with no warning). But, I got the general sense that under-resourcing has led to a level of apathy in the staff and that perhaps there is a systemic problem with the culture there. Bedside manner costs nothing. Hiring maternity support workers (surely there are plenty of people in Cornwall who are in desperate need of a job and not qualified midwives) who can change sheets, pass babies, check in on the women, take blood pressure - surely?! Instead, from some of the staff, I witnessed sloppy, slapdash, cavalier and simply unemphatic behaviour.

I was relieved to be home but then proceeded to bleed large lumpy blood clots from my urethra - apparently from the trauma of the catheterisation. I adore my baby and yes, the stitches hurt and I was tired etc. but the thing I was in tears about every evening for a week was the intermittent catheterisation that caused this bleeding. I felt I had been prodded and poked by someone who clearly wasn't competent enough to get it right in three goes. 

I knew Treliske postnatal ward had a bad rep - it's all over the internet but I thought since it had been in special measures, that it would be OK if I ended up there. It must be a management and culture problem.