"Giving birth at the Royal Alexandra"

I arrived in the hospital at 2am, expecting to give birth in the CMU (Midwife Unit, with birthing pool, low lights, etc). I had called the hospital about an hour earlier, they were expecting me. I was not told the CMU was closed.

On arrival at the hospital, the security guard at the door was not able to direct us to the birthing unit. My partner and I worked out where it was. By this point I was having very regular, strong contractions. We went up, it was closed, there was no one there to point us in an alternative direction. After a minute, a midwife turned up, and sent us down to Triage.

At Triage, there was already a couple in the waiting room, the woman in active labour. My partner and I stayed in the corridor, where the contractions continued to grow in strength.

After about 5min (time was hazy, I was putting all of my focus on staying calm and breathing) we were given a room. A small, very clinical room, with a midwife who seemed overtired and clocked out, who kept having to leave the room. I was told that I was 5cm dilated, and offered a bath run for me. I gratefully said yes. The bath was not full enough for it to give much relief though. It was almost time to start pushing in any case, so I left the bath and went to the bed.

A long period of pushing followed, with a bit of relief from gas and air. I had absolutely expected to give birth in the birthing pool, not on a small clinical bed. Luckily the baby was born without complications, I had no tearing, but it was way more stressful an experience than it ought to have been.

RAH are advertising a service that is not available according to one of the midwives I talked to. They need to stop pretending to have this amazing facility (the CMU) to stop pregnant women getting their hopes up.