"Birth of our 4th baby"

Our son was born on 9th December at Royal Victoria Maternity hospital. 

I tried to ring admissions before we came to the hospital but couldn’t get anyone on the phone so I went on up to the hospital and arrived around 8pm 

Both the midwife (can’t remember her name) and the doctor (Angelo) were both great and arranged for me to be admitted to Ward A around 11.30pm on 8th December. While I wasn’t technically in labour (was having contractions but cervix was closed) they were concerned as I had been bleeding heavily (I had a haemorrhage following the birth of baby number 3 so this put me in the at risk category). 

While in ward A the staff there were great again, the midwife was very helpful. I continued having contractions which increased in intensity. Asked for gas & air around 1.30am - 2am but was told I should try other pain relief such as co-codamol (which I accepted but didn’t make a difference). I then called the same midwife around 3am to say my contractions were very intense, midwife checked me and said I was 3-4cm. She said I could have a bath or go to delivery room. I knew the labour was progressing very fast even though the midwife didn’t seem to think so, I said I wanted to go to the delivery room. At 3.30am they said I could go round to delivery room so they told me to call my husband to come up to the hospital. I then packed up my stuff (with the help of the midwife and other nursing staff) and I walked round to the delivery room at 3.40am and was handed over to another midwife. Baby was born at 4.12am...luckily my husband got there just in time. The midwife even remarked that the baby had come a lot quicker than she expected.

I can’t recommend the staff highly enough as I think they were all very helpful especially as I was very anxious about the possibility of another haemorrhage (which thankfully didn’t happen). My husband was allowed to stay for as long as he wanted (he had to go home just before 8am to get our older kids to school). Very thorough and I couldn’t have asked for a better midwife.

I was transferred to Johnstone house (to keep an eye on me for a few hours to ensure no haemorrhage). Again the staff there and the midwife were amazing. I was discharged around 6pm that same day. Johnstone house is great and I felt like I was in a hotel!

To summarise I think all the staff were amazing especially working under the covid restrictions. I did wear my face mask most of the time until I got to the delivery room. Only thing that I wasn’t happy with, was that I wasn’t able to speak to anyone in admissions before I came up to the hospital but I assume the staff were overwhelmed with patients at that time.