"Having EPU in the maternity wing is distressing after miscarriage"

I recently, and very sadly went through a missed miscarriage, my experience was upsetting, traumatic and very confusing.

I dealt with many different members of staff and on the whole the majority of the staff did a fantastic job, other than my own GP. I don't understand, why my GP made me wait so long before going to the hospital.

Secondly, I don't understand why the EPU and EGU are both in the same building as the maternity wing, and you have to share the same reception as all the 'normal' pregnant women.

Also the waiting room for people visiting EPU/EGU is part of the corridor that swings off the main corridor towards a broken emergency exit door and also contained a broken chair each and every time I visited, to me it looked like it had been sat there for a far amount of time, due to the amount of dust of top of it.

I remember being told that I needed to make a decision about how to manage my missed miscarriage and to make a decision about how to (for lack of a better term) abort my baby. Although I'm aware my baby had already died, this is how it felt to me.

I on the other hand also felt, I wanted everything out and gone straight away, it was the strangest feeling and I don't quite know how to explain it, wanted everything out of me, but wanting to keep it there because while it was I still felt pregnant because I was still producing the right hormones and my body still believed I was pregnant.

So, I walked down the corridor after being told, to go home and make a decision, but no rush as I'd be coming back in 9 days (I think it was) for a re-scan. I cried as we walked out of the building while my partner partly held me up so I could continue to walk, as I left the building there was a new family, father and mother carrying their baby to their car.

Outside the maternity building there are three parking spaces, for pick ups.

All of this just added to my stress at the time.

One thing that amazed me is that the receptionist on one occasion, would not allow my partner to book me in at the desk while I waited in the waiting room. Because of the lay out of the hospital it is possible to get to the waiting room by walking through a link corridor from another building, and because of the position of this waiting room, you are only walking about 50 yards in to the maternity building which means you are able to avoid a lot of the pregnant women, but he was not allowed to book me in at the reception, after explaining I was upset and did not want to walk past the pregnant women.

I just wanted to put my side across. I lost my dream when I lost my pregnancy, and was then faced, within minutes of finding out my baby was dead, having to walk past a happy new family. Why are EPU units placed in the maternity wing?