"Too big, too disorganised, too little information...."

We are here for the birth of our third baby, the first two were in Northampton and a very poor experience was had. We were offered alternatives and plumped for Coventry. A big mistake. This hospital is too big to care, the car parking is massive and always full. Its costs a lot to park if you are on multiple visits and we cannot use local transport as we are driving in from Daventry. We could park outside and walk in but the grounds are that big that for an eight month pregnant wife its just too much. We have been over for several scans and so called meetings with doctors, actually we have never seen a doctor or a specialist even though we were told we had to. We just sat around for hours waiting as each department was late on appointments, always late, no coordination, a midwife would talk to us for a few seconds and scuttle off, best information came the radiographer, one of three, who actually explained a lot of stuff while teaching another student. No discussion and what's worse no one told us anything about what was going on. We had to return to our midwife in Daventry to get the latest news as she read the notes after each visit. The final straw is we arrived a day and half ago to be induced as apparently so we have been told the baby "maybe small" we are due in three days but because we were told to, like good citizens we have turned up to be put in a bed in a corner of a ward and left. My wife and I have sat here now for 36 hours with no inducement and no prospect of one as "they are busy" but we can't go home either as they have put the fear of god into my wife by telling her that the baby could be born still born if we leave! No one talks to us, one midwife looks after lots of beds all waiting, every now and then a fetal test, we ask, we plead, we say well send us home and phone when a slot comes in but no..... We have two little boys at home who miss their mummy and daddy and we can't get back to them. Thank goodness for Grandma, if we were relying on friends and a quick birth we would be up the creek. I spoke with another lady who heard my wife and I complaining and she said that they had her in for her first child for induction for seven day before finding a slot! Our experience is big is not best, central is not best, this is the worst kind of centralisation and it is too big, too unwieldy, too impersonal. Our advice is to steer away, choose something smaller. I wish we had gone for a home birth at least we can get to see a mid wife for more than 3 minutes a day. Actually Northampton Hospital does not seem as bad now...... Too late to change... and so disappointed