"Traumatic birth experience"

Absolutely horrendous experience still traumatised two years later. I was warned by many friends not to agree to have my baby at Macclesfield but although you can choose where to go the midwives put you under so much pressure, 'you'll have to go through booking in again and have your blood test done again' and it's a real nightmare to transfer you, I resigned myself to having my baby at Macc. They have a high rate of C section births and although my first baby arrived naturally within 40minutes (at a dedicated maternity hospital in another county) my gut feeling was that Macc was the wrong place to go.

The whole labour was completely disorganised I must've seen ten different midwives in the eight hours I was in the birthing room and every now and again they'd have to call a doctor from the main hospital to do an internal inspection. It felt like they showed up when they could be bothered and most definitely had no interest in whether you were a woman in labour or a dog - didn't even say hello before they rammed their hands inside me- the midwives even joked oh they're rude and ruthless and then off they'd scurry. The whole experience was just vile. I stood bleeding onto a mat on the floor during contractions until a more senior midwife popped in and told the midwives off and told them to put some pants on me.

A student midwife tried to administer an IV drop but failed and I was splattered on blood that wouldn't stop leaking from my hand. Eventually after the most excruciating internal examination whereby the ruthless doctor tried to affix a heart rate monitor to my baby's head whilst the baby had not yet even entered the birth canal (imagine someone going in at the bottom and reaching up to your ribs, having only had gas and air) and then prodding for 15 minutes as passed out not surprisingly and when I came round they decided it was time for a c section - here here read and sign this take a shot of this quick you can't read just dig we've got to go - in fact take her straight down take her to emergency but her partners putting scrubs on no tell him he can't.

I was wheeled into a white room with bright lights where a team of about twenty staff who I'd never seen before rolled me from the bed onto the operating table - where's my partner - oh too late sorry you're going to be put to sleep - why - we can't prove or prove not that your baby's heart beat is ok as we could affix the monitors to its head - so here count to five and gone. I woke up to the most excruciating pain an hour later and could hear a baby crying they tried to put her on me but I said I can't I'm in agony then someone leaned over the top of me - hi I'm the anesthetist we just need to give you some anesthetic as we'd not realized you hadn't had an epidural - the pain will calm down in about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile the doctors wrote in my notes that 'mother had rejected baby upon first contact due to maternal distress'. I cannot explain how horrendous the whole experience was. My daughter had cried for one hour and then a further twenty minutes and yet her father was sat outside waiting and could have cuddled her. A midwife who had been present during the surgery later told me that they picked my daughter up and gave her a hug for a bit but was told to put her back down. The midwives generally tried their best to be kind but there was a definite lack of experienced hands during the labour and the doctors and anaesthetist etc are obviously shared with the rest of the hospital.

I remember being wheeled to surgery and you have to cross the main corridor where Joe Public watch you horrified. Please please avoid and save yourself the distress. If that wasn't bad enough I was also awarded a CCJ for leaving my car in the car park whilst I had the surgery. I had to take the parking company to court to have it set aside, and won of course, the day before by daughters first birthday. When I rang the hospital to tell them to help and contact the parking company, they just said it was out of their hands. The scar from my c section is also three inches higher on one side and looks like a five year old stitched it up. Still not healed two years later.