"I feel really let down"

My daughter was born in the hall of our flat while I was standing up screaming; my husband caught her while on the phone for an ambulance. 

My waters had broken at 4pm on my due date, I called triage and they said to go in.  They sent us away but the contractions were so painful that we went back in at around 9pm.  They sent us away again because I was only 3cms dilated and said they wouldn’t entertain us until my contractions were 3 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute and having been happening in that pattern for 2 hours.  The midwives also looked at my birth plan and could see that I wanted to have as natural birth as possible, they said if I was in hospital for a certain amount of time that choice would not be available to me because they would intervene after a certain cut off point. 

We were made to feel silly for having gone back and it felt like we were wasting their time, I asked about pain relief and was told it was going to get a lot worse so basically to get on with it.  That night was horrible, I spent all night walking around the house alone experiencing really painful contractions. I’m really brave but the pain was horrendous and I was scared.  However, my contractions weren’t hitting the required criteria. By the next morning my contractions had really slowed down, I think I was traumatised by the pain and my body was in shock. 

I went back to the hospital at 4pm the next day as advised; to be monitored because it was 24 hours since my waters had broken.  I could have stayed at that point but if I stayed I had to go to the ward and be induced, I really passionately did not want to be induced because so much of what I had read in preparation said that the pain of induction lead to the need for an epidural which could often lead to interventions such as forceps and unless it was an emergency or necessary, I truly believed that I would be able to give birth naturally without the trauma of surgery. 

The contractions were so painful by this point and I was desperate for some pain relief, I hadn’t been able to urinate all day or get comfortable in any position so I had been standing up since 4pm the day before.  I wasn’t examined due to the risk of infection because my waters had broken. They just monitored the baby’s heart and sent me away.

I got home and the pain was unbelievable, my instincts told me that things weren’t right, but by then my husband was pretty much convinced that we’d be sent away if we went back because my contractions weren’t hitting the required criteria.  I was physically and mentally broken by tiredness and pain by this point and had started to doubt myself.  I called triage again about 11pm and described the pain in detail and even contracted while on the phone, they said I could come up if I wanted but they just sounded like contractions so I was best staying at home and finding a comfortable position with my tens machine on. 

I was mentally broken by that point, I tried to lie down but then I just started getting an incredibly intense pain in my rectum that made me scream (I had described pressure in my rectum while on the 11pm call to triage, they laughed and said it was my baby’s head, the only thing to relieve that would be giving birth) – I experienced the same pain and pressure during the next few contractions and I was terrified because I did not know that this rectum pressure was part of birth, I thought there was something really seriously wrong with me. 

My husband woke up to my screams; he was pretty relaxed, I think because triage staff were being so blasé and laid back he was convinced that these were ‘just contractions’ and I needed to ‘man up’.  That was exactly how I had been made to feel by everyone around me, even though I called triage and told them and told my husband exactly how bad things felt.  My husband called triage again and they said we should go in, he told them I was asking for an ambulance and they had asked what type of sensation it was.  At this point I was petrified and screamed ‘call an ambulance’. 

I started to feel something, it felt like a head but no part of me thought the baby could be coming, then I felt what could only be a head, my husband looked and he saw the head, then she was out with the next contraction.  My husband caught her, I was standing up and my pyjamas were still around one ankle and there was blood everywhere.  It was absolutely terrifying, both the pain and the moment just before she came out thinking about her getting stuck or distressed. 

5 minutes later the ambulance arrived and got us all to the hospital, I had to walk down stairs from our top floor flat in only a vest top carrying my baby who was still attached to me by the umbilical cord.  The paramedics were amazing; it was the first time in 32 hours that I felt like someone was going to look after me.

We were all fine but I feel really let down by triage, upon reflection when I think logically, I wonder why I was advised to leave on the second day?  Surely it was obvious that the baby was on its way?  I’d been having really strong contractions for 24 hours.

I’ve been left pretty traumatised by this and I don’t want this to happen to anyone else, that's why I want to share my story.

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