"I chose PRUH as I liked the look of the birthing..."

Anything else?

I chose PRUH as I liked the look of the birthing centre and to be honest, seemed the best of a bad bunch in this area. I wish I'd chosen to go elsewhere now. I attended PRUH following my waters breaking in the evening for a check and went home again waiting to see if my labour began naturally...it did, from around midnight/1am and I contracted all throughout the night until my contractions reached 3 in 10 mins and lasting 90 mins. Called up, made the 30 min journey into PRUH only to find I clearly wasn't welcome there and the midwife couldn't wait to get rid of me. Luckily I hadn't bothered to bring my hospital bag in from the car at this point (I must have subconsciously knew!) as I was told to leave the delivery room, couldn't leave anything in there, and go for a walk or have some breakfast in the patient canteen. So there I am having full blown contractions in the middle of a canteen, go back up to the delivery room only to be advised to go back home as "chances are you won't even have this baby tonight". Tried explaining that it's a 60 min round trip along a very traffic heavy road and was told the other alternative was to sit in the day room...so basically continue my contractions in public! Having wrongly trusted a 'professional' I agreed to go home. Within 30 mins I was beginning to feel downward pressure so my husband called the PRUH and spoke to the midwife who told him to tell me to keep it going for an hour before calling back to come in...I was in absolute agony, most people would at least have gas and air by this point. Another 15 mins later an ambulance was called as I needed to push and there was no way we'd get back to the hospital in time, 30 mins after that I was holding my son in my arms having given birth on the floor of our lounge. Not only did I receive absolutely no support from the PRUH, I was forced to endure quite a stressful delivery, being sat in a car travelling from one place to another whilst entering established labour... A time I should have been sat in the birthing pool trying to relax through it. Having given birth at home we were then left to care for our son at home the first night (first baby) which resulted in a subsequent hospital stay 5 days later due to baby's substantial weight loss due to breast feeding issues which I'd tried explaining to the midwives and that fell on deaf ears but that's another complaint entirely. In summary, I don't think I'd go to the PRUH again, if I do I'll be sure to stand my ground and not assume the professionals know best. Very poor support for first time parents.