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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

12.30 am on a maternity ward

84 replies

Justfeckingdoit · 03/06/2011 00:43

Girl opposite is on her mobile loudly about some utterly random shit.

She is keeping everyone awake.

Aibu to be the ward hero and tell her to shut up, Or do I keep quiet and fume like everyone else is?

OP posts:

unspoilmykid · 03/06/2011 07:09

I had no visitors for days and since everyone else did and I didnt like sitting there alone in the bed with them all looking at me, I closed my curtains. The nurses kept pulling them open and tutting at me. It was awful :(

kreecherlivesupstairs · 03/06/2011 07:24

I had DD in Oman, I was in a 12 bedded ward although you would never have known that as the curtains were pulled around all the time
The woman next to me had the whole of her family there, it seemed like 29 people all the time. Both exageration, visiting time was 5-9 and that's all.
They would bring a charcoal burner and burn fucking incence until 9 then be gently moved along by the tiny Philipina nurses. They would end up going around 10.30 and the incence hang around all night.
I was trying to discharge myself after two days and managed it after 6.

funnybumblebee · 03/06/2011 07:28

I was in 5 days prior and a night after DD was born. It was, as unspoilmykid says, hell on earth. I particularly loved the doctor who woke me up at midnight to tell me they weren't going to examine me til the morning.

saffy85 · 03/06/2011 07:29

You have my sympathies. The girl in the bed next to me wasn't too much of a problem but her boyfriend was a prized git. She was wheeled up at 2am after a section and I guess he came up with her to "help" carry her stuff. He decided that 2am on the post labour ward was as good a time as any to yell at his "bird" for ignoring him, letting the MW look at him funny and generally treat him "like a cunt". coz he was a cunt.-- MW had to get security to get rid of him in the end. He came back later on to carry on his rant. Bastard

MmeLindor. · 03/06/2011 07:30

Congratulations on the birth of your little girl and good for you for saying something.

How are you feeling today? I had emcs and it kind of knocked me for six.

Original poster

Justfeckingdoit · 03/06/2011 07:30

unspoilmykid so sorry you had a horrible experience. No one minds babies crying or people snoring as no one can help them.

Chatting at full volume on a mobile at 1am is just rude!

OP posts:

saffy85 · 03/06/2011 07:31

Definately hell on earth. The noise, the heat the fact it just doesn't seem to end.... God I hope I don't have to stay in this time (due any day).

cantpooinpeace · 03/06/2011 07:36

I luckily got a side room as im staff but even that was hard enough. I honestly think I would have gone bonkers in a bay. I was in for 7 nights but due to trying and failing to BF constantly and the persistent interruptions - cleaners/photographers/dr's/ audiology/uncomfy beds etc I felt like I was totally out of it due to sleep deprivation. I was struggling to speak on day 7, stuttering and stammering, couldn't concentrate, all I needed was 5 hours unbroken sleep to sort me out.

P.s they're midwives not nurses

Paschaelina · 03/06/2011 07:37

Congratulations on your lovely dd! Hope you get home soon to have no sleep in private.

ChippingIn · 03/06/2011 07:37

Congratulations!!!

When you are up to it, we need more details :)

Funny - I hope you thwacked him over the head with his clipboard!!

Saffy - that poor girl. I hope she's found MN and we've convinced her that her life would be much better without him!!

Original poster

Justfeckingdoit · 03/06/2011 07:39

MmeLindor spent much of yesterday in shock and have been stuck in a non electric bed so pretty uncomfy.

Have asked for one as can't move much but they seem busy.

OP posts:

bruffin · 03/06/2011 07:40

I was in for 7 weeks with DS. I had pre eclampsia and was supposed to be relaxing for my blood pressure, what with moving beds around at 3am and being woken at 6am to have my bp taken, it was hardly the most relaxing place.
Then there was the women who pretending her brother was her husband so he could visit at all times (she did have a husband as well). Then there was the girl who had about 10 visitors every day she was in there. Thankfully when DS was finally born they gave me a private room for 4 days, even then they tried to move me for a day but the matron went bezerk and I was moved straight back to my room.
This is why I have no sympathy for those women who come on here complaining that their husbands can't stay with them 24/7. It would have been real nightmare.

unspoilmykid · 03/06/2011 07:42

cantpoo I think we had some nurses as it was the post surg ward (I wasnt post surg though). I wouldnt know what they were, they didnt introduce themselves...just acted like cunts
I really hated that place

anyway...enough of that self indulgence

Congrats to the OP

Meglet · 03/06/2011 07:44

Ah, the hell that is a post-natal ward. With DC2 I didn't shut up asking the midwives for a private room and got one after 12 hours.

chelstonmum · 03/06/2011 07:44

Congratulations...... I suggest you spend this evening phoning everyone in your address book to tell them the good news! x

Gastonladybird · 03/06/2011 07:52

Congrats to op but agree that post natal is a form of he'll. If only I had seen this? I just thought I was feeble after 3 day stay in hospital post dd. Looking back a MW shoving dd on my breast at 3 am saying just let her latch then suggesting they took her to nursery (she was about 5 hours old, crying but was in a private room) was never going to be best start to my stay.

EndoplasmicReticulum · 03/06/2011 08:00

Was hideous, I agree. Woman in next bed to me had husband and toddler deciding to stay the night and "sleeping" on the floor next to her bed.

We were in for a week after son 1 was born, and I only got sleep in 10 minute chunks. There was always someone interrrupting, I nearly lost it at the bloody Bounty woman the fifth time she turned up.

Not an option for everyone, obviously, but this was why I had a homebirth with no. 2.

MmeBlueberry · 03/06/2011 08:02

In had a private room when I had DS. It was £35 a night, which I thought was a bargain. My DB had given me cash to buy gear for DS, and this room was far better than a few outfits.

I was worried about sociability, but whenever I went for a walk around the ward, everyone had their curtains drawn.

unspoilmykid · 03/06/2011 08:03

I requested a private room from the minute I felk pregnant, and offered to pay. Someone else must have needed it. Fair enough if that was the case.

MmeLindor. · 03/06/2011 08:16

Justfeckingdoit
Keep on at them, I had an electric bed after a day in a normal one and it made a huge difference. I found it difficult sitting up and lifting DS out of his crib, was much easier when I could just press a button.

bruffin · 03/06/2011 08:31

I would have had a private room earlier if I could afforded it. I had Bupa but that only covered a private room if I had a cs, and not the 6 weeks before ds was born. What I didn't know at the time was I was covered under Dh,s hsa. I got a nice lump sum 6 months later when I discovered I had automatically gone on his policy when we married. They paid out a sum for every night I spent in hospital

Fleurdebleurgh · 03/06/2011 08:33

It was £280 a night for a private room on our ward, and they were grimey.

I still paid out of desperation.

ZonkedOut · 03/06/2011 08:38

Congratulations!

I hope you got some sleep in the end, I had an emergency CS with DD1 2 years ago, and was in 2 nights, I didn't sleep much at all during that time because of the ward noise, my baby and other babies crying, the last thing you need is inconsiderate people on top of all that!

Get as much rest as you can now and when you get home - you look after your baby and let other people look after you if possible, it's not much fun recovering for the first few weeks!

KaraStarbuckThrace · 03/06/2011 08:45

£280!! I would expect a king size bed, champagne, caviar and a gold plated bed side cot for that!!

Pussinflatboots · 03/06/2011 08:46

maternity ward was hellish! noisy and so hot. Main reason for me wanting home birth with any future dc... (post-birth bleed and stitches being fucked up meant I had to stay overnight despite a (so-they-say) quick and easy delivery. Problem with home birth would be needing to get transferred afterwards.

No private rooms available, so I got to stay next to a heroin mum, who kept phoning her DP to argue about how many vests they needed to buy, and that he needed to find more money. Another woman had a 3am fight with a midwife (verbal, obvs), and all the babies screamed relentlessly especially mine. And I had no food - couldn't move to get any, and too short-staffed to bring me any! Got my first shower 30 hours after giving birth .

Hospital birth centre represented best of nhs; ward the worst.

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