Ill be as short as possible.
My eldest daughter, due to unusual and complicated circumstances, lives with her father. This was agreed between us. While I feel he manipulated the system and my feelings, no body actually forced me to give up residence of her. The judge commended me for doing so for the reasons I did.
In october last year I gave birth to my son. He was born at a large hospital, and placed in neonatal care due to being premature. Whilst there, a nurse overheard me speaking about my daughter and asked if she would be visiting, and I said yes at the weekend, she asked if my mum had her, and I said no she is with her Dad, she then asked if he had collected her because I'd gone into labour and I said no she lives with him. She asked why and I told her. She took me aside and explained that just to cover herself, she would have to contact social services, just to confirm that what I had said was true. I was fine with this. Social services confirmed that our arrangement is private and that they had nothing to do with it.
When DS was a week old he was transferred to our local, smaller hospital. This is where problems began.
At 11 days my son was medically fit for discharge. I asked when the peadiatrician would be round and was told "Later on, but we can't discharge you until we have had a meeting regarding your daughter". Naturally I asked why, they said "Because she was removed from your care, we need to assess your suitability to care for your son".
I corrected them and explained that the staff at the hospital he was born at had already confirmed that she was not removed from my care, and that our arrangement was private.
The staff told me they still needed to confirm with social services. I rang the social services department myself who rang the hospital and again explained that they had nothing to do with me. A social worker phoned me back and told me that she had personally informed the hospital that no meeting was required as there was no concern on social services part and that they would not even consider attending unless I wanted one myself, and that they should discharge DS.
This was a friday. I went to speak to the ward staff, who said "Yes we've spoken to the social worker, as soon as a midwife had visited you to check you have everything (Never had this with DD, despite her being prem too) I said "a midwife came out on tuesday and raised no concerns". They came back with "She didn't tell us she'd been, we'll get one to you tomorrow, and do discharge once she's been".
Midwife arrives at my mums (We were staying at my mums), and declares that she will not be allowing DS to go home with me because (and I quote) "what if she trips over the dog or walks into the fridge". (Fridge was in the kitchen?).
So hospital again say they must have a meeting. I have to wait until monday.
I ask the staff on the ward what they would do if I discharged my son myself (It was written in his notes that he was medically fit for discharge). The staff told me they would have me arrested.
Monday morning arrives. I rang the police myself, explained social services had no concerns, weren't involved and what the hospital staff had said. They advised that if I wanted to discharge my son, they would not in a million years back the hospital as they had no right to keep him there.
I thanked them and rang the social worker back, who was disgusted. She went round to my mums house, looked around and said "this is ridiculous".
Meanwhile I went to the staff, thanked them for the care they had provided, but explained that they would be discharging him by the end of the day, and if they wanted to stop me, they were welcome to try and obtain a court order preventing me from doing so, but with social services on my side, they would have great difficulty.
Social worker arrived at hospital. I've no idea what she said to the staff. But within an hour of her leaving they discharged him to me and wouldn't look me in the eye while they did the papers.
I've had no social services input since.
At the time, I was advised to complain but I just felt ashamed and degraded.
Now I feel angry at the way I was treated and I think I need to do something. I feel they were incredibly sexist - If I were a none resident father, no one would have even questioned it, nevermind have me jump through hoops to prove, repeatedly, that my child was not removed from my care. I had no issues with the first nurse who explained she had to check - That wasn't a problem, I was never called a liar by her or judged. She made a simple phone call, she followed procedure and confirmed that there were no concerns.
I feel they ruined what should have been a happy experience - taking my son home - I have envisaged much joy and gifts for the staff for providing my sons treatment. Not a frosty goodbye and off you go.
However, I wonder if its too late? Would it be unreasonable after this time? And if not, how do I go about it?