Name changed for this but fairly regular poster.
My dd is 1 now but every time I think about the way my midwife treated me during her birth I get really angry/emotional. I don’t think of it very often it just pops up suddenly in my thoughts and catches me off guard sometimes.
When I got the hospital I was 5cm and things were progressing quite quickly. They got me to labour ward where I met my midwife. She was incredibly cheerful and enthusiastic when greeting me and fired me with lots of small talk questions. However I wasn’t massively responsive and didn’t always answer because I was in agony and I deal with pain by being quiet. It quite obviously got her back up and she was rude and abrupt with me throughout but I’ll put some specific examples below of where I think she crossed the line.
-At one point she asked me something and i asked DH to answer as I was struggling to cope and she said “no you will answer me. I have a great communication standard with all my ladies and that’s not going to stop now so you will be the one to answer.”
- She asked me at one point about pain relief and I said I wanted an epidural. It was too late - I can obviously see that now but at the time I only had gas and air and was desperate. She laughed and said “oh well you won’t be getting one of those today” - the way she said it was gleeful and when another midwife came in she said “ha she wants an epidural! Well she’s in for a surprise - I did it without one I don’t know what the fuss is about.” There was no attempt to be discrete she knew I could hear
- I got to the pushing stage. She huffed and puffed the whole way through (I’m not flexible at all I don’t think I could bend my legs in the way she wanted - did try though). When the baby’s head was out the other midwife said to push when I got a contraction but the original midwife said “aww look at that poor baby it’s trying to cry. Push now don’t wait she’s trying to cry poor wee soul.” I didn’t do it it didn’t feel right so I waited until the next contraction (which came very quickly)and pushed her out. She made me feel terrible though like I’d done something wrong but I think I did the right thing which is what the other midwife said to do. After about 5 mins she was fine and was a lot nicer to me.
I’m sure there are people that have had worse labours but I’m really annoyed someone would behave this way towards someone at their most vulnerable. I was literally at her mercy and the only reason I didn’t bite back was because I had other things to worry about and was also scared of getting her back up even more when I was in her care. I am so mad at myself for not saying something at the time - aibu or oversensitive to still fond this upsetting?