Hi all
I gave birth in 2017, my child is almost two. I’m recently pregnant with my second and have been looking at different hospitals and only now have realised the difference between my first birth and births my friends have had at different hospitals and what different hospitals describe their maternity experience as. The hospital I’m looking to give birth at next year claim to give you your own room to labour and give birth in from when you come in to when you leave (you would be moved to a different room to recover as they would obviously need the birthing room but you still get a private room). My friends and family members which have given birth here support this.
My experience was v different, at the time I thought it was normal but now I’m thinking I was neglected!
So my experience was this - went into hospital lunchtime to be induced, waited around 6 hours to actually be induced as they only had one heart monitor, taking me to 32 hours after my waters had gone. I was on a ward with about 7 other people the whole time.
Went into labour within half hour of being induced, contractions labour lasted 12 hours before pushing. During this time I asked for painkillers at about 8pm, waited around two hours for them to bring me paracetamol (??!!). Within the hour I was obviously in agony again but no one had come to check on me and no one was on the ward so my partner went to ask, again waited two hours for them to bring pethadin then was left again. At this point I was screaming in agony every time I had a contraction, no one else on the ward was in labour (bed rest/waiting for induction/c section?) and the lights were off with everyone trying to sleep. I felt awful like I was disturbing people. Around midnight or 1am ish I actually got up myself to go and ask in the office for an epidural as I wasn’t coping, they sent me back to bed telling me they would request someone to bring me up to the delivery room and administer epidural. I was then ignored til about 5.15am with no one coming to see me about the epidural. Someone eventually remembered me and came to bring me to the delivery room for an epidural only for my baby to be born 15 mins later. My body was actually attempting to push while I was on the ward but it was my first baby and I didn’t realise, just assumed it was contractions making me writhe.
I feel like if I hadn’t had asked for an epidural I would have given birth in the ward in front of 7 other people.
For two weeks after this I felt anxious and traumatised. I even had dihorreah every time I thought of my time in labour.
Tell me if I’m being ridiculous or if I have means to complain?