Sorry this is LONG.....
I am currently 35 weeks pregnant with twins. Due to carrying twins, the pregnancy is judged high risk although it was going relatively smoothly until about a fortnight ago. At booking in, I mentioned my history of depression and anxiety which are largely under control.
At a 9 week private scan, I found out that it was twins and was advised by the private clinic to inform my midwife in case I needed extra time for the 12 week scan. I called my midwife but she didn't document this anywhere and when I got to my 12 week scan the sonographer said that I should have let them know in advance as they don't normally do the nuchal test for twins at that hospital as I would need a longer slot. I said that I'd told my midwife. They were luckily able to do it anyway - when I bumped into my community midwife at the hospital she claimed that she didn't know anything about it.
I was then allocated to the high risk midwife who takes care of twin pregnancies and I saw her in clinics instead of a consultant after growth scans. Everyone I met at antenatal clinics were great - lovely staff. At about 25 weeks pregnant, I started experiencing signs that my mental health was suffering - I know what the tell-tale signs are for me as I've been seriously ill (medicated, suicidal etc.) with depression and anxiety in the past. I called my community midwife and told her I was feeling depressed and feel I needed help. She asked me no questions apart from whether it 'was related to the pregnancy', I said 'in part' - she said she would send me a leaflet to self-refer to the local talking therapies. She never sent the leaflet and did not ask about it (or any aspect of my emotional health) at any future appointments. When reading back my pregnancy notes recently, I noticed that there is a box for 'emotional health' for each appointment. She has written 'well' or left it blank each time. Thanks to support from DH I ended up seeking out private counselling which has helped (but dented our savings)...
At 33 weeks-ish, I developed extreme itching of my hands and feet at night. It was more like burning than itching on the soles of my feet and was extremely uncomfortable and distressing. It started on a Friday night so I called the PAU at the hospital who told me that I should contact my midwife asap on the Monday to arrange blood tests. I texted my community midwife about this and received no reply and no answer to the calls. In the afternoon, having not slept all weekend, I contacted the high risk midwife who arranged blood tests for me. That night, I experienced reduced movements and went to the hospital. The babies were fine but the blood tests weren't good and I was diagnosed with obstetric cholestasis - my levels were in the 'severe' category. I was in most of the night waiting to see the doctor and also had scans of babies and of my liver the next day and further bloods. I was told that in normal times they'd run weekly bloods but now, due to covid, they would contact my community midwife and ask her to check in with me weekly about symptoms. I wasn't very happy about this and quite worried as there is a risk of stillbirth the conditions and I could feel my symptoms getting worse.
The next day, I tried to contact the midwife as symptoms were much worse including some warning symptoms from the leaflet they gave me. No response. Contacted the high risk midwife. No response either.
Day after (averaging about 1-2 hours sleep a night at this point and very anxious and tearful) I hadn't felt one twin move and went back to hospital. They could see how distressed I was and took another blood sample. Results the next day showed an elevation of my levels (100 is the danger zone for stillbirth and mine had gone from 43 to 83) in a few days). I also said I was struggling to make contact with midwife.
I had growth scan and clinic appointment booked for a few days later and planned to discuss with the high risk midwife then. Unfortunately, she was on leave (explains her lack of reply to my earlier contact). I saw a consultant instead who didn't seem overly concerned but ordered for blood tests to be safe. He also said that as babies were fine and scheduled for early delivery anyway at 37 weeks (I was 34+5 at this point) that he didn't see the need for me to be seen again. All the reading and guidance I've read about this condition is that regular monitoring after 34 weeks is a must so I didn't feel hugely comfortably leaving it this long. He said we'll see what the bloods say and take it from there. When I called the hospital to get my blood test results (which are still high but have dropped a little), the hospital midwives were lovely and said they'd ask the doctor to call me. This doctor didn't seem to care at all and dismissed my concerns saying 'we won't deliver you early' (not what I asked for) and told me that we'd take more bloods and just see...I said that the weekly phone calls from the community midwife weren't happening and I wasn't getting any sleep but just got a 'there's not a lot we can do about the symptoms' and nothing else.
So now I'm just under 2 weeks away from birth and don't know what to do....do I complain about my community midwife? will anything get addressed at this late stage and is there any point? do I insist on more bloods? (1-2 times a week at my levels is what the official guidance says at a minimum), do I try to the high risk midwife number - I think I overheard hospital staff saying she was back next week? I feel like I'm having to take control of my own care and nobody seems to care apart from the lovely PAU midwives but I don't feel like this is in their role/remit. Everyone else I know with either twin pregnancies or cholestasis is under one, named consultant. I have both and just don't know where to turn and it's really impacting my anxiety. I cry most of the night either in pain from the itching/burning or from worry...Don't know where to turn.
Thank you if you got to the end of this and have anything you can help with here.