I’ve name changed for this because it’s identifying. Overdue with 4th baby and something didn’t feel right at all. Went to the maternity unit where they briefly palpated my stomach and said the strange feeling was due to having so many children, apparently the uterus is ‘like baggy knicker elastic’, sent home with a flea in my ear. Woke up at 4.30am with my waters breaking, every other labor the midwife had to break my waters manually. I called the maternity unit asking to come in, something didn’t feel right, was told not to bother coming because they’d send me home. I called a taxi which I know was risky but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong because the pain didn’t feel right. I arrived and was made to sit in the waiting room in incredible pain until eventually being given an examination, really strange stringy discharge was everywhere, midwife had no idea what it was and thought the tight stomach was possibly the baby being breech despite the scan showing nothing of the sort. Anyway I was 8cms dilated, see I knew I was in labour! I was taken up to the delivery suite in a wheelchair due to the pain meaning I couldn’t walk.
It’s here where things started to go wrong, not enough staff, beds etc but because I was so far gone they found me a room, had a trainee midwife with her mentor popping in occasionally. I kept thinking something’s not right but I duly tried to push but the pain was far beyond regular delivery pain, I just kept crying and said I can’t anymore, told it won’t be much longer but baby was not shifting. After my repeated sobbing they got an anesthetist in to do an epidural and the Sp registrar was called, taken in to theatre and told to push, nothing and bearing in mind this had gone on for hours I had nothing left in the tank. SpR decided it was C-section time but kept asking me questions about my previous pregnancies and uterus issues, I had never had any issues with my uterus, not even period pain, ever. I could hear fear in his voice and he said not to worry but he was having trouble getting baby out, he did eventually but then said he was trying to stitch my uterus back up, he finished and I was taken back to the room I’d come from because there was no where else to put me, recovery was full or no staff.In the room I was on the phone to my mother, I said very suddenly that I didn’t feel very well, they lifted the sheet and I was hemorrhaging badly. They rushed me in to HDU and all of a sudden I was surrounded by people, they told my ex partner to not leave the hospital for a cigarette and there was no on call doctor to deal with me, apparently he was at a family party an hour away but he’d been called to come in. I remember the panic and fear on every professionals face, I was wheeled to theatre again but I became unconscious before I got there, I clearly remember feeling the life draining out of me before I passed out and I had what felt like tunnel vision with a white blur far in the distance.
I was woken up the following day feeling very strange and confused, I just heard this voice saying to keep still whilst they removed the tube from my throat and I’d been in an induced coma, I’d had a hysterectomy to save my life. I couldn’t move, speak, wasn’t allowed water except a sponge dabbed on my lips, couldn’t focus because of the IV pain medication. The SpR who’d first operated on me came and saw me, he told me he never thought I’d survive but I must’ve had a good reason to. He told me my uterus was in an X shape with the narrowest part around my sons neck causing his oxygen dips and the reason I couldn’t deliver him, he was well and truly trapped.I was then taken to HDU a couple of days later where I was basically abandoned, my parents were bringing food in for me but I couldn’t eat, asking someone to help empty my catheter bag because I was bed bound on a morphine pump. I remember asking for the door to HDU to be left open because the horrific dreams and replay of the events had started, heard an anesthetist and a midwife have a very loud row about how what I’d been through had been allowed to happen, think they’d forgotten I was there tbh.
Next day I was taken to the regular ward and basically abandoned again, in horrific pain and already developing PTSD I was told I wasn’t allowed my morphine pump anymore and I was to stay on the ward with all the other new mums. I’d had my catheter removed and asked someone to help me to the loo, bearing in mind the only time I’d stood in the last few days was with the assistance of physio in ICU to clear my chest, they told me to walk to the loo…
After what seemed like a never ending night of chattering and crying where I was too afraid to sleep and I was expected to feed my baby by myself, I couldn’t breastfeed and was made to feel like a nuisance when I asked them to get me a bottle, I wasn’t like all the other mums but was treated like I was.
Fortunately the next day a new midwife came on shift and was horrified by what I’d been through and how I was being treated on her ward. She arranged a private room for me, had my baby fed for me and took him away so I could rest. A week after I’d been admitted I told the consultant who’d saved my life I wanted to discharge myself, he wasn’t keen but agreed if I rested and ate lots of iron rich foods, I’d lost so much blood I think I’d raided their blood bank and Hartmans supplies. I agreed and went home to have midwives knock on my door just the see the woman who’d survived a major post-partum hemorrhage due to a Bandls ring, it was the savior nurse on the ward who told me what I’d had, extremely rare apparently. I ended up traumatised, psychiatrist told me to go home at my appointment and be grateful I’d survived, didn’t really help me that funnily enough, the fact I was seeing ghosts everywhere should’ve been a bit of a warning sign I wasn’t mentally well. Very fortunately I had a brilliant psychiatric nurse who visited me daily. I went for my 6 week check up to find the consultant who’d saved my life had died, heart attack apparently.
My point in all of this extremely long story is that if I hadn’t been dismissed as a neurotic mother, one that had given birth three times previously with one being a back to back labour and delivery, then they’d have possibly been able to do a planned C-section long before I was in established labour, they got it wrong and I was dismissed and it could’ve ended in the loss of two lives along with the consultant who died, I can’t imagine the stress helped him. They should never have brushed me off as a woman with a baggy knicker elastic uterus without investigating the pain I was in a full 24 hours beforehand. I’d have loved to have been at the M&M meeting after this happened to me, never got an apology or an explanation as to how this was allowed to happen.