This is a very long read.
My daughter is now 5 months old but still there’s things that bother me about my delivery. I have tried speaking to the hospital but I just got palmed off and no further contact has been made which is what I was promised.
As a back story I’m type 1 diabetic and my consultant agreed to do an induction at 37 weeks due to having reduced movements and from 32 weeks baby wasn’t passing on the ctg monitor after an hour so it was a cycle of being taken to triage to repeat which sometimes would take a few attempts. I’d been having 2 ctg appointments every week since 27 weeks. Anyway at my appointment at 36+1 baby failed again so in triage a consultant said I could have the induction started that day which I agreed to. This was on a Saturday afternoon and by Sunday evening (8pm when the night shift midwives came on) everything went south. The midwife that I had seemed to have it in for me from the get go, she was completely cold and just seemed to shunt at every question I had. I wasn’t progressing at all with the induction and she made one remark that it’s because baby wasn’t ready and “you’re too early to be doing this”. It was said in a snarky manner. I had requested the wireless ctg pads as the contractions were too uncomfortable when I was laying down so she connected me and I asked if I could stand at the side of the bed which I did. Once she had put them on she left the room but the pads weren’t picking up my contractions at all and baby’s heartbeat was jumping all over the place from 60-200-120-180-40-90 every second so I knew they needed to be adjusted. When she came back into the room about 20 mins later I asked if I could get back into the bed and have the pads adjusted but she told me no it was fine and to keep standing where I was and that I shouldn’t move. I had them on for around 30 mins and at this point I was in agony with the contractions and being told to stand so seeing as though they weren’t getting an accurate reading I took them off and was going to ask to go back on the normal wired monitor when she came back in by which point she walked through the door and she started huffing about why I removed them and that she needed to get a reading of baby etc and I told her they are not working properly please just put me back onto the regular monitor. She told me I wasn’t having contractions and dismissed me telling her I was. She then said she couldn’t proceed with the induction as I wasn’t contracting so I couldn’t have the gel and she’d have to remove the pessary and that was that. I told her I’m having contractions please just put me on the wired monitor and you will see the readings will be accurate on that one. I was at the point of needing gas and air but she refused that too and again said I wasn’t contracting at all. I asked her if I could just have a moment before she removed my pessary to gather my thoughts and she stood there and asked a few times sternly I’m waiting shall I remove it now then”, again I asked her please just give me a second as tbh I was in disbelief about her attitude towards me and the way she was making me feel. She then told me well you can remove it yourself if you want and she then walked out of the room. I went to reception and told a midwife what had happened and asked if I could have a new midwife and she told me “We don’t have midwives available at your disposal so you’ll have to wait and see what we can do” I said well can someone at least come and remove the pessary and id happily wait until morning shift when the next midwives come on as it’s gone past the time the pessary should be left in and she again told me I’d have to wait. I then spent 4 hours waiting for a new midwife at this point I’d been crying in agony with contractions and then squatting on the bathroom floor trying to remove the pessary even googling how to but I just couldn’t do it. After 4 hours I had the most caring and wonderful midwife take over my care who removed the pessary and after putting me on the monitor said she couldn’t proceed with the gel as I was contracting too much. She gave me gas and air and an anti sickness injection as I was throwing up and sat next to me rubbing my back whilst I was curled up crying. I can’t even put into words how much of a kind soul this midwife was, she is completely unforgettable and her care changed the dynamics of my emotional state from disparity to calmness. However after all the chaos I told her I wanted a section so at 8am the doctor said I’d be put onto the list but it didn’t get done that day due to emergencies. At 8am the next day my actual consultant was on shift and she came round and tried persuading me to carry on with the induction saying she’d try break my waters but I wasn’t interested and said I wanted the c section.
So, the section went ahead and initially everything went well however when I was still in theatre and had been moved onto the bed to take me into recovery, a nurse queried if I had been “leaky with my other babies”. My daughter had been rushed into neonatal as she was having trouble breathing so my mind wasn’t in the right place my baby was all I could think about. A couple of the theatre team were discussing the bleeding or lochia as they called it I was having but I was taken to recovery anyway as normal. The recovery nurse seemed to notice something wasn’t right either and she and the nurse looking after the lady next to me began discussing the bleeding and one of them said about getting the surgeon back to take a look but my nurse told the other one the surgeon was aware of suspicious bleeding raised by 2 different nurses but the surgeon still dismissed it. My nurse came back to me to empty the catheter and also put a new pad underneath me. When she came back 2 mins later the pad was saturated in blood so they called the surgeon on her phone again but she wasn’t responding so someone ran down to labour ward to get her in person. I can tell you it was like at the click of a finger I was struggling to keep my eyes open and just felt like I needed to sleep, the feeling was so overwhelming but at this point I didn’t even know anything was wrong I was still so upset about not having my daughter with me and I was still numb so couldn’t feel any blood anyway. My consultant then came into the room who was feeling my stomach and then the surgeon came who started pushing on my stomach and clots were coming out of me. She then examined me and was pulling clots out with her fingers so she pulled the emergency button and the room was swarmed and I was rushed back across the hall into theatre. She told me I’d need to be put to sleep but I told her no I’m still numb I can’t feel anything. She then placed her hand inside me and was manually pulling clots from me which was never ending. At first I couldn’t feel anything but soon enough I began feeling a pressure right under my ribs where she was literally pulling the clots out, it was taking my breath away and felt like she was clawing my insides out. You could hear a pin drop when every few seconds she was saying I can’t stop the bleeding I’m still pulling clots. My mouth went completely bone dry and I was trying with every part of me to keep my eyes open and stay awake because I didn’t want them to put me under general because I kept thinking I wouldn’t wake from it. There was so much going on in the room and so many people doing all sorts and I knew they couldn’t stop the bleeding. My consultant shouted for a blood transfusion and I remember having the blood pressure cuff on the same arm which was taking a reading every few minutes and once they started giving me blood every time it took a reading it was so painful and was stinging so bad. The anaesthetist then started squeezing the blood bag I assume to get it in me faster and eventually I had a balloon put in. Anyway, after all the chaos was done I was taken back to labour ward to stay the night because it was closer to theatre than postnatal ward incase anything should go wrong again. I didn’t have anybody actually come sit and explain to me about the ins and outs about how much blood I lost or why it happened it was simply dropped in a general chat where I was told “You lost quite a bit of blood but it was picked up quickly by the surgeon thankfully. Your uterus stopped contracting and we guess that there was a tear probably due to the size of baby and all the fluid (she was 9 pound 2). All I was told is I lost over 2000ml but wasn’t given an exact amount.
Anyway when she was a few weeks old I received a letter from the risk assessment midwife stating an investigation had been done at a panel which is always done in cases of pph more than 2000ml but the findings suggested all actions were taken promptly and the case was closed and might be used for training purposes. However all my paperwork I had been given back from postnatal ward stated I had normal blood loss of 500ml. When I had my 8 week GP check up he was oblivious to me having a haemorrhage, or the balloon or even a blood transfusion and said there was nothing about this on the notes. I kept calling the antenatal clinic to get this amended but they would never pick up so I went there in person when my daughter was 12 weeks and was told give me your name and number and I’ll look into it but I never heard anything back and despite calling numerous times I’ve still not got anywhere. She couldn’t seem any less interested. They had also wrote on my discharge notes on the safeguarding section that “baby’s dad takes cannabis” however this is not true and at no point was this ever mentioned whilst I was in hospital. My daughter was in neonatal for 3 days so we were there for the 3 days and given a private room on postnatal and again not one midwife asked or mentioned about smoking cannabis. It was a complete shock reading it on my notes because nothing had ever been queried. Whilst I was in labour ward a midwife asked him to leave the room so she could ask me if I was safe at home ect. She actually asked me a few times throughout her shift and once we’d got home he said he feels it’s because he is black which is why they’ve wrote this.
The maternity department of this hospital has been in the papers and had its ratings drop from requires improvement to inadequate. There has been a lot of publicity about it and a lot of stories to tell from locals who have used the maternity department. They have also paid out close to 100M in compensation claims directly relating to the maternity unit with the number one claim being fatalities.
I know a pph is something more common with a c section and I’m not suggesting the fact I had one was anything of the medical teams fault however what I can’t stop wondering about is how in theatre a nurse noticed something wasn’t right but was dismissed and then another nurse was also dismissed who made a judgement that something wasn’t right with me. How can a nurse in theatre raise an alarm that she thinks something isn’t right and the surgeon just glances and says no it’s fine and then walks out. This hospital never accurately writes down exactly what happens and they done something similar when I had a baby in 2018, I had severe tearing so the midwife called a surgeon who said he’d need to take me to theatre to stitch me but he ended up doing it in the room for well over an hour. When I had my first consultant appointment for the daughter I’ve just had she pulled out all my old notes and said oh no you had a slight tear which required minimal intervention and I told her that’s not correct but obviously she believed what the notes said and had drawn.
I 100% know that if I were to have another baby and ended up with a different consultant they would look at me like I’m mad if I said I had this complication etc a major haemorrhage after my last birth because nothing was documented properly.
I rang PALS and was told you need to put this all in writing on paper and send it in which I haven’t done and it feels pointless even doing so because everybody covers their backs.
I feel torn if I should bother to raise all of this with the hospital or just leave it.