to lie knowingly and deliberately to get my own way?

[HorsechestnutBlossom]

I had booked in a homebirth for months only to be told on the day there isn't a midwife available so you'll have to come in!

As an experienced homebirther (3 previously!) I was not going to be fobbed off so I told them the contractions were coming every minute! (lies lies lies)

I told them I could not come in and see you soon!

Heard them muttering to each other on the phone in the background she's too far gone we need to get a midwife to her she refuses to come in, then I did some extra yelp-in-labour for good measure and hung up.

A midwife rang me 2 minutes later saying I'm on my way.

And so I got the homebirth I wanted.

The thing is the whole health service is ridiculous and i could tell you some awful awful stories. I think the thing is that people are mislead, they do not really have a choice, they only have a choice when resources allow.
If they employed enough MW the most days they would be standing around twiddling there thumbs and the NHS would be throwing away limited resources and other areas such as SCBU would suffer because the bottom line is there is never enough money to run the perfect service.

I think that's a good point wolfy - you have a choice if resources allow. A homebirth is not a right, and 1 to 1 care is not a right.

Alot of midwives are dual trained though arnt they wolf ,so on quiet days they could be re-deployed onto wards /areas where there were staff off sick ,thus no thumb twiddling. I also thought A&E often had quiet times ,but needs to be staff sufficently ( a key word) if theres a major incident what happens ? You are of course right about the NHS ,you know what i really cant believe ,even in the event of the possible swine flu epidemic turning into a majax ,the govermenont still insists on keeping targets in place ,how many patients do you think will 'breach' then?

The job of the NHS is to allocate limited resources as well as it can to benefit the maximum number of people as much as possible.

If you lie to them you are not allowing them to make that decision correctly.

Therefore resources might be deloyed less well and people might suffer.

YABU.

I'm sure there is a pool of midwives as I'm very rural tbh I don't know for sure because I was doing research about what would be best for my baby and me, I did not go researching into the organisation of midwives. That is not the business of a pg woman!)

I was offered a hb, it costs the NHS far less, I was supposed to have 2 midwives all to myself (NHS rules not mine)and I only got one, not that I was complaining as my dh did a damn good job of being completely hands on and the midwife's helper.

I am interested in the YABU posts as it makes me feel that I, an 'elderly' pg woman who is doing her bit for saving NHS resources, is selfish for doing so!

May be I should have sued or at least complained because I didn't get the required 2 midwives

In my opinion hospitals are there for the SICK or pg women who NEED or WANT their services.

That's hardly selfish is it? As another post said, they could have sent out a paramedic or 2 if they were trained in baby shoulder distocia which I knew I had a high likelihood of having, I would have been fine about that.

TA, but I think the NHS are telling pg women that homebirths are their right!

Bumpsoon, are you kidding me last weekend i went to work in the only A&E in this city (a large one) to find only 6 of our staff, we need a min of 12 to be barely safe, we had 5 bank staff who had never worked in A&E before i had to transfer a patient to a critically ill pt to another hospital which left 5 that is beyond dangerous.

Midwives may be dual qualified but many would not have worked on a ward for a very long time so would not be much use. It is VERY misinformed to think we can try our hand to anything, for example you would not want be delivering your baby . And what would you do send them to a ward for a morning and then when someone went into labour call them back "sorry little old lady, i know your sat on a commode but there is a woman in labour somewhere". Your post is very ignorant of the way the health service works, it constantly borrows from peter to pay paul and although it tries to be accomodating it simply is not possible given the limited resources.

If you read my post i have never slagged her off i have said in fact said she in NBU but i have tried to explain why there is such pressure on the fealth service

Also the NHS wastes so much money , we are only allowed to order supplies through their approved supplier ,regardless of whether we can buy supplies cheaper elsewhere .

Horsechestnut, you did post this in AIBU you have to expect some disagreement. Not that i think you are

I agree that NHS wastes money but mainly on the hierarchy structure not on patient services and of course you have to order from their supplier can you imagine the chaos if you could order from anywhere.

Wolf , i think you misinterpreted what i was trying to say or i didnt make myself very clear . Yes , your right some midwives wont have worked on a ward for a long time ,but believe me ,when i have been the only qualified looking after 30 patients ,one of whom i had to transfer to ITU ,i would of been glad of anyone who knew one end of a dynamap from another .I do know that A&E are often down in numbers and never moan or bitch when the pressure is on them to move someone before they breach and they ring us needing us to make space somewhere ( bring on the bunkbeds ). But i do think that because as a profession we tend to moan to ourselves but ultimately get on with it and cope when the shit hits the fan ,we forget that the vast majority of people have no idea what its like . The public need to get arsey in my opinion and we should support them

Sorry wolf , its no good having a go at you ,im just feeling particlualry arsey and hormonal this morning ,will have my 'caring face of the nhs' smile fixed in place in an hour

The NHS should not offer HBs if they turn around on the day and say you can't have one.

Who has ever heard of a labouring woman turned away from hospital because of lack of midwives and told to have her baby at home?

By the sound of it they should be turned away because sometimes as wolf says wards are dangerously understaffed.

If the hospital is understaffed with midwives that is the last place on earth I'd want to give birth! Far too scary and dangerous to boot. Why would I want to risk my baby's life and my own by going to an understaffed ward? Why would anybody?!

Why aren't more pg women putting their foot down about shoddy and inadequate care?

But do you know any MW bump who would go of and do obs on a general ward. I most certainly do not,and what would you pay them band 6 band 7 MW rates to be a general dogsbody on a ward, surely that would be the epitomy of wasting money.

When there is a major incident we are duty bound to all go into work regardless of where you are or what you are doing it is not the day to day staff that have to cope, we have a cascade system for calling staff.

x posts bumpsoon .

I shall get down from my high horse.

Thank gawd I got my nhs homebirth without a fight or having to lie. If I had been told to "come in" I would have never made it. Frankly I would rather have an unassisted birth at home than an unassisted birth on the hard shoulder of the M25.

As for use of resources the community midwife spent longer doing the admin than actually delivering my baby.

Having to change plans and not have a homebirth can make childcare arrangements hard. If I had had to go into hospital then I would have had to gone in alone. The idea of being in a delivery suite without my husband would have been a nightmare.

Its one thing to have to go into hospital because of complications. Quite another to go into hospital because of lack of nhs planning.

Horsechestnut: you weren't trying to save the NHS money. You were trying to get what you wanted.

YABU to have lied.

I didn't know that the NHS says you have a right to a homebirth (it sounds like a ridiculous promise for them to make). In that case YWNBU to insist on your homebirth, but you still should not have lied to them. As an 'experienced homebirther' in the early stages of labour could you not have said 'I'm not coming in' and then kept them updated by phone as labour progressed? They would eventually have had to send someone out anyway.

not sure that that is the case or if it's just being promoted here, but looking it up

yes, looks like it's a right

I doult an experienced homebirther would call in the early stages of labour.

If I had been told to come in I would not have been lying in saying that it was really too late.

well, i suppose not, but i suspect you feel a little guilty otherwise you wouldnt be posting...

According to my MW, home births are more expensive than hospital births - if they are both straightforward, uncomplicated deliveries. However, she is very pro home birth, believing that the vast majority of births are straightforward and not in need of intervention.

However, I really don't buy the, "You're so selfish lying and wanting a midwife at your home when others might be in more need," That's bull. How would the OP know if there were other women in "more need"? Is she supposed to check first before she asks for a MW in attendance at her home? That's mad and not her responsibility.

Also, she lives in a rural area. Things can get started and established quite quickly in labour and maybe it's better the MW came out when she did anyway.

Having said all that, I still don't really get the need for the lie. You could have just said, "I'm not coming in and that's that," Lying is a bit crap but perhaps you felt you had to to make sure you got the birth scenario you wanted.

Glad to hear all is well. Shoulder dystocia is well scary!