May 2017 #4

[WishIWasSleeping]

Oh, obviously I do know how!

I was trying for one last time 1004Rise and am considering again. I'm waiting for my notes from last time to discuss with a retired midwife friend.

If your local hospital can't do epidurals what do they do for emergency sections?

Savage I have the horrible suspicion they just knock you out

Being pregnant has just emphasised how cut off we are up here.... and I'm in a relatively civilised part! I'd hate to be further north!

Still needs an anaesthetist, though?! Perhaps just no capacity for one on general standby in maternity, only for 'emergencies'? Odd. What are your options then - only pethadine / gas & air?

Good tip to have a look at what is offered during birth, I'd been very much avoiding those pages on the hospital website up until now! I'm still trying not to get over-excited before the 20 week scan... I'm hoping to have my baby in the Home from Home unit (water birth ideally) and it seems that if you do that, you get to stay in your room for 6-12 hours afterwards, and then ideally you just go home. Obviously more complicated deliveries are different. Also partners can stay overnight, which is good - although potentially not too comfy for them!

Yes that's it, either minimal pain relief it totally out of it

Glad yours has pages MrsJW ours just has a list of phone numbers!
Home from home sounds great :)

Savage changing an appointment is impossible because they never answer the phone... But they do have a good website! :D

Sounds like my doctor's. I find it easier to go in in person!

Nervous yes if I want to drive 70 miles (about 2hrs) to the maternity hospital Doesn't sound much fun....

It's a consultant led unit so I in my naivety assumed that they'd still have everything available but apparently not

Oh, another tip - check mobile reception if you are offered a hospital tour - ours is pretty awful, so difficult to call out and if you are relying on (say) your mobile to entertain you while baby naps, it won't!

I think, but am in no way sure, that two parents with negative blood groups can have a positive baby, because of recessive genes. My midwife was telling me that in the future they should be able to use a Harmony style test to figure out what blood group a baby is before its born. Amazing really.

Just had 16 wk appt. She found the heartbeat easily and said it sounds good. It was a much better experience than last time when I was under a consultant and everything was scary. This time it was all chatty and reassuring.

I will be booked in for a home birth last time but dd2 had other ideas as she turned transverse so I had a 38 week induction instead.

I will have to be booked in for homebirth this time as dd1 was under 2 hours from 4cm to birth and dd2 was less than an hour, so it's questionable if I will make it to the hospital this time.

McBaby I feel really nosey today but how does induction help a transverse positioning? Was it that she was still small enough to turn in labour from transverse at 38 weeks, but might not have been able to later?

savage She turned from engaged and head down to transverse a couple of days earlier so they did an ecv then an induction.

The ecv was very quick and she wiggled back down as the guided her.

I had 3 options ecv and induction, emergency csection or stay in hospital until I was in labour and hope she was in a better position (which was not an option with a 20 month old at home).

The hospital was freaking out as i was contracting every 10 minutes when they discovered she was transverse I kept telling them I wasn't in labour as I have an irritable uterus so contract regularly a lot! But they didn't want to take any risk combined with the quick first labour.

Ah Ok. Why no ECV and then let you labour naturally later - risk of turning again, or were they worried about the ECV itself (not without risk if I remember rightly)?

Yes I think incase she turned again but you also need monitoring after ecv as it can cause its own problems.

Goodness me, all this chat is making me feel very unprepared. I've not even looked into NCT classes and have no idea what my hospital offer in terms of classes or how to get booked on them or if they do tours of the dept.

As for the birth, I know my hospital (one of the four so called "super" hospitals in Greater Manchester) only has one private room which you have to pay £70 for - assuming it's even available! I've no idea how big the wards are! I don't know how long dad's are allowed on the ward either.

I'd have rather given birth at the specialist Maternity Hospital about 25 mins drive away, but both my mum and sister had fast labours (first contraction to baby is less than an hour for both my mums and all four of my sisters babies) so I'd be worried about not making it in time (and I wasn't given a choice).

I don't understand if they've got an anaesthetist available to knock you out for an emergency section they couldn't do epidurals too?! It's their job!

Post natal wards are just utterly grim, no privacy, no sleep, boiling hot with no air, no chance of paying for a private room either where I'm going. I think another 4 people/dads crammed into the cubicles overnight would send me over the edge. I thought it was better to send DH home anyway to get a sleep before we got home properly and the madness began!

Yeah, our local hospital is midwife only, this means if you need anything stronger than gas and air (and perhaps pethedine) they send you to the next town along. If you need an emergency C-section you would also be sent there by ambulance. It's ridiculous because it's a big town and a major hospital, people were not happy when they changed to this arrangement. It's almost no different from a home birth in terms of what facilities are available.

I wanted to give birth to my first baby at the midwife unit but unfortunately I had to be transferred in an ambulance to the other hospital as my blood pressure was elevated on arrival. It was a horrible bumpy 30 minute journey and when I got there, there wasn't even an anesthetist available to do an epidural as their only one had just been called to do someone else's emergency C-section. So I had to wait for several hours in agony with no pain relief.

I really think if it was men that had to go through this shit, things would be different. Imagine if a car crash victim gets wheeled into A&E screaming in agony with a broken back and then gets told sorry, just breathe through it, you have to wait several hours before an anaesthetist is available. Pretty sure it just wouldn't happen? So why do some women have to go through terrible labours with inadequate pain relief, because it's 'natural' and it's our job? What a load of old crap. I think we deserve better.

There is a good chance we will be moving to Switzerland before the baby arrives and to be honest if that happens I will be happy not to be having another NHS birth.

Sorry, as you can probably tell I'm a bit bitter about my first experience... Hoping the second time around will be easier!

That sounds awful. Our hospital was built for 3000 births a year, there's now 6000 a year, they are bursting at the seams. I've always have complicated pregnancies and so always been on a Consultant unit the only advantage of which has been that I've had pretty good care and one to one midwife support the whole time. But you're right if it's 'just' pain you might have to wait. I presume somebody was having an emergency section or something and the anaesthetist was tied up but they shouldn't have just left you. What will Switzerland be like then, all private?

I don't get it either, and it's not like we live somewhere that there aren't lots of babies being born... epidural was my back up plan when it got too much. I really don't fancy pethidine, I'm bad enough on over the counter painkillers.

Our plan is to move south before the baby comes... thinking I should be looking at hospitals rather than houses

Barnes is the MLU the Salford one? Heard good things about that before if so. Although if labours in you daily are that fat I'd be looking at home birth for sure!
You should have a choice even if you feel you weren't offered one, I'm pretty sure i was offered a choice of two last time and could probably have opted for a third. I know others who've had first baby at one Manchester hospital having second at another too.

Savage - the maternity hospital is St Mary's, which also has a huge children's hospital (with huge NICU in it incase stuff goes wrong).

Im south of Manchester (Stockport) so will be having the baby there - I'm very much a "plan for the worst, hope for the best" kind of person so want to give birth in hospital. Stockport hospital is 5 mins (if that) drive away, so even with a fast labour (if I'm that lucky) I should make it in time...