I just wanted to tell this story because perhaps it will help me heal if I share it.
I had my birth children, boy/girl twins, on 12/3/19 in a well known London Hospital. I had chosen this hospital based on its reputation and facilities for antenatal care. I have to admit that all the care I received prior to birth was great. My birth experience and the way things devolved were not so great, however.
12/3/19
3am: At 31+1 and my water break while I’m asleep. Husband freaks out while I finished packing my half-completed hospital bag. Uber to the hospital.
5am: Examined by the doctor who confirms my waters are broken (um, yep!) but says nothing much else is going on ‘down there’ and admits me to the labour ward for observation.
7am: I’m waiting in a shared holding room and meet the midwife on duty. She explains that they are quite busy today and that there aren’t currently any twin cots available on the NICU. She says I’ll get a private labour room once I’m 4cms dilated.
7am-12noon: My husband naps, I eat, my MIL arrives, I call my folks back home in Australia. All is calm except for Darth Vader who is in labour behind the curtain across from me. She is sucking on the gas and air like no tomorrow. She begs for more pain relief and she is disheartened when the midwife tells her she’s only 3cms dilated so she doesn’t get her own room yet. I imagine that THAT is what labour must be like. They re-establish that both babies are Breech and I will need a c-section.
12noon-3pm: The midwife does a little monitoring of the babies. She’s very busy and I hardly see her for more than a few moments. I tell her I’m having lower back pain and she seems disappointed that my labour might be progressing because “there are still no beds but we are calling around other hospitals.”
3pm: New midwife comes on duty. She can’t be bothered to hold the monitor on my belly when she struggles to locate my boy’s heartbeat. She makes me hold it there for over 45mins. She says she can see I’m having contractions. I tell her I’m feeling uncomfortable. I eat some more.
4pm: The doctor arrives and says that I shouldn’t eat any dinner in case I need an emergency c-section. The labouring woman has been moved to a private room and replaced by a new labouring mother. Her husband complains about having to share.
5-6pm: I’m feeling uncomfortable. My back is aching. I can’t find a good position in the bed so I stand and try to get comfortable. I tell my husband I need to take a poop. He helps me to the bathroom. The pain suddenly gets more intense and lower in my pelvis. I make it back to the bed and try some deep breathing. I ask for some pain relief and some paracetamol arrives around 15mins later.
6-7.30pm: I rock back and forth while holding onto the bed. Nobody has come to see me and I’m not wearing any monitors. I het back into bed. The pain really intensifies. I tell my husband to go and find the midwife because I would like some gas and air. They are in the middle of handover so it’s taking a long time. Eventually the gas and air arrives. I have about 3 sucks on it before I’m crying and moaning in pain.
8pm: A random doctor I’ve never seen comes in and says I sound like I’m in pain. He examines me for the first time in 15hrs and then is quite shocked to see that I’m fully dilated. He instantly tells me we are going to delivery and I’m going to deliver them breech.
8.46pm: My baby boy is born at 3lbs 7oz footling breech after three contractions. My contractions slow, my baby girl goes into distress. I’m rushed into theatre where they, panicking, smash a catheter into me and put me under ASAP.
9.01pm: My baby girl is born by emergency c-section weighing 2lbs 4oz. I loose over a litre of blood.
Time???: I wake up in recovery
2am: I’m told that my babies will be transferred to another hospital 2hrs away where they have more room. I get to see my baby boy briefly before they take him away. I don’t see my baby girl. My husband goes with them.
Over the next two days I’m told I cannot be transferred to the same hospital as my babies because there is no midwife to spare for the journey in the ambulance. They make me see a psychiatrist before allowing me to be transferred. I force myself to get up and moving less than 12 hours after surgery, driven by the promise that I will be transferred if I no longer have a catheter. They ask if I would like to be discharged. I say I’m too sick and request a transfer.
14/3/19
6pm: We are told “your transport has arrived”. We wait for the porter but none arrives. The nurses are confused as to why we are still waiting. My MIL is told by the nurse to go and get a wheelchair and take me down to the ambulance bay. She carries all the bags and takes me down as fast as she can, thinking they might be waiting. We arrive and a man comes to push me down the ramp. He points in the direction of an ambulance and my MIL takes the bags. He says “no, not the ambulance, we are in this car.” A private mini cab that we are forced to share with two other women. I sit in the back seat in my nighty, squashed in next to my MIL and a stranger, with my bag on my lap. We drive the other patients home first. I think we have driven over almost every speed bump in SE London.
10pm: We arrive at the hospital and nobody meets us. They don’t know who I am. I ask a night porter to take me to the maternity ward. The staff aren’t expecting me and are shocked by the state I’m in. They have to re-admit me straight away.
12midnight: I finally get to see my babies. I’m too overwhelmed and exhausted that I almost faint. I have to go back to bed. I ask for some pain relief. The nurse asks why I don’t have any compression socks. She finds me a pair.
I live in this hospital for 3 weeks while waiting to be transferred back to London. I never returned to the original hospital where I gave birth as they wouldn’t accept us because the babies weren’t sick enough. We eventually got transferred to another hospital close by where the babies stayed for another 3 weeks before being discharged.
Can you give me your options on this? I think I should arrange a meeting with the hospital to discuss why things went the way they did.