Hello, I just wanted to put this out there in case someone has a pearl of wisdom that could help in some way
I want to start by saying, I was really lucky. I had an uncomplicated birth, over a year ago now, I had my daughter at home and it was hard work but it was all round really positive. I know that I am fortunate for this.
I had HG for 25 weeks of the pregnancy which was difficult, I only had one hospital visit and there were weeks and weeks of being sick over and over, losing weight and being unable to get up off the sofa, or do much of anything for myself other than sit there alone feeling horrendous. It was horrible, but I don't look back on this much.
I read Milli Hill's book Give Birth Like a Feminist in my second trimester and I felt an overwhelming fear that I had walked into something not realising how complicated it was. Before reading this book I'd planned a hospital birth and just to "go with it" my body would do what it needed to.
After reading this book I became terrified of being forced to do things during my most vulnerable state.
I decided to have my baby at home, my partner and my mother weren't supportive at first saying it was "dangerous". But I knew I needed my partner with me to support me when I had my baby or I would really struggle. I couldn't cope with the idea of going to hospital and not knowing the midwives and not know the room or anything and being totally alone with strangers in labour. I wouldn't feel safe. I'd heard at the time about dads missing out on the birth and how you had to have a vaginal examination to be deemed in "active" labour before they would let him be with you.
My community midwife said it wasn't a problem, I could have a home birth. But I would sit in the waiting room for our appointments together and they put up their birth statistics on a little chart for the month and the homebirths were always something crazy like 3 - in a whole month!! It's a huge area, lots of chimney pots and two hospitals. Loads of women online seemed to want to birth at home because of covid, I found it really odd.
Then I saw something on a local community birthing page about how you couldn't have a Homebirth if you didn't have a second toilet, because of covid well we didn't. There seemed to be a lot of misinformation and I felt that the trust kept changing the goal posts.
I decided to use money that I had saved to pay for a private midwife so I could be certain that I would know who would be there during the birth and I could try to make birth at home more likely. I do not have a lot of money at all, this was most of my savings, but I felt so strongly I needed the support.
Nearing the end of the pregnancy I was feeling well, my sickness went during my third trimester and I had lots of energy. I was in good spirits if a little nervous about birth. Then when I got to 41 weeks my midwife tentatively had the talk about induction, she did explain that she had to discuss this with me but it was entirely up to me what we did moving forward. I fell to pieces, I was terrified of induction and I was scared I was making a mistake and endangering my baby.
I read Sara Wickham's book Inducing Labour which laid out all the statistics and the facts so I could make a decision and I decided to wait. I also read the AIMS guidelines, NICE Guildelines and the WHO guidelines on induction. I decided not to go ahead with it. I felt i was sure that my baby was fine and that made me want to wait. My mother and my partner wanted me to take up the offer of going to hospital to have a scan and to have my placenta checked to make sure the blood flow was good and the babies heard beat was ok. I didn't want to, but they wanted me to, so I agreed to go.
Whilst there I wait an hour in a boiling hospital to be seen, then I was strapped up to a machine for two more hours. The midwife, who seemed very kind, was acting so frightened and told me my placenta might stop working. Everything I had read told me there was no evidence that this would happen, but she had obviously worked in midwifery a while, she was senior, surely she knew better than me??
Everything was fine with the baby and my placenta, but they had forgotten to book the scan.
A consultant then wanted to speak to me, he told me my baby might die because my placenta might stop working. I told him what I had read and he then said that they might poo inside me if the labour was delayed.
I declined induction, I said "I do not want an induction", I agreed to begin monitoring from 42 weeks if I was still pregnant (it was 40+10 at this point). They looked at me in horror and said no I must come in every day, I said no. I didn't want to spend the last days of pregnancy driving to the hospital in the middle of a pandemic having them undermine me over and over. The consultant then wrote in my notes "I will see the patient when she has an induction" I mean wtf??
This man who had never met me felt I ticked a box (that I was overdue) and then was shocked I didn't agree to be induced because I felt it wasn't right for me. We had a whole conversation and then he had the audacity to write that???
They then rang me several times a day from then on, they were ringing whilst I was in labour leaving unpleasant voicemails.
After my daughter was born I was so angry. So so angry. I spent the last few days of my pregnancy sobbing and extremely stressed because my daughter wasn't coming when they wanted.
I have gone on to have further dealings with the hospital when my daughter was poorly at 11 weeks. I don’t want to go in to what happened there, it was horrible and I still wake in the night thinking about it. I have absolutely no faith or trust in the NHS or their staff anymore. Before this, I had enormous respect for doctors and nurses and I wouldn't have hesitated to follow their medical advice, but I have come to realise that they are working for the trust and all the trust care about is liability. They don't care about women.
I didn’t know how to deal with the anger and anxiety that I felt after these things happened. So I ended up trying to learn everything I could about birth, I listen to multiple birth podcasts, I read about birth, I follow many birthing pages on Instagram. I feel like I’m doing this to try to prepare myself for when I have another baby. Although I don’t feel angry anymore, I do feel frightened of having another child. I’m afraid of what they might say or do to me. I’m afraid my next baby will be overdue.
Since becoming a mother I have had to confront lots of difficult feelings about how I was raised and this has brought up more anxiety and upset. I am struggling to control these feelings. I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago about maybe talking to a therapist, she had and said it was beneficial for her. But I am scared to go to the doctors and ask for help because I feel they may decide I’m not “low risk” when I have my next pregnancy. But I can’t carry on how I am, I am anxious on a daily basis and sad. I wake in the middle of the night sometimes just thinking about everything.
Please is there anyone else that can relate to any of this out there?
If you’ve managed to get this far thank you for reading.