How can a cash injection best improve on my last experience? (long, sorry...)

[scaredsecondtimer]

I am pregnant (woo hoo!). I had a fairly grim time with my daughter's birth, and am quite scared. My parents have offered to pay for me to go private this time if it would help, and so I have been scanning the archives here for opinions on private options. I'm in north London (N8) and my local hospital would be the Whittington. I'm wondering about St John's & St Elizabeth's but am a bit anxious as to whether it would really make a difference to the things I'm worried about.

Last time round I think there were a couple of things that happened that I would like to avoid. Firstly I was booked into the lovely midwife-led birth unit at the Royal Free and thought their midwives were great. But by the time I was in the birthing pool there was a change of shift and the only available midwife was from the labour ward and was not qualified to deliver in water so I was told I had to get out. She was pretty awful - lots of shouting at me and later when things went pear-shaped I had to really argue with her not to give me more oxytocin as I had just heard the doctor say I shouldn't be given more. Also when I was finally holding my baby I asked her to help me breastfeed as I had no idea what to do, and she said she was too busy doing paperwork to help me. So I just didn't feed for hours as I was so exhausted and clueless.

The other thing that I was upset about was that, having been given an episiotomy I tore really badly and lost so much blood that I passed out and had to be given transfusions. I was stitched up by the doctor who did such a bad job that I couldn't have sex afterwards and had to go back for corrective surgery several months later.

I am rather confused as to the best way to help avoid this kind of situation. I would like in an ideal world to have a natural birth in dimmed light and with water as pain relief, but I definitely want to be somewhere with medical backup on hand after my previous experience.

I really want to avoid having a midwife like the one who was so vile during my previous labour. I will never really know how much difference she made to things, but until her arrival I was labouring with no pain relief and after her arrival I ended up with an epidural and an episiotomy and a ventouse delivery.

I also want to make sure that the emergency medical backup is more competent than the (very nice & friendly) woman who mucked up the stitches so badly.

Can anyone advise me? I wonder whether John & Lizzies is the right place? Or whether perhaps just having an independent midwife in an NHS hospital would solve most of the problms? Is that possible? Or what about private care in an NHS hospital? I saw someone mention that on another thread and they were suggesting that you could get one-to-one consultant AND midwife care. Is that right? And is it available anywhere or only at certain hospitals?

Sorry this is so long but I am desperate to get it right this time.

I am booked to have my baby at J&L. I was put off the idea of an independent midwife in an NHS hospital by one of my friends who had her baby at the Royal Free. She was in labour on a normal ward - they had no room and the midwives did not monitor her at all - she thinks they basically ignored her because she had an independent midwife with her - didn't even monitor the baby - I think they were too busy. It sounded like a bit of a nightmare, rather than the continuity of care you might hope for. At J&L they guarantee you one-to-one care and although you have to pay for it (which in our case has been a stretch), my experience so far has been that it has been absolutely worth it. I should say it is a low risk unit - so you can't deliver there unless you are having a straightforward pregnancy. Hope this helps.

That's interesting, spotted. If your friend's independent midwife was with her the whole time, why did she not feel she had continuity of care? I suppose I had sort of assumed that if I brought along a midwife I liked, I would want her to take charge ideally and wouldn't especially want other midwives with conflicting opinions to try & override her. Do you know why it didn't end up feeling that way for your friend?

I should mention that in the UK John and Lizzies was one of the places that pioneered waterbirths and 2 of their 3 delivery rooms have fixed birthing pools. They also dim the lights and you can have aromatherapy if you want.

scaredsecondtimer, theoretically your indy midwife is not allowed to practice on NHS premises, they are not insured by the hospital to do so as they are not employees. practically, they are often the first port of call for the NHS midwives, and do practice a fair bit during a labour. Aside from monitoring and baby-catching, they act as your spokesperson at a time when you should be concentrating on the job in hand, as you'll have talked through endless eventualities. They will give you choices if needed in terms that you will recognise easily.

Specifically, I'm sorry to say, the RFH experience described earlier just sounds like a typical RFH birth experience and not neccessarily one influenced by indy midwife being present. Only on saturday I was overwhelmed by another poor woman's description of dreadful unattended birth there!

Finally, with John and Lizzie's bear in mind it is actually a bitch to get to from crouch end in daytime by road, and that it is a catholic hospital with issues around service provision, not doing genetic counselling, terminations, contraceptive advice.here's a link to the 2006 problem, but they were on the news again last month for similar Which is why I'm not booked there, TBH!

Just thought I would add on the catholic point, when I thought I wanted a CVS they gave me the phone number of fetal medicine clinic in Harley street - it was very easy. It is just they would not "refer" or do at J&L

On your initial post you asked midwives etc - at J&L you can either go midwife led (which I am where you see the midwives generally and a consultant as well three times during your antenatal) or consultant led. My consultant actually advised me that the best route was midwife led unless there were any complications.

Scaredsecondtimer - the reason my friend did not feel she had continuity of care was as merryberry said above - technically they are not allowed to practice on NHS premises - they do not have the insurance to do so. So, she was there as more of a support than in a medical capacity. I agree with merryberry though that there are a number of nightmare stories about the royal free circulating....