I suffer from mental health conditions and have a perinatal mental health midwife allocated to me. After coming in for a c section, fasted all day, changed into my gown, kept waiting for nearly 6 hours, told I would be going in any moment.

[BoyMumToBe34]

I have severe anxiety and it took a lot to stay calm and get to the stage I did with being asked to take a nappy and hat out, and told I would be going in any moment now. Then was suddenly told to get dressed and that it was cancelled because they booked too many planned c sections and there wasn’t enough time now. Not an emergency as I wouldn’t argue with that but this was planned. At no point did they tell me there may be a chance it’s cancelled or that they were busy. It was incredibly traumatic and I broke down as I had taken the pills the night before and not eaten all day. I wasn’t offered any food and just told to pack up and come back in 2 days. Any advice? This was at
Homerton in london.

Sorry that happened and it must be stressful but unfortunately they just have to sometimes. They have to cancel operations all the time, there’s not much they can do if an unexpected number of emergency cases come in.
Look at the positives, an extra couple of days to rest and prepare

How far on are you? If all those had been booked in as planned and you’re saying NO emergencies, I would assume still out of their hands and things hadn’t gone as planned in the other surgeries. Is someone with you?

Sorry this has happened to you , I sat all day once from 7 til 7 to be cancelled and that wasn’t for something as ‘exciting’ as a birth. Try to reconcile yourself to the fact others may have had an urgent life or death situation develop and your inconvenience and stress has facilitated life

Would imagine something has happened with one of the other sections - could be anything from a delay, something going wrong for another patient, a sick surgeon.

Whilst you’re finding it distrsssing, this happens all the time (as I’m sure other posters will confirm). Until you’re in theatre and things are underway, it’s never a certain thing.

This. I'm an obstetric anaesthetist - not at that hospital.

Today we had to cancel one of our elective sections. That's because we had a really difficult time with the first case of the day, and what should have been about 1.5-2 hours of theatre time ended up taking over 6. There was a lot to it but I don't want to make your anxiety worse with more details. So there's no way we could then have got all the other patients done.

Unfortunately even elective surgery doesn't always run like clockwork. I'm sorry you've had such a stressful day, @BoyMumToBe34 but it won't have been a decision made lightly. You will still be meeting your baby soon!

So sorry you were cancelled. At least they did it quite quickly given the time of your post, rather than at the very last moment.

Hopefully in two days (guessing tomorrow's list is too full already) you'll be first on the list. As others have already stated, there's plenty of unexpected reasons why it was cancelled on the day, and the decision would not have been taken lightly. Rest, relax, put a complaint in to PALS if you like about how your were informed of your cancellation if you like for now.

I’m so sorry OP that sounds like a really stressful and disappointing day. Could you try and reframe it that you managed to get as far as you could and keep a cool head? I know you were incredibly anxious but you still did it. When it comes around again, you will be so much better prepared and not thrown by the environment.