Dont know where to post this...birth debriefs

[turtle23]

I am going to the hospital this morning (11 months on) to debrief the birth of my son. I wasn't tortured and there are loads of people who have had worse...but I feel it is important for me to clear it in my head, it may be what's keeping me from getting pg again.
Those of you who have done this...did you find that they were quite sympathetic? I am beginning to worry now that they will just look at me and say "well that's just what happens" and dismiss me.
Going in at 1030...eek.

Good luck, and I hope everything goes well

be strong ! is someone going with you?

there is no competition in birth trauma, you had a hard time, so you don;t need to justify it.

take a list of questions or niggling issues, and don;t be afraid to ask everything

Turtle - only just seen this; I hope the debrief went well. I had a debrief after horrible birth experience with DS1 and the hospital took it really seriously (resulting in the midwife attending the birth being retrained and supervised again); I hope you get answers to your questions. I found alot of the answers to my questions were that protocol was followed by the midwife but her attitude and a number of other things she did were not protocol and positively appalled the senior midwives I had the debrief with.

I went alone. Or rather, with DS. What a difference! I had every second of my labour and delivery explained. They hadn't told me quite how serious the situation was at the time...hence my being a bit confused as to why they did things without telling me and things being odd and painful. Wont bore you with the detail, but I actually feel like I have lost about a stone in weight. Didn't realise how much it was bugging me.

Glad it all worked out!

Apparently the hospital did an internal inquiry into mine and I only found out while I was having DC2.

Oh, and of course glad your DS is OK

that is fantastic, and just the outcome you want. well done

Glad you got the outcome you wanted. I had a dreadful time giving birth mainly due to lack of communication and staff shortages. (Left alone for hours on end, had to sit on chair outside operating theatre whilst waiting to go in for c-section as no bed available, anaesthestist put my epidural in too high and I crashed, DH had to help midwife put in catheter as there were no other staff available etc, etc.)

Although I was encouraged to sue by various midwives and others I didn't see how taking more money out of the health service would help improve the service for other mothers.

I wrote to the Trust explaining what I'd been through and made a number of suggestions for improving communications/support for partners etc which wouldn't have cost a great deal to implement or tie up medical staff time but could (I felt) made a big improvement in patient care.

The Trust's immediate response was to tell me that I had written too late to get any money out of them - despite the fact I had made it clear that wasn't my intention.

I sent an email to say that I was very disappointed that they had sent a standard letter and completely ignored my suggestions. There could well have been valid reasons why they couldn't have adopted any of them and I would have been interested to know why they weren't felt to have any merit.

I had a call from them to say that someone would look at the suggestions and get back to me but it hasn't happened. This just seems to demonstrate that the lack of communication that I experienced in hospital hadn't changed.

I don't want to waste my time chasing up a response and now have to consider where else to have a baby should I succeed in conceiving #2 as I have zero confidence in the hospital concerned.

Glad yours was good, Turtle. I had a meeting with the birthing centre I was supposed to have given birth in about a week after DD (first baby) was born, at our request, and it was SO unsatisfactory. Basically I had spent all my labour trying to convince the birthing centre that I was in established enough labour to come in. I visited them in labour for my 41 week appointment. Contractions were coming every 10 mins then and we'd brought my bag in case they kept me in, but we were sent home. I called at 3 mins apart and they said because I could still talk through contractions it was far too early. I called two hours later, when I had tears in my eyes every contraction, and they said that if I really couldn't cope I could come in but they'd suggest I call back in an hour. Well, after that phone call I had the urge to push, went to the loo and think I had a show and waters break all at once and could feel the top of the baby's head. Possibly foolishly we got in the car and called the birthing centre while driving and I was saying ' I need to push' and telling DH there was no way we'd make the 30 min journey. They diverted us to the hospital 10 mins away, which was closed but agreed to take us, and I was taken in on a stretcher and was greeted with a room full of people, resus equipment etc. and told I had to push and get the baby fast because without monitoring they didn't know what state the baby was in. My contractions all but stopped with the stress of it all and I tore badly pushing DD out. I was so upset afterwards that I was really tearful and was still tearful at the meeting and they just said that they get 1 in 100 cases like me where, because of a 'high pain threshold' (!) they don't identify the labour accurately, and they were prepared to live with that statistic. We said that the baby could have come to harm and the chief midwife said we should focus on the fact that she didn't. They also quoted the incident in my notes where they said that if I really couldn't cope I could come in but they'd suggest I call back in an hour and said that my refusal to come in wasn't their fault! Finally they said that had I agreed to be transfered back to them (not a chance after that fiasco) that they would have helped me deal with the shock. We were so angry that I didn't even consider them for this pregnancy (37 weeks) and have been wanting a home birth (although DH has just refused!). Two years down the line I'm still angry so I'm really please that a weight has been lifted for you.