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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

Queen Charlotte's.......never ever again.

7 replies

Ryoko · 10/05/2010 12:02

Hell hole place, I got contractions at 3am, I phoned up the birth centre I was booked into they said we will not take you unless you are in established labour, getting contractions every 2-3 mins, come here now and we will just send you home.

Didn't matter what I said about the pain and the stuff that was coming out of me in the toilet that same response every time 8am get lost, 11am get lost, 5pm get lost, 8pm I was still having what they call irregular contractions, I told em right it's every 2-3 mins I'm coming in now (with the intention of refusing to leave unless they dragged me out), I got told everyone was on a break and call back in an hour, then they took the phone off the hook.

So we phoned an ambulance as at this point the strange stuff that was coming out of me had changed to blood (they kept saying the stuff was the Show it bloody wasn't I told em what colour it was, it was baby poop).

Got taken to the labour unit and then everything went very fast, they put a monitor on me and found that I was in full labour and must have been for hours but every contraction the babies pulse dropped and my blood pressure went up, they said they would have to do an emergency forceps delivery and gave me gas and air which made me puke so they then started giving me oxygen and injecting me with morphine, started giving me an epidural, they found out I wasn't open enough to get the baby out so raced me to surgery and gave me an emergency C-Section, Dante came out looking fine, he was handed to my fiance who was given a bottle to feed him.

Now the Labour ward was fine I thank them and the ambulance crew, the guy said that was the fastest epidural he'd ever done, 8 mins from start to complete numbness, the head midwife said I must have a very high pain threshold to put up with the pain for so long and to have been so controlled, I was in observation over the rest of the night, with half a tonne of needles and things stuck in me, unable to move with the midwife coming in to feed him and change nappies etc and checking on me every 15 mins.

Then I got moved in the morning to the normal wards in the crappy birth centre, still with no feeling in my legs, pipe up my pee hole, pipe in my back etc, place was a fucking nightmare, no one gave a shit about the baby by the side of my bed I had to keep pressing the nurse calling button or just wait for my fiance to turn up to deal with him, when the nurses did show up half of them where sods, one big african women in particular who seemed to take offense at my fiance feeding the baby and changing the nappy etc, kept moaning at me about breast feeding and why I don't get out of bed and get some exercise etc and referring to us as husband and wife, they kept moaning about the baby being cold and wrapping him up in tonnes of blankets until he was red in the face, every so often she would come up to me and say have you fed or changed the baby and when I said my fiance did it or a nurse did it a little while ago, she would tut at me for not doing it and then start forcing cow and gate milk down him which he puked up every time and then saying oh it's normal newborns all ways puke up, then they got pissed off when my fiance insisted they give him SMA milk and produced our bottles as proof to say this is what he drinks which low and behold didn't make him throw up, it's a nightmare trying to lean over to a cot placed on a cupboard by the side of the bed to try and hold the baby on his side to stop him choking to death on his own puke but I kept having to do it with all my pipes.

I got moved to a different room without warning on the 2nd night and had to text my fiance to tell him where I was, everynight was the same, screaming babies and loud nurses chatting to each other and crashing about all night by the second day I had started crying every night when my fiance left, I got no sleep at all, every day dreading the another night of no sleep and having to deal with Dante all night when I just wanted to sleep it was at night that one of the worst puking fits happened when I couldn't get him to keep his head to the side and thought he was going to choke to death.

On the 3rd night one of the nurses said to another at the nurses station someone thinks theres a dead baby in room something or other, a few mins later another nurse turns up at the station and says oh it is dead, oh well these things happen they don't have on/off switches such an attitude.

I didn't get my pee pipe removed until the 3rd day, they just kept saying about it, they also spent 2 days saying about BCG for Dante and MMR for me (which didn't get done until about five mins before we got discharged).

Got discharged at about 7.30 on the 4th night, been waiting all day for them to give me my meds and stuff and let us out and it still isn't over they buggered up his details so I don't have a red book, I now have to wait for a new NHS number to be done and the red book to be posted to me and hope it don't get lost.

He's all ready over due his Heel Prick test because she can't do it without the red book.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
littlemissm · 10/05/2010 13:25

OH my god poor you. I had my eldest son there at the old queen charlotte's when it was down Goldhawk Rd. I didnt have a very good experiance either my antenatal care was brilliant untill i gave birth & some of the midwives started being horrible to me when my son was born & they realised he was mixed race i discharged myself the next day.

Ryoko · 10/05/2010 14:06

My mum told me they where crap, she said you will not be able to get any sleep, the nurses will be snooping around at night trying to nick stuff, the place is filthy etc.

She had me there 31 years ago I just brushed off her comments as well that was 30 years ago and it's NHS they are all probably the same anyway.

Now I'm not sure on the one hand I wish I'd listened, Birth Centre and the ward are a nightmare but on the other hand the Labour unit was great, he might not be here if I'd ended up somewhere else.

OP posts:
KiddingAnxiously · 10/05/2010 14:51

That is horrific

I hope you manage to deal with it, and it doesn't affect you and your newborn too negatively.

I don't know how it works in the UK, but is there some sort of complaints procedure?

I know postnatal care all over (which is why I always discharge myself)is not fantastic, but surely that is well below par?

The dead baby bit is just awful.

Haliborange · 10/05/2010 15:48

Poor you. I had my eldest at QC nearly 4 years ago and was unimpressed with the MWs on the labour and post-natal ward (although the issues with the PN ward were largely down to one very unhelpful midwife). Good doctors though.

You might want to contact PALS at the hospital. They will be able to pass on your comments to the right people. The bit about the dead baby is particularly poor. Also IME they usually take your cartheter out within 24 hours of the op.

Ryoko · 10/05/2010 17:14

Op finished after midnight but before 2am on the morning of the 6th not sure what time, I still had that thing in until the afternoon on the 7th, no clocks on the ward so I'm not sure what time exactly, doctors just kept looking and saying have you still got that thing in, we'll have to get someone round to take it out.

OP posts:
KiddingAnxiously · 10/05/2010 17:58

Congratulations on baby Dante!!

(I always forget that bit )

porcamiseria · 12/05/2010 14:04

god, you had a shocker there. glad baby was all OK

I had DC1 there, I think its the ante natal ward thats a shocker, I was out of there like a bat out of hell

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