This may be a long one so thank you for reading!
I had a baby in May and to say it was a traumatising experience is an understatement! Long story short I had an emergency epidural as the baby was in distress. The epidural was given as I needed to be put on a hormone drip which would push my contractions together so I was able to push the baby out. Originally I didn't want an epidural but I wanted the baby to come out asap so I said I'll have one.
The anaesthetist that administrated the epidural ended up puncturing my spine. This resulted in something called a spinal headache a day later and I needed three producers to fix this! Both mine and the baby's blood pressure dropped because the epidural wasn't working and we had midwifes and doctors rushing in to stabilise this. They were finally able too and after some hours, my epidural had to be redone because the original anaesthetist had put it in the wrong place so it was ineffective.
Eventually I pushed the baby out but was taken to theatre straight away as I had lost 2L of blood because my uterus wasn't contracting. The doctors were great and managed to stop the bleeding but I immediately had to have a CT scan and so many other things. Both baby and I were put on the High Dependency Unit and had to be monitored closely. After my first procedure to rectify the spinal headache, baby and I were moved to the postnatal ward. This is where it gets even worse.
Baby and I were in hospital for a total of 7 days. For the first two days when we were in HDU, the midwives would express colostrum and feed it to the baby as I was completely unable to move or bend my neck (due to the effects of the spinal headache caused by the puncture in my spine). When we were moved to the postnatal ward, the midwives refused to help and said they weren't allowed to touch the patients breasts. They kept on encouraging me to latch the baby correctly and simply weren't listening to the fact that I literally couldn't bend my neck to see what I was doing. I was given syringes and left to it.
On day 5 when baby was weighed, she had lost 15% of her birth weight and I was told that it was normally expected for babies to lose 5-10%. When the pediatric doctor came round he set up a feeding plan for me to stick too and explained to the midwives that the baby wasn't receiving nowhere near enough food due to my condition and that they needed to start helping me asap. If the baby didn't put on enough weight in two days then she'll have to get taken to intensive care and be put on a feeding tube. It was all too much and this was during Covid times so my birthing partner (my mum) could only stay for 4hrs a day. I was basically all by myself.
Fast forward to now, I've had a debrief with one of the professors at the hospital. I've had a meeting with the head of the anaesthetist team and a meeting with the matron of the ward. I've sent a complaint letter to PALS and we're also planning to sue for negligence. I've since had CBT therapy which has helped SO MUCH with dealing with the trauma. My therapist was amazing and I've made a lot of progress.
I'm now pregnant again! I've changed hospitals as I refuse to give birth at the hospital where I had my firstborn but I now have the option to have a planned C section. This will be done by Consultants only or I can go into spontaneous labour and see what happens. This may not seem like much of a question but honestly I think I'm just scared and wanted to voice my worries as the consultants that are leading my pregnancy are trying to point me in the direction of having a spontaneous labour.
Of course a C section has it's risk so I see why the consultants are recommending that I go into spontaneous labour but I'm just not sure. I definitely do not trust health professionals as much as I should due to my past experience. I just wondered what other people would do in this situation?