Baby is due in 5 weeks time. I live in Nottingham and I have the choice to give birth at 1 of 2 hospitals, QMC or City (I mention location in case anyone has any direct experience of either place). We live 5-10 mins drive away from QMC and 20-30 mins from City so it seemed a bit of a no brainer and I opted for QMC, midwife appointments are at my doctors surgery but scans, GTT etc have been at QMC. I’ve had no issues throughout my pregnancy. Both hospitals have a labour suite which is doctor led and for higher risk pregnancies and a birth centre in the same location which is midwife led but they can grab doctors etc if they need them from the labour suite next door. I would be giving birth at the midwife led unit.
We have been attending the NHS classes and these are split between the two hospitals so we have had chance to get to see both and having done so I am starting to think I have made the wrong choice and would prefer to give birth at City for the following reasons:
1 - There is building work going on to replace the ventilation at QMC which will won’t be complete until well after my due date. They are doing it whilst keeping the units open but shutting various corridors to work on them as they go. This has meant that the split between the two units is a bit blurred and some of the rooms feel a bit make shift. The midwife running the session last night didn’t really seem to know which bit was which as we walked around, this isn’t a problem in itself but my worry is that if things start to go south during the birth and they need to get additional staff in there is confusion as to which bits are currently in use and where people are. We haven’t been to that bit of the hospital during the day but I’m also slightly concerned about trying to give birth whilst someone is drilling in the next corridor.
2 - Whenever we have been to QMC during the day we have had to park in a pub car park down the road as there is never any car parking space. The midwife mentioned last night that they have spaces for maternity drop off at the entrance and if the baby is imminent then they have no issues with you leaving the car there for a bit. The issue is that the maternity entrance is the main entrance to the hospital (including A&E) and the drop off point is fairly consistently full. It has been whenever we have gone during the day for scans and it was last night at 8pm when we left the class. It is on my route to work so I went and looked this morning at 6.45am and there were about 2 spaces free. The campus at City hospital is a lot more spread out and maternity has it’s own drop off spaces that have always been free when we’ve been and we’ve always managed to get a space on site in one of the car parks.
3 – The midwives running the classes at City have been very experienced and have a general air of confidence that left me with the impression that whatever happened they’d seen it all before and they could deal with it. At QMC the midwives running the classes have been younger and seemed a lot more timid. Obviously I haven’t met all of them at both hospitals but my feeling is that City is a better run unit with more experienced staff.
Anyway, am I being precious and worrying too much or would you reconsider given what I’ve said above? Also does anyone know if in fact it is too late to swap now?
Sorry that was long!