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My Birth Story

1K views 5 replies 6 participants last post by  homebirthing 
#1 ·
So, it's been a while - my son was born on 30th May this year, but this is his story.

This was a planned homebirth, in the UK.

6pm - Rang my mum to return to the house as she had gone to the train station to get the train home. I kind of felt like something was going to happen that evening / early the next day.
7pm - contractions started. They were not very frequent, or very painful. Maybe every twenty or so minutes?
2am - Midwife arrived, said I was progressing nicely and then she left.
There was another midwife visit sometime in the am, I don't remember what time. During the morning partner was timing contractions, but couldn't remember how many I was having or for how long when we spoke to the midwives. Therefore, at 12:53 my mum started writing them down. I have a complete record of almost every single contraction from then until 18:20 when the last midwife arrived.
12:56 - called midwife. Had argument, was told to stop worrying and to phone again later. We had been told by a nice midwife who had listened to my mum's birth stories that I should ring when I was 3 contractions in every ten minutes, or if I felt worried for any reason at all. The midwife on the end of the phone however was consistently rude and brushed us off. She clearly did not want to send anyone out at any of the times we called. There was to be a 2 hour delay before we got the next midwife out, during which time I would consistently have contractions every 4 minutes for around 1 minute a time.
14:39 - midwife arrived
15:20 - midwife left
This is less than the hour which they should remain for, once they have done a sweep. (All four midwives gave me a sweep.) And she did the sweep probably about 10 minutes after she arrived, at least.
17:06 called midwife again. We were all becoming extremely stressed out and concerned, labour had changed for me and I wasn't dealing as well with the pain anymore. Contractions were very very intense and more and more frequent. I was now contracting more than 70% of the time. Sometimes in a ten minute period I would only have a minute or two rest. We all felt extremely afraid and unhappy with the way things were progressing.
18:10 - called midwife again. They really really did not want to come out. We threatened to call a private hospital, at which point they agreed to come.
18:18 - midwife arrived.
This midwife was a complete and utter nightmare from the second she stepped through the door. She did not acknowledge me, even though she had to basically step over me to get past. She eventually got me on to the bed to do an exam, but because my tens machine was no longer working, it was extremely extremely uncomfortable and it did not feel at all like she did a good job, I had had many of these procedures by now and it felt more like she was flicking my cervix than doing a stretch and sweep. She said I was maybe 2 ½ cms dilated, and wrote in her notes that it was 2. She said that I would probably continue like this or days. Despite being shown the written down contractions when she came in she seemed to be under the misconception that I was only having one contraction every 10 minutes. She said she didn't care that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink and was throwing up because "woman don't eat or drink in labour". She said she was happy to leave me in the state I was in. I however, was extremely scared, and alone, and in a lot of pain, and I was being told this would go on for days. She also said that under no circumstances would we be welcome in hospital. We would be turned away if we went there on our own. She repeated this several times.
She left at 7:20 ish (although she later told her seniors that she had stayed for 80 minutes.) I went and lay down on the bed, totally giving up. I was so upset and it was awful. Concentration and breathing was all I had to get me through, the TENS machine had been turned off by now as it was just completely irritating (I later found out because I was on the wrong programme, because I had it on the early labour stage, when actually I was very very much in active labour by now.)
At 9pm we called the midwife again. She refused to come out, and also refused to allow me to go to hospital. After I cried at her for ten minutes and begged her to give me an option, as I couldn't go through this anymore, and in fact I wanted a c-section if this was going to go on for days more as she kept telling me, she very grudgingly agreed to allow me to come in (IN A TAXI - she would not countenance an ambulance for me, waste of NHS resources) so that I could have some gas and air. She refused to allow a midwife out to me so that I could use the gas and air in my own flat.
I went to the loo, prior to leaving the house. At 9.10pm we called again, I had changed my mind and did not want to go anywhere. The midwife on the phone ranted at me for ten minutes, very cross with me that I was trying to change my mind. My mum repeatedly told her that I was saying that I wanted to push however they didn't believe her. Their actual words were "She's a first time mum she won't be trying to push yet". We eventually agreed to proceed and try and get me into hospital.
Partner tried to get things ready to get me a taxi, however after about twenty minutes of not being able to persuade me to move, they called an ambulance. They arrived within a couple of minutes, completely astounded that their were no midwives at a planned homebirth.
It took about half an hour to leave the house, during which time my waters broke. The ambulance was the first time I got to have gas and air, it was a great relief! (I first had to walk across the road in not very much, to get to the ambulance.)
When we got to the hospital there was no one to meet us in the ambulance bay, despite being told we were on our way. The paramedics were begging me not to have the baby until I got to the midwives. They first took me to the wrong floor, then to the wrong end of the hospital. New wing, they'd not been there before. Eventually we got to the right place, at which point the midwife snatched my notes off my mum and stood outside the door reading them for five minutes. By the time she got into the room I was firmly ensconced, kneeling up holding onto the end of the bed. She moaned at me for another five minutes about being in the wrong position for her to hear the baby. I put my hand between my legs as I could feel him coming, and even told her to look, but she still couldn't see anything. When Fraser was born with the next contraction it was a bit of a shock for her. The next few minutes were her telling me I needed to get him out quick as he was in distress. Eventually, he was born at 10:40pm, in distress, not breathing, and with the cord round his neck.
When the midwives who had been on the end of the phone came to see me the next morning, all they kept saying was not to cry as it was harming my baby and I needed to be a better mum than that. I wouldn't have been crying if they had for one single second listened to me.

We got discharged at midday, and eventually I got home.

I still think about it a lot and I'm going to make a formal complaint, but it's really not what I wanted.
 
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#5 ·
SO sorry you had to go thru all this. I would definitely make a formal complaint as they put you and your baby in danger by not checking you properly and for refusing to come and see you.
 
#6 ·
I would absolutely make a complaint. What horrible care providers! I will never understand why people who hate women want to care for women.

I am very sorry that you had a scary and hard birth and I hope you are able to eventually find peace when you think about it. It doesn't help when the women who are supposed to care for you are liars.
 
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