D
dizz
Guest
It's taken me since 4th April to be in an emotional state to be able to begin writing this - and I'll be typing through tears by the end. While I freely admit that a scared, in pain and sleep deprived me is a pain in the arse - the hospital behaved appallingly and I'm sure I have some form of PTSD over what we went through.
The three facts I'll add in to the background of the story:
- I have quite a severe fear of hospital-borne infections. A very close family friend who'd been like a father to me died about a year and a half ago of a massive infection he contracted while having a relatively routine, minor stay in hospital - having to visit him in ICU in a medically-induced coma, knowing he was dying was a very harrowing thing to deal with... I mentioned this consistently to medical staff. I was also scared of the idea of having to stay in hospital on my own because the one time I'd had to do this in the past they forgot about me until lunchtime the following day - assuming whoever was behind the cubicle curtains had long since been discharged.
- I've got a history of miscarriages - throughout the entire pregnancy I was never fully convinced my baby was destined to live... positive pregnancy tests = lost babies in my mind... this was clearly written on my medical notes.
- I had one of the more severe and early onset cases of SPD. I'd been on crutches since the beginning of February and housebound since March. I was terrified of the idea of long-term damage in situations like being forced to be numb from the waist down, flat on my back in stirrups... if such a thing had to happen I wanted my safe pain-free gap to be noted and respected.
So at 33 weeks on Easter Sunday I'm sat surfing the net eating my easter egg when I start getting period pains and think nothing of it - until I realise they're coming at absolutely regular intervals. I dither for about another hour before deciding to mention it to hubby... go to the toilet to wipe to find a bit of snotty dribble (not much though) and eventually we ring the Labour Suite for advice and get told to go in to be looked at. We both fully expected to be told it was nothing to worry about after a couple of hours being monitored and to be home in the small hours - I didn't see my house till 2 weeks later.
We pootle in, late on Easter Sunday - and they examine me, see some fluid up there, so swab it and it comes back as amniotic fluid. Because of the infection risk - my vagina then becomes a no-go area and no one will examine me further - they give me the first steroid injection to mature her lungs and arrange for an anaesthetist to come check out my spine in case I need an epidural, and for one of the neo-natal doctors to come talk to me about the prognosis for babies born at 33/34 weeks... I don't really process the reality that they're expecting this baby to come - and just believe they're keeping me in overnight to give me the second steroid jab and that they'll monitor me and keep her cooking for as long as they can. We spend the night in the labour suite - hubby sleeping on the floor on a yoga mat, me in increasing amounts of discomfort and being told not to move around in case my waters fully go and the baby drops quickly trapping the cord - so stuck on a bed on the monitor, unable to even change the channel on the TV in the room since there was no remote. I'm still apparently not in proper labour as such.
By morning I'm in much more pain and they give me some diamorphine which takes it away completely. Still not in proper labour - they start asking me about being transferred up to a ward - which terrifies me for the comments I made above - the idea of being stuck on a ward overnight without my husband panics me. Eventually they say there'll be a side room for me so hubby can kip down in the armchair and move me up to the ward. My pain relief's worn off by this point and I'm in a fair amount of pain and the two chuffing paracetamol they gave me weren't even touching it - I'm promised more will be coming as soon as the doctor signs it off - and they move me up to the ward where I'm met by one of the staff from the ward who is lovely and sweetness and light...
...As the labour ward staff hand me over and leave me - miss sweetness-and-light becomes absolutely viciously nasty - tells me hubby will be kicked off away home ASAP and when I start crying with fear and pain, gets really really in my face about it - right up close in my personal space, very aggressive. This makes me much more scared of course - and I ask her, very politely, to leave us alone for a few minutes to talk... she ignores this and continues her verbal barrage at me... until I repeat the request and then tell her that I've now asked her five times to give us a moment. At this point she flips on me, asks me if I'm going to be an uncooperative patient and literally flounces out of the room... with hindsight I know that this is the point where I got labelled as a nuisance and future staff treated me as such from the start.
So I'm in this side room, sobbing with fear, knowingfull well that this woman is the sort who'll delight in witholding pain relief just that teensy bit longer to make sure I know she's in control - and utterly terrified... a couple of hours pass - with me running back and forward to the loo cos I feel like I need a poo... I'm still waiting for this promised pain relief - by this point I'm up to 3 1/2 hours waiting for it and only having 2 paracetamol - I go to the loo again and - pop, woosh - waters gone.
Hubby pushes the buzzer, and we wait till someone saunters in... then goes back out to get someone to examine me with a smidge more urgency than they'd had coming in the room - I'm 8cm dilated (so much for not being in labour hah), and being rushed back down to the delivery suite - this time they don't wait for porters - the staff push me, and their steering of the trolley's so naff I'm being bounced off walls like a pinball machine.
Get down there and get given some gas and air which finally rounds the corners off the pain I've been in - and get the urge to push... so I'm pushing, lying flat on my back like I never wanted to do, strapped to the monitor which keeps losing the trace - so they get another woman in there to hold the monitor still on me - I've got one midwife pulling my knees apart despite my begging her not to as it was causing my SPD pain, this other woman holding the trace down who has the largest chest ever known and her boobs are pushing my other knee further shut - and the neo-natal team arrive ready to take the baby when she's born.
Baby starts to get tired and they start talking about a spinal and forceps. I'm terrified enough by this point and one of the neo-natal doctors just starts bombarding me with bullying to get me to consent - despite me saying that I'd reply to questions once a contraction is over - she wouldn't allow me that time to answer questions and because I'm worrying about what's going to happen in terms of preventing damage to my pelvis - she gets more and more aggressive in her demands that I shut up and consent basically. Backed into a corner and not being listened to I freak out completely and say, "I can't do this - just let me die, the baby will be dead already because all my babies die." Eventually they guarantee me they won't push my legs past my pain threshold (but don't actually measure this at all - they just wave a tape measure to shut me up) and they also promise me they're not allowed to perform an episiotomy without telling me they're going to do so.
They wheel me down to theatre - by this point I feel just like a piece of meat - utterly powerless and just something for them to play with however they decide to. When they finally get me vertical to put the spinal in - the sensation of the baby finally making her way down the birth canal is almost overwhelming - if they hadn't have made me lie on my back for 24 hours - she would have come out easily. I react to the drugs and begin shaking uncontrollably - things are beeping and no one will tell me what the hell is beeping till I point out that things that are hooked up to me going beep scare me - and the anaesthetist tells me that "It's 20 grand of something that doesn't work properly but makes a bloody beeping noise"... which strangely relaxes me a bit! They shove my legs wide, wide apart in stirrups - well beyond where it would have caused my SPD massive pain and I'm told to push, and make some vague effort despite being spinally blocked - and I see something being lifted from between my legs that looked like a whitish blue coconut. I hear a cry and then see glimpses of a baby being carted from the room a few minutes later - no congratulations, no skin-to-skin - I don't even know what she looks like... and I'm left there with three blokes furtling about up my doo-dah and no one will tell me what they're doing. Not knowing what they're doing scares me even more. Eventually they tell me I've torn "a little bit" and they're repairing me for ages... I now know they were yanking shreds of my placenta out as well - poor hubby turned around at the wrong time and got sight of a bucketful of it being carried out of the room!
Then they leave my trolley in the corridor outside the theatre - while I wait - and someone comes eventually to tell me that the baby is in NICU, that I've had a third degree tear and cut (that they promised me they would need my consent to do - and didn't obtain) because she span around and came flying out back-to-back. I wait some more and they wheel me into NICU eventually - point to an incubator that contains what is apparently my child - then tell me I have to leave till the morning and wheel me up to the maternity ward.
No side rooms, no appropriate care - no sensitivity. I'm dumped on a ward where my "uncooperative patient" label's preceeded me and I'm dealt with accordingly. I'm there with mums and their newborns and a leaflet on breastfeeding's slung at me. When I point out this is a tad insensitive - I get gobfuls of it from the woman doing the slinging. The canula in my hand has the tube from it stuck down in such a way that every time my finger moves a milimetre it's wobbling the needle part - as I go to mention this and ask how long it has to stay in for as it's hurting - I get another barrage of how I'll die without it and how it's unreasonable of me and I'm selfish and irresponsible for "demanding" it's removed. Eventually I manage to get across that it's just the way the tubing is taped down that's causing me discomfort and get my 2cm of micropore tape to move the pathing of the tubing oh-so-slightly to stop my finger jiggling it about... and hubby's kicked off the ward and I'm left there lying in increasingly bloodied sheets, listening to newborns cry, wondering what the hell they've done to my undercarriage - unable to move for the spinal block and, I say this as someone who HAS been through this and can make a comparison, feeling pretty much like I've been raped. It was the longest, darkest, worst night of my entire life the night my little girl was born.
I didn't sleep - as the ward wakes up - the other women on there start staring at me about why I don't have a cot by my bed like I'm some sort of freakish potential baby-eating monster. I think that I really should start showing some concern for this baby of mine (that just feels like an abstract ideal - remember I've not even touched her at this point) and ask for someone to ring the NICU to see how she's doing. The odious Bounty woman comes around and starts staring into my cubicle pointedly looking for a cot - I scare her away with how firmly I ask her to leave (she ran away from me for the entire time I was on the ward in terror lol)... and eventually they take me down to neo-natal where I get to hold my girl, attempt to breastfeed with pathetic support trying to ram nipples into mouth - but do at least get shown how to use a breastpump... and I come back to the ward for the bombshell to be delivered...
Because I'd dared challenge what they'd decided they were going to do to me regarding the spinal and stirrups... they called Social Services on me as a child protection risk. I'm pulled into a side room and told this - and the second anyone sits down and actually listens to me - they realise just what has gone on and how a terrified woman in pain's been mistreated, ignored and misunderstood. Still I'm going to have to wait for the investigation to run its course - so after having the first tiny chance to bond with my daughter - now I'm back in bed terrified they'll take her away from me.
Firefox is lagging up - I'll restart it and post the next bit in a second or two....
The three facts I'll add in to the background of the story:
- I have quite a severe fear of hospital-borne infections. A very close family friend who'd been like a father to me died about a year and a half ago of a massive infection he contracted while having a relatively routine, minor stay in hospital - having to visit him in ICU in a medically-induced coma, knowing he was dying was a very harrowing thing to deal with... I mentioned this consistently to medical staff. I was also scared of the idea of having to stay in hospital on my own because the one time I'd had to do this in the past they forgot about me until lunchtime the following day - assuming whoever was behind the cubicle curtains had long since been discharged.
- I've got a history of miscarriages - throughout the entire pregnancy I was never fully convinced my baby was destined to live... positive pregnancy tests = lost babies in my mind... this was clearly written on my medical notes.
- I had one of the more severe and early onset cases of SPD. I'd been on crutches since the beginning of February and housebound since March. I was terrified of the idea of long-term damage in situations like being forced to be numb from the waist down, flat on my back in stirrups... if such a thing had to happen I wanted my safe pain-free gap to be noted and respected.
So at 33 weeks on Easter Sunday I'm sat surfing the net eating my easter egg when I start getting period pains and think nothing of it - until I realise they're coming at absolutely regular intervals. I dither for about another hour before deciding to mention it to hubby... go to the toilet to wipe to find a bit of snotty dribble (not much though) and eventually we ring the Labour Suite for advice and get told to go in to be looked at. We both fully expected to be told it was nothing to worry about after a couple of hours being monitored and to be home in the small hours - I didn't see my house till 2 weeks later.
We pootle in, late on Easter Sunday - and they examine me, see some fluid up there, so swab it and it comes back as amniotic fluid. Because of the infection risk - my vagina then becomes a no-go area and no one will examine me further - they give me the first steroid injection to mature her lungs and arrange for an anaesthetist to come check out my spine in case I need an epidural, and for one of the neo-natal doctors to come talk to me about the prognosis for babies born at 33/34 weeks... I don't really process the reality that they're expecting this baby to come - and just believe they're keeping me in overnight to give me the second steroid jab and that they'll monitor me and keep her cooking for as long as they can. We spend the night in the labour suite - hubby sleeping on the floor on a yoga mat, me in increasing amounts of discomfort and being told not to move around in case my waters fully go and the baby drops quickly trapping the cord - so stuck on a bed on the monitor, unable to even change the channel on the TV in the room since there was no remote. I'm still apparently not in proper labour as such.
By morning I'm in much more pain and they give me some diamorphine which takes it away completely. Still not in proper labour - they start asking me about being transferred up to a ward - which terrifies me for the comments I made above - the idea of being stuck on a ward overnight without my husband panics me. Eventually they say there'll be a side room for me so hubby can kip down in the armchair and move me up to the ward. My pain relief's worn off by this point and I'm in a fair amount of pain and the two chuffing paracetamol they gave me weren't even touching it - I'm promised more will be coming as soon as the doctor signs it off - and they move me up to the ward where I'm met by one of the staff from the ward who is lovely and sweetness and light...
...As the labour ward staff hand me over and leave me - miss sweetness-and-light becomes absolutely viciously nasty - tells me hubby will be kicked off away home ASAP and when I start crying with fear and pain, gets really really in my face about it - right up close in my personal space, very aggressive. This makes me much more scared of course - and I ask her, very politely, to leave us alone for a few minutes to talk... she ignores this and continues her verbal barrage at me... until I repeat the request and then tell her that I've now asked her five times to give us a moment. At this point she flips on me, asks me if I'm going to be an uncooperative patient and literally flounces out of the room... with hindsight I know that this is the point where I got labelled as a nuisance and future staff treated me as such from the start.
So I'm in this side room, sobbing with fear, knowingfull well that this woman is the sort who'll delight in witholding pain relief just that teensy bit longer to make sure I know she's in control - and utterly terrified... a couple of hours pass - with me running back and forward to the loo cos I feel like I need a poo... I'm still waiting for this promised pain relief - by this point I'm up to 3 1/2 hours waiting for it and only having 2 paracetamol - I go to the loo again and - pop, woosh - waters gone.
Hubby pushes the buzzer, and we wait till someone saunters in... then goes back out to get someone to examine me with a smidge more urgency than they'd had coming in the room - I'm 8cm dilated (so much for not being in labour hah), and being rushed back down to the delivery suite - this time they don't wait for porters - the staff push me, and their steering of the trolley's so naff I'm being bounced off walls like a pinball machine.
Get down there and get given some gas and air which finally rounds the corners off the pain I've been in - and get the urge to push... so I'm pushing, lying flat on my back like I never wanted to do, strapped to the monitor which keeps losing the trace - so they get another woman in there to hold the monitor still on me - I've got one midwife pulling my knees apart despite my begging her not to as it was causing my SPD pain, this other woman holding the trace down who has the largest chest ever known and her boobs are pushing my other knee further shut - and the neo-natal team arrive ready to take the baby when she's born.
Baby starts to get tired and they start talking about a spinal and forceps. I'm terrified enough by this point and one of the neo-natal doctors just starts bombarding me with bullying to get me to consent - despite me saying that I'd reply to questions once a contraction is over - she wouldn't allow me that time to answer questions and because I'm worrying about what's going to happen in terms of preventing damage to my pelvis - she gets more and more aggressive in her demands that I shut up and consent basically. Backed into a corner and not being listened to I freak out completely and say, "I can't do this - just let me die, the baby will be dead already because all my babies die." Eventually they guarantee me they won't push my legs past my pain threshold (but don't actually measure this at all - they just wave a tape measure to shut me up) and they also promise me they're not allowed to perform an episiotomy without telling me they're going to do so.
They wheel me down to theatre - by this point I feel just like a piece of meat - utterly powerless and just something for them to play with however they decide to. When they finally get me vertical to put the spinal in - the sensation of the baby finally making her way down the birth canal is almost overwhelming - if they hadn't have made me lie on my back for 24 hours - she would have come out easily. I react to the drugs and begin shaking uncontrollably - things are beeping and no one will tell me what the hell is beeping till I point out that things that are hooked up to me going beep scare me - and the anaesthetist tells me that "It's 20 grand of something that doesn't work properly but makes a bloody beeping noise"... which strangely relaxes me a bit! They shove my legs wide, wide apart in stirrups - well beyond where it would have caused my SPD massive pain and I'm told to push, and make some vague effort despite being spinally blocked - and I see something being lifted from between my legs that looked like a whitish blue coconut. I hear a cry and then see glimpses of a baby being carted from the room a few minutes later - no congratulations, no skin-to-skin - I don't even know what she looks like... and I'm left there with three blokes furtling about up my doo-dah and no one will tell me what they're doing. Not knowing what they're doing scares me even more. Eventually they tell me I've torn "a little bit" and they're repairing me for ages... I now know they were yanking shreds of my placenta out as well - poor hubby turned around at the wrong time and got sight of a bucketful of it being carried out of the room!
Then they leave my trolley in the corridor outside the theatre - while I wait - and someone comes eventually to tell me that the baby is in NICU, that I've had a third degree tear and cut (that they promised me they would need my consent to do - and didn't obtain) because she span around and came flying out back-to-back. I wait some more and they wheel me into NICU eventually - point to an incubator that contains what is apparently my child - then tell me I have to leave till the morning and wheel me up to the maternity ward.
No side rooms, no appropriate care - no sensitivity. I'm dumped on a ward where my "uncooperative patient" label's preceeded me and I'm dealt with accordingly. I'm there with mums and their newborns and a leaflet on breastfeeding's slung at me. When I point out this is a tad insensitive - I get gobfuls of it from the woman doing the slinging. The canula in my hand has the tube from it stuck down in such a way that every time my finger moves a milimetre it's wobbling the needle part - as I go to mention this and ask how long it has to stay in for as it's hurting - I get another barrage of how I'll die without it and how it's unreasonable of me and I'm selfish and irresponsible for "demanding" it's removed. Eventually I manage to get across that it's just the way the tubing is taped down that's causing me discomfort and get my 2cm of micropore tape to move the pathing of the tubing oh-so-slightly to stop my finger jiggling it about... and hubby's kicked off the ward and I'm left there lying in increasingly bloodied sheets, listening to newborns cry, wondering what the hell they've done to my undercarriage - unable to move for the spinal block and, I say this as someone who HAS been through this and can make a comparison, feeling pretty much like I've been raped. It was the longest, darkest, worst night of my entire life the night my little girl was born.
I didn't sleep - as the ward wakes up - the other women on there start staring at me about why I don't have a cot by my bed like I'm some sort of freakish potential baby-eating monster. I think that I really should start showing some concern for this baby of mine (that just feels like an abstract ideal - remember I've not even touched her at this point) and ask for someone to ring the NICU to see how she's doing. The odious Bounty woman comes around and starts staring into my cubicle pointedly looking for a cot - I scare her away with how firmly I ask her to leave (she ran away from me for the entire time I was on the ward in terror lol)... and eventually they take me down to neo-natal where I get to hold my girl, attempt to breastfeed with pathetic support trying to ram nipples into mouth - but do at least get shown how to use a breastpump... and I come back to the ward for the bombshell to be delivered...
Because I'd dared challenge what they'd decided they were going to do to me regarding the spinal and stirrups... they called Social Services on me as a child protection risk. I'm pulled into a side room and told this - and the second anyone sits down and actually listens to me - they realise just what has gone on and how a terrified woman in pain's been mistreated, ignored and misunderstood. Still I'm going to have to wait for the investigation to run its course - so after having the first tiny chance to bond with my daughter - now I'm back in bed terrified they'll take her away from me.
Firefox is lagging up - I'll restart it and post the next bit in a second or two....
I'm glad that was all dropped.
