"Where to have baby!"

Up until 36 weeks we had a normal stress free pregnancy. 36 weeks hit and bam everything changed.  Baby had been breech the entire pregnancy, so we had planned to have a c-section, we did bloods at 36 weeks (booked in the c-section).  Had been told by the Doctor that we were all good, under the BMI etc for the hospital and were good to have baby in our local hospital.  The bloods come back not very good so things got moved up, we had an appointment with the anethetist where we were told your BMI is just over (1kg had tipped us over but we were good at 36 weeks), however they were happy for us to still have baby at the local hospital.  We then had to sign a “against medical care” form to say we were still happy to have baby here at the local hospital.  We were told once that form was signed it was all good and we would have a new date for the c-section. 

The next day the head Paediatrician, Obstetrician and midwife/nurse called and said we need to come in for a meeting.  We were told that we needed to go elsewhere to have baby, it had nothing to do with weight (except the against medical advice form said because of BMI) but because baby was going to be born at 37 weeks (between 37 and 38 weeks) his lungs wouldn’t be developed and because he was a boy they would be two weeks behind so really baby’s lungs were only 35 weeks developed.  Due to this if we had baby in at the local hospital baby would definitely have to be flown to Perth, without me as I was having a c-section and there was no guarantee other parent could go on the plane, so baby would be alone. It was very much if we had baby locally we would be jeopardising baby’s lungs and they didn’t have the staff to care for baby long term.  We were told that everything would be paid for, accommodation sorted for us for the time we had to be away, we had to have extra family come with us as we had a toddler but that would all be covered. 

That was more stressful than anything, flights were a nightmare for three of us and 2 drove so we had a car, accommodation definitely not sorted, only 3 days covered, we had to find and pay for our own accommodation for the remaining time.  Baby ended up coming at 37 +1 (the day we were flown to Perth).  Flights home were then a nightmare as well.  Still at 8 weeks later nothing has been covered and we are still out of pocket.  

We definitely felt as though the hospital just didn’t want to deal with us locally and pushed us out of area by using fear for our baby’s wellbeing. 

We hope no one else goes through this.  Stand up for yourself!