"Traumatic birth"

After having successful IVF ICSI, I arrived at Port Hedland WA hospital to be induced.

They took me to the birth suite to insert the balloon catheter and that’s when things went sideways. I started to bleed out losing an estimated 250mls of blood and passing out, I remember telling my partner "I love you" and the midwives calling a med call, I came back around with half the hospital staff in the room at panic stations. Turns out I had a low lying placenta that they didn't check before using the balloon and it wasn't needed anyway as one of the midwife's later on said that they could break my waters. Mind you the balloon catheter was the midwife's first one apparently too.

The following morning my waters were broken manually and I was hooked up to the oxytocin drip on the lowest setting contractions started within half an hour in my back coming every 5minutes - I pushed through an hour of pain before asking for the gas (which did nothing) by that afternoon the contractions were unbearable and I asked for an epidural. The epi was inserted and after an hour I had no relief and was constantly throwing up from the pain.

Second Epidural was done and again had failed, I asked for the morphine injection which had no affect on me and only made my baby sleepy. By the evening I was screaming asking them to get this baby out as soon as possible, by any means and that included a c section.

Later, they inserted a half spinal block with Fentanyl and epidural which worked!

By this point I was 9cm dilated and could finally rest.

I recall I had a total of 10 (yes, I believe 10!) different people, multiple times, with their hands inside me checking. I felt like my dignity was all but gone.

From later that night onwards the pain in my tailbone and pressure in my bottom was beginning to ramp up. By midnight I was ready to push.

I pushed for 1hour and 50mins and baby had not yet moved and was still sitting up pretty high.

They had a consultant and doctor in the in the room and gave me the option of episiotomy with forceps under full spinal block as everything was quite swollen inside and wanted everything to relax and if that was unsuccessful, it would be an emergency c section.

I was rushed into theatre, the full spinal block was completed, they took one look and said they can’t get baby out even if they tried as they were still too high, so c section it was. During the c section I had a haemorrhage and lost 600mls of blood.

In the end the failed balloon catheter had hit my placenta and bub’s umbilical cord had a true knot in it. My baby spent a few days in and out of special care in the special care nursery due to an infection, I believe caused from my induction, as I was not put on any antibiotics from the failed induction or after my waters were broken.

In total I spent over a week in hospital including a few days as a ‘border patient’ as my little baby was sick.

I found the maternity ward was severely understaffed so I did not receive much help or guidance, I was not offered any advice on how to bathe my little one in the whole time. The care from the maternity ward was simply not good enough and I believe a lot of the issues with my birth could have been prevented.

I felt trapped in the hospital like my room was a prison, my mental health has taken a big hit and now I'm on medication and seeing a psychologist with post natal depression. I have had zero follow up care with my C section scar and I had to go to ED as it became infected.

I had no debrief of what transpired with my birthing experience.

My little "big" baby weighed well above average at time of birth, I had 6 ultrasounds during the lead up to birth and all the later scans showed that baby was in the 90th - 97th percentile. And I have a small pelvis so I don't understand why I was put through 18 hours of labour just to have an emergency C section. It seems to me my baby was very high up through the whole time.

This whole experience has made me not want to give birth ever again, I always wanted to be a mum and worked so hard through IVF to help my bundle of joy into my life, I don't wish this on anyone and I feel something has to change. I would hate this to happen to anyone else. But sadly, based on my experience, it seems to be the case at Port Hedland Hospital.