"Planned induction"

I was induced at 39 weeks, due to my baby being an IVF and ICSI baby. I was assured that the process would be gentle and slow, and they would allow up to three days for the whole process. I arrived in the afternoon and checked into the induction suite. After a vaginal examination, I had one round of Cervidil to last 12 hours.

I found the induction suite was feral – four women and their partners were squashed into a single room separated by curtains. We all (except for partners) shared one toilet and shower. There was hardly any space for my bags, and we weren’t sure whether we could even charge our phones. It was very noisy and I felt like I couldn’t make any noise to breathe through contractions or have things like a diffuser going for comfort. My partner was squished into an armchair in the corner.

I had a vaginal examination after the first round of Cervidil and it was excruciating. The midwife performed the examination with the Cervidil still in place. I was crying in pain and my partner had to hold me down. I believe the midwife was pretty rough and didn’t assure me or pause when it seemed they could see I was in extreme pain. A lovely midwife told me later that Cervidil makes the area very sensitive and tender.

After this horrible experience, I was given another round of Cervidil to last 12 hours. I was terrified about having another vaginal examination at the end of it, and was becoming more and more uncomfortable in the induction suite as my contractions became stronger, but luckily a new and much more gentle midwife was on shift next. So for the examination, I was offered gas and the midwife removed the Cervidil before performing the examination. It was still very painful but I didn’t feel like I was being violated painfully.

I was finally dilated and effaced enough to go to birth suite to begin active labour. But, I ended up spending another eight hours in limbo as I believe another woman was prioritised ahead of me (I recall she arrived at the induction suite 15 minutes before me for an unplanned induction). I refused to spend another minute in the induction suite so the lovely midwife found us a room in the postpartum ward. A doctor then told me that I would be delayed again indefinitely as they had just noticed a medical condition on my record and needed to run it past a specialist before I could begin active labour.

It was at night on the weekend, and the specialist was hard to find. The doctor admitted that this could have been investigated weeks ago as part of my antenatal care.

By this point, I had been in labour for over 24 hours in a small and cramped space and endured two horrific vaginal examinations. I ended up spending a further eight hours in that ward before I was finally moved to the birth suite. By this point I was almost hysterical with exhaustion and pain. I requested an epidural straight away. On the way, the same midwife I’d had the negative experience with was back. I felt they dallied to the room, and pointed out the tea and coffee station. I couldn’t believe it - I asked them to just get me to the bloody ward and the epidural. Luckily, the midwife with me in the birth suite was an angel.

I was in active labour, assisted by Syntocin, for around eight hours. Unfortunately, and this isn’t any fault of the hospital, I stopped dilating and developed haematuria and a fever. I then had an emergency c- section. The epidural wore off 15 minutes in and I asked for a general anaesthetic. I lost 1.4 litres of blood and sustained extra tearing. It was very traumatic for my partner and I. I was then transferred to the postnatal ward where my experience was about to get even worse.

Once we got to our room, I felt my partner and I were handed the baby like a bowling ball and the midwife left. We didn’t know anything - we didn’t know we could press a buzzer and have a midwife help us with nappy changes etc, and we didn’t know if a lactation consultant would stop by and help us with breastfeeding. By this stage, it was after 8pm and partners would normally need to leave but luckily they allowed my partner to stay.

I was in the postnatal ward for five days and I think I got around five hours sleep in total. My room was right outside the nurses station, and I recall several staff were laughing, swearing and carrying on like lamb chops, in my opinion, all night long. From the second night onwards, my partner couldn’t stay overnight and I had to look after baby on my own. It was difficult to get out of bed let alone take care of a new baby as a first time mum after just having had a c-section. By the second day, my nipples were bleeding. I asked for a LC several times but only a couple of visits happened. They were clearly busy and spent no more than ten minutes with me. So I had no clue that I needed to rest my nipples and pump several times per day to stimulate my milk supply. As well as the night time noise, there were staff constantly barging in, no one told me that I could order meals via a monitor in my room and we were only given 20ml of formula at a time (I believe babies that age should have double that). It seemed the midwife discharging me gave me the wrong information on how much paracetamol and ibuprofen to take after leaving hospital, so I was in a lot of pain when I went home. Luckily a visiting midwife clarified what the correct amount was.

At the moment I absolutely cannot even fathom having a second child. I hope I can overcome this.