"Late night birth"

I recently gave birth at Kalgoorlie Hospital.

It was an amazing experience there, the midwives were all so beautiful and looked after my partner, myself and our beautiful child.

I was treated so amazingly during the birth. I was allowed to listen to what my body was telling me, the midwives and Dr Sara listened to me and took everything I said seriously. Following my birth, all the fantastic midwives I dealt with were so caring and took good care of us. They went above and beyond for us. I would 100% recommend the maternity service in Kalgoorlie and Dr Sara 100% for pregnancy care and birth.

Some feedback I would like to provide is an incident with a specialist from the birth.

During birth, I requested an epidural. My labour started very suddenly late at night, I was at hospital by midnight when I requested an epidural. I recall the specialist arrived a couple of hours later when I was already 10cms dilated and ready to push, therefore their services were not required.

The next day in recovery, the specialist came in and I felt they told me off for requesting an epidural at midnight and stated that if I needed an epidural it should be ordered before 6pm. (Despite the fact I didn't go into the hospital until around midnight). I recall the specialist stated that they had been working long shifts and should have only been called for an emergency. I recall they stated to me that they were annoyed that they were called in. I believe they also made some unnecessary comments about my bmi and how they should have been notified etc. This was after I’d had a specialist review at 24 weeks. As far as I'm aware, Kalgoorlie offers a 24/7 epidural service. I would suggest to the specialist that if fatigue is an issue then I feel they should take it up with their department to ensure that their staff are well rested and have adequate breaks including oncall periods to ensure they can provide this service. I believe this should not be on the patient to go into labour during office hours. Nor do I feel should someone who's just had a baby have to deal with being told off for what I believe is a systemic issue.

I did sarcastically mention that next time I'll make sure to plan my labour around their work hours and they agreed with that plan.