Very belated traumatic birth story

I finished work 4 weeks before my EDD thanks to a nice secretary who pointed out I was entitled to that (though no lawyer had ever accessed it). I had visions of finishing the nursery (the corner of our 1 bedroom) and getting to actually relax. Instead I got bronchitis twice, did 3 courses of antibiotics and was sick as a dog for the last 3 weeks :-)

MIL came to stay with us (yes in our living/dining room) which I was glad of. All our family was on the other side of the Pacific, so having her there was a big comfort. My mum would have been a little better perhaps but she couldn't come because she isn't retired and she's not as well off. Scheduling her 3 week visit wasn't easy, we went with 1 week before EDD until 2 weeks after.

DS's due date was a Saturday. ?I had an OB appointment a few days before EDD and he said "nothing doing, you'll go overdue. Come back and see me for the NST on Monday and we'll work out how its going".

So - on Monday morning DH and I got up and went to see the OB. We were a bit rushed (not morning people!) and we didn't stop for breakfast. I had been painting letters for the wall the night before and they were out drying on newspaper, waiting for a second coat of paint.

I got out of the taxi and GUUUUUUSH. I was suddenly all wet. I didn't realise at first but of course - waters broken! I went into the OB's office and had to ask the nurse for a pad. ?Much cooing and carrying on by the staff as obviously cutesy baby was imminent.

Dr did an ultrasound and said "yep, well if you hadn't told me I'd have said admit you to hospital because fluid is very low haha!". Did the NST and told me I was having regular contractions. Thank God couldn't feel a thing yet.

HE said go on down to the hospital and I'll see you soon.?

?We walked a few blocks down to the hospital. I'd pre-registered and they weren't busy. Thought it would be a breeze. Nope. Re do the whole thing. I started to get concerned because I have a prior condition and I had taken considerable trouble to get it all on file before labor. I did NOT want to be telling them about a life threatening condition through screaming clenched teeth. Also the anesthesologist had put on file that I was to be given if requested an epidural with x content and with antibiotic (Rx attached) prior. So the retaking of ALL the details like they'd lost the damned record really annoyed me.

?We decided DH would go home for the hospital bag because it was likely to be a while before anything happened. Big mistake. If I could have my time over I'd have asked MIL to bring it in but we just weren't thinking straight.??

Got shown to the LDR room which smelled sickeningly of bleach. So much so I nearly threw up on the spot. I was just NOT going to give birth this place. Reluctantly (since they'd obviously had their sense of smell completely eradicated) the nurses agreed to air it/wipe over to get rid of the smell. I wished I'd brought some vanilla essence at this point to throw around.

Got settled into the LDR room, introduced to my nurse whose name to this day eludes me because she never said it clearly. I wish I knew it because I'd have a few things to say about her. She just sat down in a chair and started slowly chatting about the weather and filling in forms taking YET ANOTHER history. I said I would like to get the antibiotics prior to the epidural so that I could have the epi asap. I had no pain yet and I had no intention of waiting for it.

She looked so shocked. She said stuff like "plenty of time for that" and "but you can't feel anything yet" and "you should wait". Which bit of "I'd like my epidural before the pain and I know I have to have antibiotics for an hour first so let's start now" don't you understand???

I am totally sure she dragged her lazy feet. EVENTUALLY she came back ready to give me the IV of antibiotics. Fast forward 30 mins. She tries for the SEVENTH time to put the IV in. By this time I have SIX sore spots where she's failed to get the vein. My hands are killing me. OK not like labor but really sore and not part of your body you can really ignore!

After the seventh failed attempt I said as calmly as possible look you've obviously lost your nerve a bit, I would like you to get someone new to try. She grumbled and pulled a face but brought back an anesthetics registrar who got it in first try despite having very few options for where to put it by that point.

?At this point, about 3 hours after first arriving at the hospital and nearly 4 hours after seeing the OB, the pain starts. Suddenly. They say women lie about labor to other women. They say you forget. I will not forget and I will not lie. It was the most excruciatingly awful pain I have ever felt, and I have blacked out from pain before (ie endured a great deal of pain in my life).

The nurse (why am I not surprised?) did bugger all. I mean bugger all. She did not stay with me, she did not say anything. She did not help in any way. At this point DH came back THANK GOD. He managed to get them to tell us how long the IV had to run and get the epidural booked so I could have it asap after the IV.

During the 3 hours of complete and total agony without the epidural I had all kinds of people file through the room. IF they'd been med students that would have been fine. It was a teaching hospital after all and I was used to that (I'd been having students at my consults all my life). But no, we had some administrator with more forms, a couple of pediatric registrars who thought I was someone else (who'd just had the baby), a couple more pediatrics registrars checking on when they were likely to be needed, a pain consultant (I laughed at that and told them they could bang some heads together until my epidural arrived) and yet another nurse who wanted a medical history. I told her to go and learn to read so she could read it in the file and that what I said right now was not likely to be accurate but if she wanted a medical history it went like this "once upon a time...".

Seriously these people were pains in the arse. If they'd designed a labor ward system they could not have set it up to be more irritating and ineffectual.

At some point a nurse came in and checked my progress and was amazed I was already 8 cm. My response "well go get the epidural!" She, at least, was nice, and she did get it. The anesthesiologist was a GOD. He was quick, professional, cheery without being patronizing. I just wish they could distill some of him and inject it into every nurse in that place. The nurses seem to resent how much he was loved. So clearly their first concern wasn't the patient's comfort.

Epidural took 10 mins to kick in and BLISS. Total bliss. I talked to DH, I phoned my mum, MIL and FIL (my mum and FIL were both at their homes overseas). ?I slept. I discussed middle names with DH. I slept some more. OB came in and checked, he said I was 10cm but that given my medical condition I couldn't push for long so if I was comfortable he'd leave me without pushing for as long as he could (they call it laboring down) to ensure the baby was as close to birth as possible before pushing.

Obviously that would not be possible without an epi, yet another point lost on the nurses.

A couple of hours later he came back and said ok, let's set up shop :-)

I pushed for about 40 mins and he said it was starting to be counterproductive (2 steps forward 3 steps back between pushes) so I agreed to his using the vacuum rather than pushing for another hour or so (beyond what my neurosurgeon thought was advisable).

5 mins later DS was born. ?

Bytch nurse turned down the epi without asking too, totally unnecessary as I could feel the urge to push just fine. The anesiologist had already told me too that it was unnecessary so what right did she have to interfere! Hence it actually hurt quite a lot when he came out. I had a small tear, 2 stitches.

Standard procedure when a vacuum is used is to whisk the baby off to check them. Of course no one told me this beforehand so I was totally unprepared to have DS just disappear for 10 mins. DH could see him but I could not (behind my head). Thanks for nothing Dr and hospital staff for that. How hard would it be to put the exam table 2 feet further along the wall so I could see??

Finally got DS back. Dr left. Nurses left. No words, no comfort, no what happens next. Nothing. Nada. Silence. Door closed. I managed to BF DS on my own but no thanks to anyone whose job it is to help.

3 hours later no one had come back. Not a soul. At that point a cleaner came in and took out the trash. She said she didn't know anything. A meal was brought in by someone while DH was helping me take a shower. It had the wrong name on it and was marked Kosher but I didn't care. No one was around to ask so I ate it anyway. It was cold, congealed roast beef and gravy but I was starving.

I was just out of the shower (still wet) when a bossy nurse came in and said "right now, upstairs". Nothing like warning or timing. I had no guilt whatsoever about taking my time getting dressed. After the way they dragged their feet and disappeared. About an hour later I was doing more forms for the post partum ward admission. It's like they can't read the language from the labor ward file. Or it has germs they're afraid of. They simply must ask the same inane questions at each stage. This was midnight. I'd been feeding DS off and on since that first time. I coudln't get in and out of bed while holding him because it still hurt too much where I had my stitches. I rang the bell once just after DH went home (he had to, being a shared room) and the night nurse said "don't bother ringing me I'm busy" and refused to help me back into bed to breastfeed.

The day nurses were ok, but they still don't tell you anything. They would just change DS's diaper without asking/telling me. Never gave me a chance to do it. Maybe they're used to women speaking up but I felt I'd done all I could do in that dept already last night.

I fed DS almost constantly from midnight-6am. I was exhausted. At 6am I got up and asked the nurse to mind him in the nursery while I took a shower. Grumble grumble. Oh did I mention that you can't room in unless you have the light on? And since my reading light was broken I had to have the blaring overhead fluoro on? Every time I turned it off someone would come in and yell at me that they'd take the baby away if I didn't leave it on. ?

Next morning I met my roomate too. She had pretty inconsiderate visitors but she was nice herself. She'd had a c section earlier in the day yesterday (her second child). She asked me if I could ask about her breakfast as no one had brought her dinner the night before. I went out on foot (she couldn't get up) and asked. They'd left us both off the list. We didn't get our breakfast until 11am when someone finished the rounds went down to the kitchen, congealed some extra and brought it back.?

I asked for the hospital LC to talk about breastfeeding and they told me I couldn't see her unless I went to her class. I said I went to her class 3 weeks ago (around the time of the antenatal class) and they said no, her daily class. Since I was admitted in the morning had given birth by 6pm I was counted as having had 1/2 my hospital stay gone by now. So the next class was the morning I'd be discharged. Useful.

The only thing they seemed concerned with was showing "don't shake the baby" videos. Thanks but I think even an idiot has got the message not to shake the baby. I'd much rather some actual nursing care.?

Finally MIL came in to visit around lunch. She brought sandwiches. OH GOD HOW I LOVED HER. She brought a double serve for me and DH and I ate half of his as well!

That night I had a nice night nurse. She was happy to come in every few hours and help me back into bed after feeds. Next morning I was discharged.

As far as I am concerned a mixture of natural birth nazism and plain old feet dragging made my birth experience a misery despite the good fortune I had to have hours of warning and time for admission/IV before the pain started. To me there is no excuse for that and I will never ever forgive them (not that they would apologise to begin with). I will also never ever forget. And since I now live in a place even more obsessed with not medicating, I'm not inclined to have another baby as a direct result.?

While if I did have another baby I would certainly want to arrange to go back to work a lot sooner than I did last time, and I make no bones about not liking being a SAHM I still think a huge factor in DS being an only child is that I was maliciously made to suffer needlessly by a brutal system that has no respect for your wishes unless you want to be the next screamer on Baby Story.

This was nearly 3 years ago and only now can even write it down without crying. I was far far too upset to ever do anything (ineffective though it would have been) about the treatment we received.

But to add insult to injury I met a woman who gave birth 10 hours later in the same hospital. She was getting similar treatment and she got her DH to call a friend on the hospital board. She got a private room and private nurse from that point on. Man that made me hate that hospital. Except the anesthesiologist, he was, as I said, a God.

So make what you will of that birth story.?