"My labour"

I had an induction planned, and unfortunately the pessary didn’t work, this wasn’t too much of a surprise to me. I was disappointed to have to spend the next 2 days on the antenatal ward waiting for a bed in labour ward to progress to the next steps, however Viv during my stay on the antenatal ward was amazing and I’m so glad I saw her on several occasions as she really kept the spirit high. She was over the moon when she came to tell me that I finally had a bed on labour ward! 

After proceeding to labour ward, I had Amber as my first midwife and she was lovely and helped me feel at ease. I had my waters broken, and then the epidural placed at 3am, alongside having the hormone drip started at 5am. Unfortunately the epidural wasn’t having much of an effect on the right side of my body so I was feeling some pain, so the anaesthetist returned and adjusted the epidural. At this point I had the amazing Hattie in with me, and I don’t think I could have got through this without someone as supportive as her.

My epidural completely stopped working on the right side of my body, I was feeling every single contraction just on the one side of my body and I was in agony. The anaesthetist was wanting me to lay on my right side, however Hattie had noticed that laying like this was not in my baby’s best interest and was making her uncomfortable. I expressed my feelings to Hattie about wanting a caesarean section, as my options was either this or having the epidural re-sited, which I was against due to the fear of it failing again and having to go through the same process.

When the anaesthetist returned, they began talking about re-siting my epidural, and i cannot thank Hattie enough for advocating for me about my decision to go ahead with a caesarean section instead. I had the all clear to be admitted for theatre, but was given an approximate time frame of an hour due to it not being an emergency, so my hormone drip was turned off completely. However the theatre staff returned shortly after saying they had space there and then so I had the sudden transfer to theatre. Again in here, Hattie was fabulous, as was Jess and all of the other theatre staff, they were all so calm and it made my experience so much better as it was unplanned. Surgery went well and I was so happy to know that Hattie was the one who was able to get my baby cleaned up ready to be passed to me to have skin to skin.

Once on the postnatal ward, there were some truly lovely staff popping in and helping me out, but it was seeing Hattie just before being discharged that was the icing on the cake, she truly is a credit to the women’s health centre, along with lovely Viv.

The only thing that could have been better is more comfortable seating for dads and if my partner was allowed to stay for longer.