In 5 hours i have a meeting with PALS (the patient advice and liaison service) and one of the bosses from the maternity unit.8.5 months ago, I had my son and the care we received was, I believe, lacking. I finally raised the courage to complain, but now I'm laying awake thinking that they will brush it off. I'm even starting to worry that I overreacted.I've written the list of issues, do you think I have a genuine complaint?I was admitted at 36 weeks after going in for a lack of movement. My baby's heart rate kept dropping for a few seconds at a time. They offered me two choices, an induction or "chop chop" that night. I said I would like the opportunity to deliver. So they went for the induction. They tried to break my waters becore my husband arrived. I wasn't at all dilated and it was agony. They couldn't do it, so put in a pessary and admitted me to the induction ward.I was left to labour for 92 hours. My contractions were incredibly strong and frequent from within a couple of hours of the pessary going in. However, I didn't diate. After 52 hours, I was finally at 1cm. They managed to break my waters, even though it was absolutely agony again, I managed to cope with gas. At this point I was on regular IV paracetamol and morphine to cope with the pain, and hadnt slept since arriving.They put me on an induction drip when I got to three cm. I had had three pessaries at this point, but my contractions had eased off and I stopped progressing. This worked, but I was in so much pain, I asked for an epidural. The epidural was placed incorrectly, so it numbed my legs instead. So I had to have a second. This was also placed incorrectly, so I could no longer move at all, but could feel all the pain. They couldn't give me a third, and I was still only 6cm dilated.I kept pointing out that my drip was about to run out, they told me it was fine. The drip ran out just as I got to full dilation. The contractions stopped. I tried to push but there was nothing to push against. At this point I was 20 minutes from the end of the delivery window after your waters had broken. They prepped me for theatre.They started up the drip again and my contractions started, but we were too late on the basis of waters, so I had to go onto theatre and have him delivered via ventouse and a significant episiotomy. They then realised he had been back to back, and had the cord wrapped around his neck three times. They had to take him for oxygen straight away as he was floppy and not breathing.They then admitted that they should have offered me a c section after day three as his heart rate continued to drop on and off throughout labour. Not to mention that I hadn't slept in five days.I was admitted to the post natal ward. I couldn't get my baby to latch for feeds. He cried all night, as did I. I requested help every hour, but they just said I'd get there. By 6am I was missing a chunk from a nipple, and still had a screaming baby.They were getting ready to discharge us the next day. We still hadn't managed a feed. But they said we would be able to get help from the midwife who would visit us. A midwife ran in panicked. They had done a jaundice test the day before but hadn't recorded the results on the system. My son had jaundice within 24 hours of birth, so needed to be tested and treated automatically. As this was missed, my son had missed essential treatment.We ended up in NICU. As he hadn't fed, and had jaundice, it got worse and he was just below the level for blood transfusions. He was under 3 lights, no nappy, being tube fed formula as we couldn't touch him. I was finally given a pump and was able to get him some breastmilk.I was made to sign to say that I understood they had made an error, but was happy it had been dealt with. By this point I still hadn't slept and was so worried about my baby I signed without thinking about it. I honestly can't remember what they said or what I signed.When my son was down to one light, I was told we could go onto the transitional care ward (TC), where we would get extra support, but he could be with me. They discharged us to the TC. On arrival we were told that there wasn't enough staff to support us, so whilst we would be on the ward, we would be under normal midwifery. It was horrible being in a ward seeing everyone else get help, and being left to cope. Every time I asked for help, I was sent a first year student who had no idea. I still couldn't feed him.One of the TC staff found me crying in the middle of the night as I had been trying to feed him for hours and he was screaming hungry. She noticed his tongue wasn't moving and got us seen by the lactation consultant in the morning. He had an extremely severe tongue tie, and needed a frenulotomy. That was booked for two weeks time, and I was told to buy a pump and bottle feed.We were waiting on his blood tests to be good for 24 hours to discharge us. We had two clear tests, and the doctor told me to get the midwife to start discharge in the morning as we would be going home. I spoke to the midwife, who began the process. The doctor arrived on the ward an hour later, my son had got much worse very quickly, and had to go back to the NICU. They took him away. The midwife came back to find me sat alone crying. She told me off for wasting her time doing discharge. She also said that I was only crying because I wanted to get home, and I shouldn't be selfish, I was upset because my baby was sick.My son was back with me in a light box. I had 30 minutes to feed him and change him before he had to go back in. I was told that a midwife would help me each time as he was still very difficult to feed, and getting him out of the box was a two person job. When staff changed to night staff, I was told that I would have to cope as they didn't have the resources over night to help me. I struggled all night, and ended up teaching the students how to use the light box (which I had to work out myself).They woke me up in the early hours of the morning whilst I was waiting for my son's blood test results. The health care assistant just said "we've got to go" grabbed my son in his box, and ran out with him. Leaving me without a clue what was happening. I was crying for 10 minutes until someone came for me. They were just moving us into a different ward as they needed our bay for someone else. When I said they could have explained that rather than just grabbing my baby and making me panic that he was going back to the NICU, they apologised for "not realising I would be so sensitive"My son was finally better and could be discharged, my blood pressure had gone up, but pre eclampsia tests were clear. They wanted to keep me in for observation. I told them I would discharge myself if they wouldn't. I found a doctor on the ward, he was surprised to see me still in (he was the doctor I had seen day one), I explained to him what they had said about my blood pressure, he said that they couldn't really know what my blood pressure was in hospital, and that the midwife would have a better idea the next day. I found the midwife and asked her to speak to him, I was then discharged. My blood pressure was back to normal the next day. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2OQhb7X
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