Birth of son in May, my first baby.
I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 31 weeks after being tested at 28 weeks, the hospital missed my results and didn’t inform me until 3 weeks later. I went into labour 2 weeks early, called the hospital when my contractions were coming every 5 minutes and they put me off going to the hospital as they wanted my contractions to be every 3 minutes. I called again about an hour later when the pain was becoming too difficult to cope with and they still tried to put me off despite me raising concerns that I lived an hour away. I arrived at the hospital 6cm dilated. Due to my diabetes I was on the Deben ward consultant led care. It was a straightforward delivery, however I then had a postpartum haemorrhage. My husband was never told what was going on which was very worrying for him. The doctors saved my life but once I was ok they disappeared quickly with very little explanation of what had happened. I recall the doctor saying something to me but I was exhausted and not really with it given what I’d just been through! I was left in blood soaked sheets until after lunch the next day! I had a catheter which was overflowing. I was unable to get out of the bed and my baby was under a heat lamp which had alarms going off constantly and nobody came. He wasn’t dressed for hours on end despite him being cold as the midwife never returned to help my husband dress him as she promised. We were constantly having to ring the bell to get help or attention and they only checked in on us every couple of hours if we were lucky. I was discharged the next day with no explanation of what happened, feeling very shaken and anxious about my experience. The next day and for a couple of weeks later I suffered from very high blood pressure and anxiety to the point I was prescribed anti depressants. I was so worried about being readmitted to hospital because of my experience.