Google – and a certain unpleasant website – are tricky things. None of my babies were born at home and my son died after a planned, uncomplicated hospital birth attended by a well respected consultant of 30 years experience.
An account of a labour, followed by a caesarean and the birth of our first daughter who had a cleft lip and palate.
An account of a successful hospital VBAC.
An account of a genuine emergency caesarean, that started out as a planned HBAC but turned into an ambulance ride to rescue a baby with a presenting cord.
The story of what should have been a simple VBA2C turned into something quite different by a hospital on a schedule.
The story of a simple, easy and in my opinion successful VBA3C and the loss of our baby boy, 11 days later, due to unexpected brain damage. His problems were not apparently acute birth trauma, but are otherwise unexplained.
I’ve had babies at two hospitals. After Josie I swore I would never go back to Peterborough Maternity Unit. Despite the fact that Freddie, who was born at Hinchingbrooke, died 11 days after his birth, I would give birth there again like a shot. The difference in woman centred care between the two, the effort to make birth seem a natural but positive event at Hinchingbrooke, is spoken for in volumes by the fact that despite Freddie’s death, I look back at his birth with love and fondness and joy. They healed me there and cared for me impeccably; they could not have predicted the outcome.
Ironically, I blame Peterborough in some respects for Freddie’s loss. Four dreadful, fearsome births, to one degree or another, left me emotionally and physically scarred beyond the point where I trusted my own instincts or my health care givers. Had I not been so afraid that all hospitals would use any excuse to get me in theatre, I might have voiced my fears about Freddie to them, or gone in early when I began to get nervous about him. But I didn’t, because they had made me afraid to trust. Hinchingbrooke have healed me of that.
To the midwives, consultants, doctors and SCBU nurses there, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And to my Peterborough Community Midwife, bless you for everything you did to try and make it okay.