"Kind, encouraging and understanding"

I recently gave birth to my second child on the labour ward at  Royal Devon & Exeter hospital.

I was moved to the birthing room and into the care of midwife Vicky and student midwife Allison at around 8am and I felt like having Ali as well as the midwife was a real bonus. Together they explained everything really clearly, made sure I knew what choices I had, and supported me through my contractions when I was feeling exhausted and a bit deflated. They were kind, encouraging and understanding and I couldn’t have asked for a better duo to help bring my baby girl into the world.  

On arriving at hospital the day before to assess whether my waters had broken, a student midwife called Abby also provided an excellent service - explaining everything that was going to happen and why so so clearly. She was friendly and kind and really put me at ease and kept me informed.

After my waters had broken but I wasn’t getting contractions, I had to stay in the hospital to receive regular  antibiotics for step b. Because I wasn’t in labour, I was just waiting this to kick off I didn’t see many midwives as we were just waiting for things to kick off. What would have been super useful is if someone had let me know that there was a dedicated food area - it wasn’t into the next day after baby was born that I realised. 

Other than that, we had a wonderful experience.