"Poor labour experience"

Although all staff were lovely themselves, myself and my partner were left for hours on ward 11 waiting. I was due to be induced at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary but was contacted a few hours before my appointment time to be told they had no space for me and was being sent to St Johns instead. This was inconvenient but not undoable.

We arrived around 11am, waited about an hour before any observations were done, I did inform the midwife that I had lost my mucus plug the night before and that morning.

Was served lunch, which was decent, finally had an internal exam around 2:30pm, found out I was actually 3cm dilated and consented to have a cervical sweep, was told I would be jumping the queue and heading to the delivery suite to have my water broken soon.

I was allowed to go for a walk and came back about an hour later, I wasn't having normal contractions but was feeling a lot of pressure/discomfort so had some pain relief around 5/5.30.

Still on ward 11, I asked for an update about being moved, was told they were really busy but it wouldn't be much longer. I decided to lay down for a bit and did have a contraction or two. Shift change happened and I was still waiting, the night midwife came to check on me just before 8, I told them I did have a couple contractions and asked again when I would be moved, at this point my partner and I were the only people in the 4-bed bay, this midwife said they didn't expect me to be moved anytime soon and try close my eyes and rest for a while.

I had a strong contraction around 9pm and felt a pop, and fluid feeling, I went to the bathroom and my bottom half was wet, I buzzed the midwife and told them I thought my water broke, they checked my wet pad then put me on the foetal monitor, after this the contractions were every 10 minutes and really strong, the midwife did pop in regularly to check my blood pressure but still had no idea when I would be moved to the delivery room.

After about 40 minutes I had to roll on my side because I wasn't comfortable on my back anymore, this intensified the contractions and I had about 3 in 15 minutes. I really couldn't cope with how strong and painful these ones were, the midwife could hear me from the office and came through, tried to get me out the bed but I had such a strong contraction which didn't ease off and urge to push that the midwife pushed the emergency button and rushed me to delivery.

I managed to get off the bed and still wanted to push, when I got on the other delivery bed and was examined, my baby's head was right there, she was out, thankfully healthy, 20 minutes later just before 11pm. 12 hours after arriving on ward 11.

After my baby's delivery and my stitches were done, my partner, baby and I were left for hours, midwifes only popped in very occasionally. My blood pressure was high, mid 150/90 and my temperature was up, I waited over an hour for paracetamol and was still in the delivery room at 6am even after saying I felt fine to be moved back to ward 11 to free up the room. 

This was my second baby, and although the midwives were all lovely themselves, they were just so short staffed that I was left by myself with my partner to labour alone without any support and not in the correct place, this was unfortunately a very poor experience of something that should be treasured.