February 17, 2015 - I went into labour around 10pm on February 16th. I was admitted to the hospital and my water broke while they were checking me out. I was doing fine and I had an epidural but for some reason I was not dilating. The doctors kept waiting and pushing the time. It took 3 different doctors to figure out that my waters weren't fully broken. At around 6pm on February 17th, a doctor came in and broke my other water sac with a stick. At this point, I had no energy to push. They were going to give me a C-section, but then insisted on vaginal birth. I could not even push properly, I had nurses complaining to me that I didn't know how to push properly and my baby ended up getting stuck. They needed to do an episiotomy and use the forceps to get him out. Once he was out, he came out not breathing and had a virus. They had to resuscitate him and keep him in the NICU for 2 days. I did not even get to hold him after he was born. My entire stay there I was so uncomfortable. They wheeled me to my room and told me to ring the bells if I needed something. They gave me pain meds but no stool softeners and I could not even go to the bathroom. They seemed more concerned about me breastfeeding than me being able to walk or go to the bathroom properly.
It was an awful, traumatic experience. I am due with my second child any day now and am terrified of anything similar happening again. I am using a different hospital this time and hoping for the best.
I don't know if any of my backgrounds/ethnicity came into play with my stay. I think it was just a matter of medical staff "doing their job" and not looking into finer details of the issues.
Submitted by Tasha
