Just thought I'd explain my passion for midwifery a bit. It's all basically stemmed from my own experience of having a baby. Here's some info on my background to help get an idea:
When I was in college I messed up my A Levels and quit. I worked in retail for a while but decided to try and sort my life out.
I applied for Kingston College to redo my A Levels when I was 19, Biology, Psychology, English Language + sociology.
Not long before I was due to start I found out I was pregnant. It felt like my world came crashing down around me. I had quit my job to start college.. to sort out my life. And now I didn't want to go to college! If I had a baby it would be due about a month before my exams... how could I revise and concentrate with a newborn baby keeping me up all night. I turned down my place.
I didn't do much throughout my pregnancy, I suppose people didn't want to hire somebody who would work for 5 months and then take time off for a baby? I moped around eating.. gained over 3 stone...
The worst memory of my pregnancy unfortunately were the midwives. I was made to feel like I was in their way, annoying them... like me and my baby were a waste of time.
There was one incident where I was bleeding, and hadn't felt my baby move in a couple of days... I won't go into detail or mention the hospital I was at but they basically left me in a dirty room in the delivery suit, with another womens blood on the floor thinking my baby had died inside me. Around 6 hours later I got a 'whoops there he is! haha' and told to go back home.
I was terrified of giving birth there after that and took a course of hypnobirthing sessions which I found truly amazing. I had a wonderful teacher called Christine Hall - for anyone pregnant and thinking of doing it please contact her she is lovely and supportive and just what I needed when I decided there was no way I was going back into that hospital and planned a home birth!
I found out about a week before I was due my baby was breech.. he had been all along but nobody noticed until a male student midwife told the senior midwives, 'um actually I'm sure he's breech, look feel here...'
I was conviced to have a C section. I was told my baby's body would come out and his head would get stuck and he would suffocate and die, among other things. I went home crying and spent most of my time crying until a week later when he was cut out of me at 10.13am on 05/05/2009 weighing 6lbs 15oz.
I knew at that moment that I shouldn't have believed them. I knew I could have given birth to him, breech or not. I believed in my body but ultimately I let myself down because of them.
I was sewn up and taken to the post natal wards, hugging my baby in bed. They tried to take him away and put him in a plastic cot by my bed... why couldn't I hug him? Oh, because I may suffocate him..again. They seem obsessed with suffocation!
That night I lay awake hearing other women in beds near me crying and the midwives getting irritable with them. I started crying myself and ended up crying most of the night for the next 3 days I was there.
I wanted to breastfeed so badly.. I had no idea what to do... the midwives walked off and I fell asleep because of the drugs I suppose. I woke up about 4 hours later and a midwife started shouting at me for my feeding my baby. I told her, with tears running down my face that I didn't know how to do it... I was 19, with my first baby and no support. She looked like she wanted to slap me. She took my son and pushed him against my chest. I sat there confused. That was the extent of the help I got regards to breastfeeding. Every couple of hours all I heard was 'shall we top him up with formula?'
They said they couldn't let me out of hospital until either I was happily breastfeeding or formula feeding. After 3 days I actually would rather have died than been there any longer and told them he was feeding well.
The first thing I did when leaving the hospital was buy an electric breast pump and bottles. For 2 weeks I had a breast pump attatched to me every 2 hours, including through the night.
In the end my partner Ian made me stop. I sat around pumping and crying. It was painful, I don't know why it didn't work properly. Maybe I'm just stupid. I gave him as much breastmilk I could before switching to formula. Ian could see how down and stressed I was and in the end it was the best thing for me to quit!
This has been a long.... long story. It's just my opinion on how I believe the midwives at the hospital I was in let me down.
It sounds strange but this is the reason I started on my midwifery journey.
when my son was 2 months old I applied to an evening access course, but didn't get a place.
In October 2009 I started with the DLC - distance learning center... which means I can do my access to midwifery course at home whilst looking after Jakob.
It's hard, it's really really hard... and it will take a while... but I do believe I will get there in the end!
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