Birthright

Today, I left my final midwife appointment feeling utter disappointment.

📸 @pipstaffordphotography

This is my third pregnancy and will be my third c-section, but it will also be the first time having it in a large public hospital.

My first birth was in a Hub hospital in a mining town. Despite it ending in an emergency cesarean, the journey up until then was a welcoming one into motherhood.

My second birth was in a small city but at a private hospital. My obstetrician was considerate and made sure I knew all my options, even pushing my date out so I could experience going into labour for a second time.

*side note- we forgot that we temporarily removed our pregnancy insurance, and then it was too late to turn it back on for this pregnancy.🤦🏽‍♀️

So here I am, booked into a large, fairly new hospital that I’ve heard great things about. It’s so big that you get given a ticket number when you arrive, like being at the butchers in the 90’s. I digress, I am actually pro being organised and it is a functional system, so fair enough.

What I do have a problem with is feeling like a number.

When I hear, ‘we birth over 100 babies a month, we’re pretty busy’, I don’t feel impressed, I feel like I’m putting you out.

When I hear, ‘we do sooo many caesareans’, I sense complacency.

When my concerns are dismissed, when there’s no consistency in information, and when I’m forced to miss appointments due to my baby being born during the festive season, I don’t feel like a woman who is being treated like I’m about to bring life into this world. I feel like a number.

It’s late in the game, and oh such a shame to be experiencing and feeling this disappointment now.

I’ve done all I can. I’ve voiced my concerns in numerous ways to navigate being misunderstood, unheard, or just plain not acknowledged. This is not what I expected from the midwives. I am disappointed.

I can only hope that the surgery, birth, and three night hospital stay will compliment the happiness I feel for getting to become a mum for a third time. I hope I’m elated by the experience and come out raving about the beautiful midwives.

Presently however, what I’m left with is a feeling of unease and an understanding that all I can control is how I react to all of this. I don’t want to carry around this unease in my final weeks of pregnancy.

Knowing I’ve voiced my concerns and made sure the midwives wrote them all down, all I can do now is hope for the the best. I want to trust them. I want to feel as though I am not just a number and that it is not their intent to make me feel so. I want to go in on the day of my surgery with full confidence that the

medical professionals have, are, and will be doing their best to place my baby safely in my arms.

So, I’m just going to do that. 😶

Also, hubby forgot to buy chocolate in the shopping today. I’ve also voiced my opinion about that. 😤😂

Anyone else ever felt like just a number?

T x