June 19-20, 2014 - The short version is that my midwife was amazing and talked me through everything. The nurse on my case was also awesome. Dr. Esther Park: NOT AWESOME. She barely talked to me, came in while eating her lunch, chewing and wiping her hands, saying "let's get this show on the road".
I'd been in labour for 45 hours before I agreed to go to the hospital (no sleep for 2 nights). The anesthesiologist did not talk to me as he was inserting the needle. I went into a contraction while he was doing it and he never stopped. Then the Dr came in as mentioned above. She checked on me two or three times, once was to get the nurse to up the pitocin even though I was clearly not dilating.
Another time was to check my dilation and she broke the sac, not explaining the meconium or anything else. My midwife and the student midwife explained every step to me. If I asked the nurse, she would explain no problem. I am still so grateful to her for not upping the pitocin so the Dr could enjoy her lunch more thoroughly. We all know where that would lead.
Finally when it was time to push the Dr was nowhere nearby (and of course as soon as I had signed in to the hospital I wasn't actually in the care of my midwives). The midwives and the nurse did everything - mostly the midwives. They coached me through 2 hours of pushing then explained what the Dr was likely to do (they kindly said she'd offer me suction though she actually just informed me she would be doing that).
Once suction started I had a couple of pushes, and without asking, she gave me an episiotomy.
My partner was shocked - after all the care, info and support he couldn't believe that someone would just take a scalpel to me!
I'm very grateful that all went well, and I never followed up because, well - I was thankful that my baby and I were ok, and frankly - I had a new baby and other priorities.
Doctors get paid incredible amounts of money and I know what they do is important and everything… but I work in health care, and if I treated my clients the way they do, I would not have kept my job.
I cried going into the hospital because I knew once doctors were in charge, I would have no say. That's exactly what happened. It's completely disempowering to not have any say in what someone is doing to your body, least of which when you are having a baby - a beautiful, messy, powerful, incredible experience, that with midwives at home could have been beautiful.
I didn't provide feedback to my care providers as I was completely exhausted after a 52 hour labour and I had a baby to take care of.