Dionne Thompson
November 2023
Dionne
Thompson
,
RM
Maternity Unit
East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust
Stevenage
,
Hertfordshire
United Kingdom
What really stood out is that she took the time to go and get my notes and read through them herself and she then came back to the ward and took the time to ‘debrief’ myself and my husband.
Dionne has been absolutely fantastic as my multiple pregnancy midwife but really has shone after my boys were born!
As it turned out, I had a complicated and dangerous birth. I had the first twin naturally at 32 weeks but then had a placental abruption and lost over 2L of blood, leading to a crash C-section under General Anaesthetic to get the second twin out, and a blood transfusion for me.
Dionne was great while I was pregnant and answered several text queries from me, admin questions, and so on. I was actually due to have our birth planning appointment on Monday, and I was still in hospital after the sudden birth of our twins on Friday, and she came to see me on the ward. What really stood out is that she took the time to go and get my notes and read through them herself and she then came back to the ward and took the time to ‘debrief’ myself and my husband. This was really important to me, although upsetting because while my poor husband had seen it all, I had no idea of the scale of what had happened and how ‘touch and go’ it had been or why. She explained everything calmly and kindly to both of us.
10 months down the line, my boys are thriving having gone from 32-week tiny premature babies spending 3 weeks in NICU to chunky little boys. I got in touch to schedule a birth after-thoughts appointment for me with Dionne, which I went to yesterday. I couldn’t have asked for more. I really wanted to be able to do a ‘walk round’ essentially because I had only very foggy snippets of memory from all of it and I knew it would help me to process what had happened. We had a good chat, and she then walked me around the CLU, into a labour room, into one of the theatres, and into the recovery bay, all the while talking me through what had happened and what drugs I was given and so on.
Dionne has truly gone above and beyond what I would have expected, and I am so grateful to her. It has been a hard physical, and emotional journey. I honestly thought that it was a really silly request and totally impractical of me to want to go back and see it again. Any hospital is of course, a hugely busy place, and the CLU especially so with complex and high-risk pregnancies and births. I truly think any birth is very hard, but there is no doubt that in retrospect, I spent the first few months stunned and struggled hugely with my own recovery and shock, plus tiny premature twins to look after, and I believe that thanks to her, I can start to be much kinder and more forgiving to myself and the state I was in during those early few months. I cannot thank her and the whole team enough.
As it turned out, I had a complicated and dangerous birth. I had the first twin naturally at 32 weeks but then had a placental abruption and lost over 2L of blood, leading to a crash C-section under General Anaesthetic to get the second twin out, and a blood transfusion for me.
Dionne was great while I was pregnant and answered several text queries from me, admin questions, and so on. I was actually due to have our birth planning appointment on Monday, and I was still in hospital after the sudden birth of our twins on Friday, and she came to see me on the ward. What really stood out is that she took the time to go and get my notes and read through them herself and she then came back to the ward and took the time to ‘debrief’ myself and my husband. This was really important to me, although upsetting because while my poor husband had seen it all, I had no idea of the scale of what had happened and how ‘touch and go’ it had been or why. She explained everything calmly and kindly to both of us.
10 months down the line, my boys are thriving having gone from 32-week tiny premature babies spending 3 weeks in NICU to chunky little boys. I got in touch to schedule a birth after-thoughts appointment for me with Dionne, which I went to yesterday. I couldn’t have asked for more. I really wanted to be able to do a ‘walk round’ essentially because I had only very foggy snippets of memory from all of it and I knew it would help me to process what had happened. We had a good chat, and she then walked me around the CLU, into a labour room, into one of the theatres, and into the recovery bay, all the while talking me through what had happened and what drugs I was given and so on.
Dionne has truly gone above and beyond what I would have expected, and I am so grateful to her. It has been a hard physical, and emotional journey. I honestly thought that it was a really silly request and totally impractical of me to want to go back and see it again. Any hospital is of course, a hugely busy place, and the CLU especially so with complex and high-risk pregnancies and births. I truly think any birth is very hard, but there is no doubt that in retrospect, I spent the first few months stunned and struggled hugely with my own recovery and shock, plus tiny premature twins to look after, and I believe that thanks to her, I can start to be much kinder and more forgiving to myself and the state I was in during those early few months. I cannot thank her and the whole team enough.