I was fortunate enough to have a home birth, supported by the amazing Community Midwife Team. My birth experience was an extremely positive one where I felt empowered to make decisions about my care throughout my entire pregnancy and labour.
Unfortunately, following delivery, I had a major postpartum haemorrhage. However, at no time did I feel unsafe as the midwives handled everything so calmly and effectively. Fiona stands out so much for a number of reasons:

She involved me in discussions and every single decision being made, enabling me to remain empowered rather than panicked in an emergency situation. I felt completely informed of what was going on all of the time and therefore I felt safe.

She led an emergency situation with great clinical skill, recommending to me that my placenta be delivered quickly and carrying out further interventions (all with my consent) to quickly reduce and stop my bleeding.
She ensured that my husband, my birth partner, was also well supported emotionally the whole time and that he and our newborn baby were together and being looked after by another member of the team. Excellent family-centered care.

Upon my transfer into hospital I felt incredibly overwhelmed, it was a starkly different environment to my home birth and felt very scary. Fiona came with me and advocated for me hugely, I feel emotional just writing this because I truly can’t thank her enough. She protected my positive birth experience by ensuring the hospital team had a clear handover and understanding of my care preferences. The compassion she showed me during that time is something that I will never forget. I felt incredibly vulnerable, and she was completely by my side every single step of the way.

Fiona is an absolute credit to the midwifery profession. She utterly embodies all of the UHCW values and really is an incredible healthcare professional. Thank you, Fiona.