I finally saw my midwife a few days ago. I was supposed to see her at 24 weeks but it took her ages to get back to me and then she cancelled appointments

Anyway, she seems a bit taken aback by the fact both me and my partner are disabled. She doesn't seem to think we shouldn't be having the baby but she does seem a bit shocked that we are, and was asking soooo many questions about how we plan to cope and what we will do about X, Y and Z. Now I don't mind this as I know she needs to know, but what if she decides she thinks we couldn't cope?

I have a social worker and see a specialist mental health midwife. (My SW has recently got in touch with the specialist midwife to talk about arranging a care plan for me post-natally, which has also worried me.)

But yeah, she wrote a lot in my book and said she needs to warn people so they're not shocked and not asking me too many questions when I'm in labour or afterwards.

But how seriously do they take your notes? I will need my partner to stay with me if I have to stay in over-night. The specialist midwife has said this will be fine, but my community midwife doesn't seem so sure about it and said it won't be possible if I have a C-section. I'm worried the nurses might be too busy to give me all the help I need, plus I need my partner with me for mental health reasons. I have problems understanding the way people mean things and need him, or someone with me so I don't get confused or take things personally.

Sorry to go off rambling. I know there's a few disabled people on here but not many, so I was just wondering generally how much notice they take of your birth plan? Are they likely to go against anything without asking you unless its an emergency and do they actually read it and take it into account?

Thanks

Sorry hun i cant really help because i would have thought they would take your notes etc more seriously than they did mine because mine were pretty much straight forward labours etc and i dont have any special needs ...

..they refused to look at my notes with my hospital births really, both times when i arrived at the hospital they quickly scanned them but then said they play everything by ear and the notes meant bugger all unless there's been a problem or issue (even tho my first was suspected of having Downs)

I had one for DD and honestly, they tried pretty hard to follow it to a 't', but pretty much everything I wanted we had to go against unfortunately. Least I didn't have to have a c-section. Even after she was born, I was so sick that I couldn't hold her and do skin to skin for as long as I had wanted to, but they certainly tried to follow it. Good Luck!

i'm so worried about this. why do they even get you to make a birth plan if they don't take it seriously?

I think they tell you to do the birth plans just to humour you, none of the midwives have ever bothered to look at mine and i'm not even bothering to do one this time! xxx

My birth plan was ignored from start to finish,

no one read mine, they tried to put me in the same room i had my still birth in.... idiots

I found that the community midwives were really good at trying to stick to my birth plan, but I think some of that is because I wrote one myself and added it to the notes, so it kind of stuck out. What I would say is that it is vital that your birth companion(s) have read it and know what you want as they are the one's that will have to make sure that people pay attention to what you want.

Im disabled and know what you mean. We are having a C section but my DH asked if this was written on my notes so that if I go in to pre term labour a C section would be given without problems, all he said was no you will have to tell them, what if they decide no when it would cause me major problems, it is so hard and worrying, My DH is going to be on hand to make sure everything goes as planned. They decided C section so hopefully there will be no problems but it doesn't help, hope all goes okay, take care XX