My first was a bit of a frustration in that it was a catholic hospital, pretty much all that is around, and they took the baby and refused to bring it back, apparently a minor issue with the cord having been briefly around the neck. I stood up on the bed, blood still dripping, and demanded that my husband follow that baby and don't let it out of your sight. He did, thank goodness.
After that, and remember I'd been in and out of surgeries much of my young life for a heart defect, I determined that I was both the OWNER OF MY BODY, and the EMPLOYER OF THE DOCTORS AND HOSPITAL STAFF INVOLVED IN ANY PROCEDURE, and never let a either usurp my choices again. Second baby was handled much better as my attitude didn't allow for the usual shennanigans, and my hysterectomy a few years after that was a pleasure.
Never again will a doc or hospital overrule my decisions. They can convince me of their perspective, but that's the end of their power.
Not to get TMI here, but from what she's told me, she was basically abused from the minute she got in the door.
My mother's apparently built in such a way as to have fairly easy labor and deliveries. Out of five different deliveries, none have taken longer than 6 or 7 hours in total.
However, as I was her first, she didn't really know that yet.
She kept telling the nurses on call that she felt like something was going on, and that they should check her dilation. The nurses simply wouldn't believe her.
When she finally pestered one of them enough to check her (which they did in a very rough and unprofessional manner, according to my mother), they realized that I was about to come
right then, and they had to rush her into delivery.
The doctor stormed in in an irritable huff afterwards, and went straight for an episiotomy without even asking her first (keep in mind that I was a 7 lb baby with a small head, so it's doubtful that this was in any way necessary). He then told her to bear down and push as hard as possible until I came out.
Afterwards, he stitched her up without making sure she was properly numb, and told her to "shut up" and "do her breathing" when she complained. She also lost so much blood from the cut that she almost went into shock, and suffered from severe anemia for weeks post-partum.
It didn't stop there either, apparently. The day after the delivery, they
forced her to attend parenting classes in a wheel chair in spite of the fact that she was so weak and hopped up on pain killing drugs as to not even be able to hold her head up with her own energy.
At that point, she'd basically had enough, so she told my father to take her home in defiance of the hospital's orders.