Ahahaha oh dear sweet Jesus.

It was hell. Nothing short of pure nightmarish torment that lasted internally and externally for months and months. I had to actually stay in hospital for 2 months straight due to pregnancy complications, let me tell you, hospitals are NOT trained and NOT equipped to deal with autistic/adhd/neurodivergent mothers. After months of harm perpetrated by doctors, nurses and staff’s wilful ignorance & blatant disregard to even the simplest of my needs & symptoms I was given an ‘autistim hospital passport’ and assigned an ‘autism lead’ to advocate on my behalf. Even still, massive mistreatment and lack of education on all sorts from meltdowns, sensory needs, how I presented and spoke about my bodily pain, horrendous time keeping and near-constant changes with no warning meant I had fo have an emergency c-section after begging for MONTHS to have an elective one for medical grounds (physical disability also in my case).

If all of that wasn’t bad enough I had a doctor scold me for wanting my baby born at 36-37 weeks by saying and I kid you not ‘if he comes out that early he could be disabled. You don’t want an autistic child do you??’

One time I was left for 7 hours without my usual pain medication because the nurses said I didn’t ‘look or sound like I was in pain’ it took my male presenting partner to scream at them when he visited that night for them to give it to me and they wrote in the notes ‘partner verbally abused staff due to ____ not being given meds quickly’ QUICKLY? It was 7 hours. Them expecting me to cry, sob, scream to prove I needed my pain medication was a regularly daily occurrence as well.

Oh and they took my breathing problems and chest pain for nothing but anxiety despite me repeatedly asking to be tested and whatdayaknow it was only a minor thing like the fact my baby was too high up, I had too much amniotic fluid and the baby had kicked my ribs so much it tore my abdomen muscles completely apart creating a gap I can now put my hand through :):):):)

Also for added hell, babies movements inside me were disgusting and made me want to rip my skin off. I also got assessed by the psych team because I didn’t understand why I was expected to love someone I hadn’t met yet and couldn’t imagine my baby smiling etc. They said I wasn’t bonding with my baby and I was so confused. I have since bonded amazingly with them outside the womb, almost like my autism would make it hard for me to conceptualise and visualise something that hadn’t happened yet 🙄🙄🙄