I took a nap earlier and had a very vivid and horrible nightmare. In it, I was pregnant and about to give birth. Yep, that was it, that was the scary part.<\/p>\n
I had a terrible experience during the birth of my last daughter, so bad that I wrote a letter to my OB about it:<\/p>\n
> Dear Dr. R,
\n>
\n> This is a very difficult letter for me to write. On the one hand, I
\n> want you to know how very much I appreciated your care and attention
\n> during my pregnancy. On the other, I feel that you should know some
\n> events that happened during labor and delivery involving your call
\n> partner, Dr. C.
\n>
\n> Dr. C’s rude demeanor and callous disregard for my and my
\n> husband’s feelings and wishes have been quite a blow to us; indeed,
\n> she has made me question whether I am mentally and emotionally able
\n> to have more children. Looking back on my birthing experience should
\n> recall feelings of joy, but I’m afraid that I will always have
\n> negative feelings about this birth because of her actions. I would
\n> even go so far to say that if I do ever become pregnant again, I
\n> couldn’t possibly put myself in a position where she would be on
\n> call, either during an emergency or during labor.
\n>
\n> My first contact with Dr. C was around 36 weeks, when I felt
\n> like I was having some contractions. I called in on a weekend to
\n> find out if there was anything I needed to do, and she was the doctor
\n> on call. When I told her that you had given me an internal exam
\n> earlier that week, as was your habit at 36 weeks, she stated that I
\n> had to have been mistaken; none of the call partners did exams at
\n> that stage. When I reiterated that you did indeed do the exam as a
\n> matter of routine, she cut me off saying that I had to be wrong. To
\n> be honest, I was so taken aback by her attitude that I can’t remember
\n> now what advice she gave me on the contractions I was having.
\n>
\n> When I met her face-to-face at the hospital, she measured my fundal
\n> height and expressed doubts that I would deliver vaginally within 10
\n> minutes of her arrival. A couple of hours later, she stated twice
\n> more that I would not deliver vaginally. She seemed quite certain of
\n> the fact. It was only as an afterthought that she mentioned that she
\n> would give me a chance to do so.
\n>
\n> As you and I discussed at length, my birth plan was fairly
\n> straightforward. I wanted to do everything that I could to avoid any
\n> sort of medications, but the health and wellbeing of the baby was of
\n> ultimate importance. To that end, there were specific items that I
\n> included in my birth plan. Several of these items were completely
\n> disregarded by Dr. C, including:
\n>
\n> * Rupture of my forebag without asking or discussion first – had I
\n> had a chance to protest, I certainly would have done so; as it was,
\n> she did it so quickly that I was left stunned.
\n> * Setting a time limit to how fast I should dilate, regardless of the
\n> fact that the baby and I were doing fine (apart from the time limit
\n> from when my membranes ruptured). Without warning, she appeared in
\n> the room at 11pm and said that I had a choice of an IUPC or a
\n> c-section, because I had been at 8 centimeters for 3 hours. During
\n> those 3 hours, I had been coping with contractions perfectly well
\n> without drugs, but had taken a break and was semi-reclining on the
\n> bed, a position I knew was slowing down my labor, but allowing me to
\n> relax a bit. If I had known that there would be consequences, I
\n> would certainly have gotten back up and walked or squatted to help
\n> hurry dilation.
\n> * Repeated offers of drugs, completely undermining my self-confidence.
\n> * Use of cord traction in third stage.
\n>
\n> When I asked Dr. C if she had read my birth plan, she hedged
\n> the question and stated that I should know from my first labor and
\n> delivery that birth plans simply go out the window.
\n>
\n> Finally, and though I understand that this is quite subjective, I
\n> feel that I should make a mention of Dr. C’s attitude. I
\n> don’t recall the last time I was interrupted or cut off so many times
\n> by an adult. Additionally, when the nurse went to get her from the
\n> sleep room to catch the baby, she walked in scowling and rubbing her
\n> eyes, as if I were an inconvenience. It would have been nice if she
\n> had seemed happy for me, since she knew how hard I had worked to get
\n> to that point. She didn’t even sign my souvenir birth certificate.
\n> Granted, her attitude paled in comparison to the anesthesiologist’s,
\n> who told me (about placing my epidural), “This sure is easier on a
\n> little skinny woman”.
\n>
\n> Dr. R, my first delivery was blindingly difficult, but I look back
\n> on it with a sense of joy, pride, and accomplishment. When I think
\n> about my second I feel hurt, sad, and the joy and wonder of birth are
\n> missing. I feel cheated that I didn’t have that fantastic, wonderful
\n> moment during delivery that I did with my first. Instead, it was
\n> just relief that the whole unhappy experience was soon to be over.
\n>
\n> I’m not sure if this letter accurately conveys what I’m feeling. I
\n> know that I’m unable to speak about it much, as I tend to get quite
\n> shaky and choked up if I do. If you’re willing, (hub) would like to
\n> meet with you for a cup of coffee to talk in person about what
\n> happened. Please feel free to phone us at xxx-xxxx if you have any
\n> questions or comments.
\n>
\n> Sincerely,<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I took a nap earlier and had a very vivid and horrible nightmare. In it, I was pregnant and about to give birth. Yep, that was it, that was the scary part. I had a terrible experience during the birth of my last daughter, so bad that I wrote a letter to my OB about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/addlepated.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}