Right Choice

I'm breaking my rule about not posting birth stories, because I'm freaking furious and I need an outlet.

So, I had this doula client. Her first birth was fairly short and totally unmedicated and she only pushed for a short time. Therefore, I knew this second baby was gonna fly out. I actually had dreams about how fast her birth would be. I was worried that she wouldn't make it to the hospital in time and I ran through all kinds of drills in my head to cover all the possible scenarios. Because she had threatened preterm labor, my bags were packed and I was ready for her starting at 36 weeks (part of why I didn't want to leave the county).

This morning at 5:30 (exactly 39 weeks), she calls to tell me she's having contractions that are 8-10 minutes apart. While we're on the phone, she has to stop and breathe through them, so I suggest she get ready to head to the hospital. I jump in the shower, throw on some clothes, and head out the door. As I make my way up to labor and delivery at the hospital, a nurse stops me to ask who I'm looking for. When I tell her, she tells me the baby has already been born. What!?
Sure enough, there's a super cute crying baby as soon as I enter the room. Start to finish, her entire labor was less than two hours. I missed the baby by 15 minutes. So did the dad, as he was dropping off their toddler at daycare.

My client is clearly in shock about what just happened and she starts to tell me the story. As they made their way to the hospital, the contractions began getting really intense, with one on top of the other. The dad drops her off at the curb so he can take the toddler to daycare. My client is wheeled up to labor and delivery. Once she's in the room, the nurse yells at her to lie in bed. My client says she needs to stand, since it's more painful being in bed. The nurse yells at her again. Client asks for water. Nurse tells her she can't have anything to eat or drink and sticks an IV in her arm. Client is clearly in hard labor and says she has to push. Nurse tells her she can't push because the doctor isn't in the room yet. Doctor finally arrives. Doctor notices the baby's heart rate on the monitor has dropped. (Allegedly), the doctor freaks out, breaks the woman's water, and gets out a vacuum to suction the baby out. When I arrive in the room, the doctor has her hand in the woman's uterus doing a manual removal of the placenta because parts were left behind when it was delivered.

Anyone want to guess which hospital we were at?

Listening to the client's story and watching the doctor and nurse "handle" my client and her baby, I can't help but mentally scream, "are you effing kidding me!?"

This hospital is going to be the bane of my existence. I swear, I can't even make this stuff up. EVERY SINGLE TIME I'm there, I end up traumatized. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear the doctors and nurses were practicing in the 1950s. Their policies are archaic. Every nurse who came in today made a comment about the fact that my client didn't have an epidural. One nurse even make a snide remark about how the hospital has a 98% epidural rate, implying that it was normal and expected of everyone and that my client was somehow a freak for not having one.

I was struck by how little empathy, patience, and compassion there was toward the mom and baby. Everything there is viewed in terms of body parts and risks, and everything is done for the convenience of the hospital staff and not for the best interests of the families. I hate being there. It's not an exaggeration on my part to say that the treatment of women and babies at that hospital borders on abuse.

I ended up staying six hours postpartum with the family. Despite her history of postpartum hemorrhage, not a single person came to check her bleeding. Fortunately, she is physically doing okay. I'm expecting to spend lots of time processing this experience with the family during our postpartum visits. *sigh*

I got a few things out of this birth. One, I got a little bit more validation about my intuition. I can't even count the times I've had some intuition about how a birth experience will be and then talked myself out of it. I know I need to learn to trust it a little more. I knew it would be fast like it was, and I had fears about her being traumatized at that hospital, but I didn't act on my intuition and strongly encourage her to register at another hospital. Ugh. Next time.

The other thing I got out of this experience was a super strong feeling that I've made the right choice. The entire time I was in midwifery school, I had this internal struggle and debate going on about whether I should have gone to medical school instead. I know I made the right decision. I may not ever be financially secure and respected in the medical world, but I do not/will not/cannot treat women and babies like they are anything less than complete human beings. I can do a much better job than what I saw today.

If my midwifery license ever arrives in my mailbox, I'm gonna be so freaking proud of my accomplishment and my profession.