You probably don't remember me. But I remember you. I remember your face, the weight of your leg, your dark brown roots showing under your yellow-blond hair. I remember the frustrated cry of your husband. I remember your baby's first breath. Her first cry. The dark purple of her soft newborn skin. Those are things that you most likely don't remember. But anyway, there is something I wanted to say to you; something that is going to be very hard to hear but very important for your heart to understand.
Your cesarean was unnecessary.
I say this not because I want to stir up any sort of mommy war between those who had a c-section and those who had vaginally deliveries. I say this because we are both victims, and I understand that an important step in the road to recovery is understanding the event as deeply as possible.
So you had been laboring for what in sure felt like a long time. I don't remember exactly how long, but it was long enough that you and your family were settled into your hospital room. Your bags had been opened and Chargers were filling every available outlet. When I met you, you were sitting up just needing to be unhooked from your monitors to go to the bathroom. But you had a Foley catheter in your bladder, and an epidural in your back. Honestly I was confused as to how you had enough feeling to even get yourself into the position I found you in.
No one had turned the epidural pump on, and no one told you that you had a catheter. It was news to you, and it shouldn't have been. Your young age is no excuse to not inform you, and that was your nurses fault.
Later, you were having too many contractions. You were on pitocin, and I wonder if your nurse told you about that. Regardless, she didn't turn it down, and she didn't turn it off. You were still feeling a lot of pain, pressure, and contractions. Normally this might be a helpful thing for pushing effectively, but it turned out to be a bigger problem than you could have imagined before.
I went into your room again when I saw that your baby's heart rate was not doing well. Your nurse was already in your room, trying to turn you side to side, give you oxygen, but she did not turn your pitocin off until it was too late. During all this time you were constantly asking questions. You wanted to know if your baby was okay. You wanted to know why there were suddenly so many people in your room. You looked at your nurse and asked her if your baby was going to die. Through all of this your nurse bearly answered you. She told you it was fine, and to "just calm down" and to stay quiet. I wanted to rush over and give you the facts so you might have time to prepare yourself for the inevitable, but that isn't my job.
After your baby's heart rate had been in the 80s for over five minutes, and trying the vacuum on the baby's head several times, the doctor finally called for an emergency cesarean.
You were moved, and hap-hazardly strapped to the OR table. The drape covered your face because the anesthesiologist was too busy to move them. He was trying to put medications into your epidural to numb you quickly, because it was obvious you could move and feel far too much.
I put my hands in you. I cut you. I put my fingers in between your abdominal muscles and ripped them open. At that point your leg, which you had some movement in, fell off the table. I held it with mine, and stood on one leg with your body against mine so you wouldn't fall. It is the oddest feeling, after all these years of surgery, to feel a body move under that sterile drape. It's not right.
I tried to move the drape from your face, because all I could think about was that no matter the outcome now, you will never be able to put your head under a blanket.
Giggling with your husband on cold nights; blanket forts with your children; peekaboo. These are things that are lost to you know. They might seem like minor things to anyone else, but I understand. I understand how it feels to loose normal things, how it makes you feel crazy and disconnected. I get that.
You had tried to move it yourself, but were yelled at, and told that you would break the sterile field of you touched it. They yelled at you. They were panicked. They were convinced your baby was going to not be okay. You were convinced you were both going to die.
I'm not sure who let your husband into the OR. Whoever did that was an idiot. After you were put out and the baby had been born, he didn't hold his daughter. He sat by the OR doors on the floor next to the security guard. Your husband didn't move till you came out of that surgery. Please understand that he will also have emotional scars from this experience. Hold onto each other through this. Partner birth trauma is very real, and it can cause a wide range of problems for him and for your marriage. Don't let your marriage fall apart because of this experience.
Even in a planned cesarean, when the pain management is impeccable, I don't know how women can handle a full grown man putting all his weight on her pregnant stomach to push the baby out. But you did it without anesthesia. You tried to scream, but you could t because there were easily a few hundred pounds on top of you.
Somehow, the anesthesiologist managed to put you under general anesthesia. Finally. Someone come and put your leg back on the table. Your baby was born. She was beautiful. She was perfect. And I want you to know that in that moment, I did my best to honor the birth of your firstborn. I wiped the mucous off her face, and said hello. I welcomed her, and told her she was beautiful. I told her that her mother loved her, and handed her to the nurse so that they could work on getting her to come around.
After your baby was gone. The OR was quiet. We all took a few moments to catch our breaths, shake out our legs and nerves.
The nurse that had been with you all night was on her phone.
Later the doctor told you that in "in the future you should just cut your losses and have c-sections" and I wanted to punch her in the throat for that.
A nurse manager asked you how you felt about the experience, not four hours after the fact. You responded that you were happy everyone was okay. You told her that you were okay. I'm not sure if you are aware, but that response is written down and kept for some time so that staff can keep track of how they are doing. This has been shown to increase the hospital satisfaction rates.
When she reported to the doctor that you were "okay with how everything went down," I also wanted to punch her in the throat. I hope you understand how unrealistic it was to have expected you to completely integrate that experience. You don't have to stick with that response either. You can change your mind and not be okay with it. You can decide that you were never okay with it, and that you said you were because you were in shock. By some extreme psychological poweress you WERE okay with it, that's okay too. What ever you feel is okay, and that nurse had no business asking you a question like that. I could go on and on about how it is so inappropriate to ask that question even after a good experience. But that is another subject for another day.
If you wanted to seek legal action, I imagine you might have a case. But birth trauma doesn't get the attention or validation it deserves in society or in our courts of law.
I guess my point is this: your body didn't fail you. You are not broken. Your baby isn't and never was naughty or broken.
The system failed you.
I failed you.
I can't tell you how much I wanted to rush over and grab your hand and tell you exactly what was going down. I wish I was the kind of strong and brave person who would put my job, with a paycheck that pays for health insurance and food and a roof over my baby's head, all on the line to do the right thing. God Almighty, I wish I had that kind of courage and faith. I wish I could have told that doctor and that nurse how I felt about those comments. I should have told you.
And I'm sorry. I want to ask for your forgiveness, but I am too ashamed. The quote "The only thing evil needs to triumph is for the righteous to do nothing" plays over and over in my mind. Your scream as I tore open your body haunts me to this day. I will never forget you. I will never forget what I did to you.
You are so young. I hope and pray that someday, if you choose to bring another beautiful baby into this world (because seriously, you make cute ones!), you find a care provider who believes in you and who respects you enough to obtain your informed consent for every procedure and every drug and intervention. Find someone who will look you in the eye. If they tell you a drug or procedure has no side effects, RUN! That is always a lie! Even a simple vaginal exam has risks! You deserve to know, and you deserve a care provider who knows and cares. And I hope that the birth of your next baby brings healing to your whole family.
Good luck,
Undercover
