I had a c-section... (Vance's birth story part 4)

*Sorry for the long break between posts. We've battled viruses and gotten our last canine tooth in, so you can imagine it's been a little rough the last few weeks.*

I had a c-section....those words, even 17 months later, are a little hard for me to say. You can read about my birth story with my son here: Part 1 Part 2 and Part 3.

I feel like the story I have told in my previous posts is nothing out of the ordinary and are experiences women go through every day. Doctor induces, it leads to more interventions, and it ends in a c-section. As unfortunate as that is, it is an all too common practice and outcome in the birthing world today, especially the United States. I can't tell you how many stories I have heard through ICAN that all sound similar and involve the cascade of interventions. However, my story does take a little different spin...

If you recall, we were told at our last doctors visit that our son had pockets of swelling on his body and we needed to get him out immediately. You might also remember the nurses making a comment about how women were not allowed to go past 40 weeks and that constant horrible pain in my vagina that the first nurse seemed to blow off. Also, if you counted it out, our son wasn't born for about 28ish hours after we were told he had to be out immediately. Do you see where I am going with this?

Matt and I started having some "red flags" after we got to the hospital and found out that the Cervidil had to be placed for 12 hours. I'm fairly certain it was actually vocalized between us, but I remember thinking "I thought this was an emergency, 12 hours with this medicine doesn't sound immediate". I guess because we had this unknown horrible condition of our son on the forefront of our minds, we just trusted the medical team completely for the safety of our child. Our doctor at one point even told us that she had consulted over the phone with a doctor at a higher level NICU in our area about this swelling and even he was stumped. That put fear in our minds that our son might possibly need to be transferred once he was born. Our son was the only thing on our mind.

"Red flag" number two came when we went the whole night without seeing our doctor. We had asked her specifically while at her office if we would see her soon and she assured us that she would see us shortly after she left the office and would "definitely" see her before morning because we had to have the baby immediately. We actually told our family that the baby would be there before morning because the situation was so dire. We never saw her until 6am when she came in to break my water.

Our next "red flag" came when a nurse told us that that Wednesday was our doctor and one of her partners "C-section and induction day". We were told the whole floor was completely full of women being induced that Tuesday night and women there for their scheduled c-sections on Wednesday; they hoped that no one went into spontaneous labor because they didn't know what they would do because they were out of rooms. It was the middle of the month and our doctor had scheduled an entire day to be at the hospital....It unsettled us a little, but we loved and trusted our doctor so much that we willed ourselves to believe that our appointment date and that ultrasound just happened to fall near her "c-section and induction day". I also learned later that I was either her 8th c-section of the day, or she had 8 planned and I was her 9th and final one that day, I don't remember exactly which one.

There were a few other things that seemed off to us before the c-section, but those were the biggies. After the c-section happened, we got a few more hints of things that seemed to be way off...

When Vance was born he thankfully was a perfectly healthy baby with nothing that needed any extra attention or care. When the drugs wore off and I was finally able to ask some questions and we were told that Vance was just a chunky baby at 9lb 9oz and "oops" there was no swelling. We kind of got the sense that the doctor didn't want to talk about it because every time it was brought up (I needed answers) it was kind of brushed off and the doctor would start talking about something else. We were upset and angry and she did try and tell us that we would have had a c-section regardless because "no one can birth a 9lb 9oz baby" (which is totally false by the way).

I was also told that all of that vaginal pain and the fact that I never got past 3cm was because I was probably allergic to the Cervidil and "oops" no one noticed until it was too late . At a post-partum visit with my doctor I was again asking questions to try and piece things together for my own sake and was informed that the first nurse had actually made a comment to my doctor that I was being difficult and a baby because I clearly couldn't handle vaginal exams. My doctor told me that her response to the nurse was that I have always handled vaginal checks really well and that something might be wrong. I can't help but to wonder why my doctor never actually came in to check on me if she was telling a nurse that something must be wrong with me and the nurse refused to believe it. Also, what a horrible nurse to not even entertain the idea that something might be wrong when her patient is expressing out of the norm types and levels of pain, especially if the doctor really told her that that was out of character and not right. I blame a huge part of my unsuccessful vaginal birth on that nurse. The other huge partner in blame is my doctor of course.

Over the the last year or so, I have talked to two different doctors (separate hospitals from where we had Vance and each doctor was at a different hospital and never talked to each other) who both have listened to my story, read my records, and come to the conclusion that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Vance to begin with and I was induced out of pure convenience of my doctor. How could someone you trust with your life and your child's life be so careless and how could anyone think that it was okay to lie to someone to get them to make medical decisions that were unnecessary, potentially life-threatening, and will forever alter their life and options of medical care in the future? I think that Matt and I knew that we had been fooled early on after it happened, but were unwilling to truly accept it because that meant so many things for us: It meant our trust of doctors was gone, it meant that we failed to speak up to our red flags and ended up putting me and our child on the line, and worst of all that we would be admitting that we had been medically violated.

I currently see a therapist on a regular basis to treat me for PTSD and help me cope with the fact that I do feel violated. I feel like I was in a vulnerable position, given drugs, given misinformation, and then decisions were made for me about my body and my health and my baby, and then when it was all said and done it was all purely because someone else decided that they have the power to do so and wanted to. This is partly why I have started this blog; I need to get my story out there so that others know what happened, not only to me, but what is happening to women everywhere. If I can stop one women from going through this or help one women know she isn't alone after having it done to her, then I feel like I will have done a good thing. I just simply cannot stay silent...



I know this post has been a bit heavy and a bit depressing, so I will end it with a bunch of cute pictures of Vance when he was brand new. Also, please visit ICAN to find resources and gain support from your local chapter.