**Disclaimer: this is a really long story with lots of details!
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| Christmas Day (a few hours before heading to the hospital) |
My husband and mother were my "coaches." (Side note: my husband and I were told that at around 6 months we should contact the coordinator of the birthing classes at MMH. We did just that and never heard a thing from her for months. Finally about a few weeks before we were due she called to say she had some cancellations. We were on the road to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Davises and I'm sorry, my name isn't Jennifer Bazis--so we skipped on the Lamaze classes, but I don't think we were missing out on much.)We were admitted to the hospital at 4:30pm on Christmas Day (12/25/12) with
Dr. William McLeod and then later his colleague, Dr. Nigel Buist. After being
admitted to the Birthing Center and filling out typical paperwork, Dr. McLeod
inserted the Foley balloon. It is basically a rubber catheter...well never mind, it's not all that interesting and a bit difficult to explain.Prior to this I was 2cm dilated and after this (it fell out around 11pm), I was told by the nurse I was dilated to 3cm. After eating dinner provided by the hospital I was told I would not be allowed to eat anything after midnight to ensure I had an empty stomach in case if a C-section needed to be performed. Also that evening, I was given Ambien (the sleeping pill) to ensure I would get adequate sleep which the charge nurse, Linda, highly recommended. I have never taken any sleep aids nor did I think it necessary, however, trusting the nursing staff, I took this pill, expecting to get a full night’s rest. Unfortunately, I did not sleep; instead I was up every 45-60 minutes and experienced hallucinations. I finally got up at 3:30am during which time I began contracting on my own. The contractions felt like minor cramps that went all the way around my belly. At that point they weren't painful--oh how quickly that changed!
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| Getting ready for the induction! |
Over the next few hours the contractions came in stronger and more steadily. (I will say that contractions on my own were not nearly as painful as contractions with Pitocin!!! I'm interested to see how it compares with other children we have). Each time I had a contraction I would either hold my husband's or mother's hand, and during that time I would squeeze it and would recite a Bible verse or sing the chorus to a song in my head. Doing those things helped me get through. If only it had continued that way...
Just before 9:00am I
had one contraction so painful and so severe that I went completely
flush and threw up. It was at that
time that I requested an epidural and by 9:30am it was inserted and
administered to me. By the way, if you ever get an epidural you have to
get it in plenty of time for it to be inserted. I had no idea that if
you wait as long as 8cm then it's usually too late. And since no one
failed to share this information with me, they continued administering
Pitocin so I continued to have very painful contractions while having to
sit up hunched over holding onto a nurse while the anesthesiologist
numbed my back and inserted the epidural. Unfortunately, as sweet as the
anesthesiologist was he didn't numb the area enough so he had to stick
me two more times before I couldn't feel the epidural. I had no idea however, that once the epidural was inserted that they inserted a catheter inside your lady parts to drain the pee. I wasn't allowed to get up for the rest of the day and move around. The only thing I was allowed to do was rotate the side of the body I would lay on, can we say bedridden?! Next time, I want to be able to move freely and walk if I want to, not be confined to a bed the whole time! And, as a
reaction to the epidural, I still felt extremely nauseous and was given
Zofran to
cope with the nausea. I also suffered a horrible migraine that lasted
until Caleb was born. The only comfort I received from that was wearing a
cold compress with the lights off in the room. Poor mom and Adam;
thankfully they were such good sports about the whole thing--I even made
them eat in the waiting room because the smell of food made me ravenous.By the way, the nurse I had from 7am-7pm during the day of the 26th, Stacee, was phenomenal—she answered all our questions, was compassionate, helped whenever needed, and kept a positive attitude, indicating she enjoyed her job and the work she did. I'm making a point to include her in this because no other nurses were quite as wonderful as her. Anywho, by 6:00 that night Dr. Buist came in to check my cervix (I had progressed to 5cm) and that he would be back around 8:00pm to check it again and at that point if I hadn’t progressed he would take the baby. We understood this to mean he would perform a C-section, something we were ok with at that point and indicated as such to him.
However, eight o’clock came and went and we heard no news from the doctor.
(We didn’t actually see him again until it came time to push which was five and
a half hours later—1:30am). By this time, the nursing staff changed shifts and
Sandra was with us. Unlike Stacee, Sandra offered no real information as to
what was going on and why the doctor wasn’t there when he said he would be. We
felt as if we were out of the loop because the only statements we received from
her were when we'd question her was, "Oh we'll find out soon" or "He'll be here soon.”
During this time, too, my mother and husband would go to the nurses’ station
whenever a buzzer/button would go off because it would continue to beep/buzz
for several minutes without any nurses coming to check on me or to turn the
annoying sound off. When my mother and husband went to the nurses’ station there
would be several nurses sitting around, some of which were on their cell
phones. When asked for help some would state, “Oh we’ll go get so and so,” as
if they couldn’t be bothered to help and we were left waiting even longer. Unfortunately, this
poor treatment by some (not all) of the nurses continued well after the birth
of our son. 
I finally dilated to 10cm around 12:30a.m. (Let me state at this point that
the Pitocin administered previously was around 20mL all day and that when the
doctor did not come in 8:00, it was gradually upped to 26mL which greatly
increased the contractions and dilated me much faster than what had occurred
all day—if that was all it took to get me to 10cm, then why was I left to labor
all day when an increase in dosage could have allowed us to meet our son
sooner? Sorry, just had to say that--I'm off my soapbox now.) When I was finally dilated to 10cm I felt a sense of relief because I
knew we would be pushing and meeting our son soon. However, we had to wait
another hour before the doctor actually showed up. So when I started pushing I
was completely exhausted thanks to no rest from the Ambien, the lack of relief
of experiencing a headache all day, the fatigue of labor itself, and lack of
food!When the doctor finally arrived it was 1:30am. I gave it my all and pushed for 50 minutes, but I was truly in no shape for pushing considering how exhausted I was. Can we just say that pushing is really hard work?! Because of the epidural, although I was alert, it was very difficult to know where to push--I mean DUH I knew where to push but it was difficult not knowing if we were making progress because I couldn't feel anything. It didn't help that our doctor and the nurses didn't communicate with us the whole time. Literally, they were quiet. I asked one time if he was close and the doctor said, "He could be here in five minutes, but you've got to take this seriously." What in the world? Because of course I was sitting back laughing and having a good time not taking any of this seriously. Jerk.
As a result of his traumatic birth, Caleb had complications
breathing on his own and was taken away for further examination. The pediatrician on call, Dr. Law came by to say that they were trying to start an IV, that he received an x-ray to make sure he didn't have pneumonia because he took in meconium fluid in his lungs, and that he had a heart murmur because of this. Unfortunately, my husband and
I weren't able to see him for five hours after he was born and when we were
finally able to do so, we were told we still weren't allowed to hold him or
feed him because his oxygen levels were not stable. Seeing my son for the first time after all we had experienced was such a joyous and sad moment. He was sleeping peacefully, but looked awful. The first thing we noticed was that he had a huge half moon laceration to his head where the extractor was used--the nursing staff did not
clean him after birth so there was still blood and vernix caseosa. His head looked normal from the from but in the back it was elongated, instead of it being cone-shaped like most vaginally born babies, his was jiggly. It made me uncomfortable and hurt for him just seeing him like that. Thankfully God made babies to be resilient and that little fellow sure was! Adam and I both had tears welling up in our eyes at the sight of him. We stayed with him a little while but because we were exhausted we went back to the "recovery" room to get some sleep, that is until another knock came at the door...The pediatrician that came on call after Dr. Law was Dr. Salvador. She was very sweet and genuinely concerned for our son unlike the doctor that delivered him. She spoke to us about having Caleb transferred to Brenner's Children’s Hospital (part of Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in NC) because she was afraid he was having seizures/convulsions, possible brain damage/swelling from the vacuum, and his oxygen levels still weren't stabilizing. When she left the room I fell into Adam's arms balling my eyes out. We were definitely shocked beyond belief and couldn't believe any of this was actually happening. I started sobbing so hard that it became difficult to breathe. Once I caught my breath we called my parents and then Adam's to tell them they needed to get back to the hospital fast because we were told that our son would be picked up by ambulance; we later found out that all of Brenner’s ambulances had been discharged and they were sending a helicopter! This was the best and worst day of my life. I hope no one ever has to experience that kind of pain for your child.
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| Ready for the helicopter ride! |
Unfortunately, I was unable to go to Brenner's with Caleb. I stayed at MMH another 48 hours after Caleb's birth. The nurses barely checked on me and when they did, they mainly checked my temperature and blood pressure. My stitches were only checked twice (once immediately after the birth and then again two days later). I only had my stomach massaged twice as well to get the extra blood out of my uterus. The worst of it was that I lost a lot of blood, approximately three units. On Friday morning my hemoglobin was checked and it was a 7.2 and by Friday afternoon it was checked again. Two nurses came in with discharge papers and said I had made "great improvements" stating that my hemoglobin rose from 7.2 to 7.3. Seriously, a tenth of a point?! That's no improvement at all you idiots! I couldn't stand on my own and I couldn't walk more than two or three steps before getting out of breath as well as feeling like the room was constantly spinning. My mother had to help me every step of the way--no nurses offered to help, not even ONCE to do what my mother was doing. I needed a transfusion and the doctor on call, Dr. Kent Hjerpe and these nurses were ready to boot me out the door! Thank goodness my mother, who is a lab manager at an endocrinologist’s office, knew I needed the transfusion (I looked like I was on death's door--seriously, I am already pale and at this point looked even more so--my lips had lost all color and were white, no lie!). I actually had to ask for my own transfusion since the nurses were pretty adamant about insisting that I was perfectly able to go home. In fact, one even mentioned that women are sent home with a 6 hemoglobin which is outrageous! That transfusion did wonders for me- I could actually get up out of bed on my own and was able to take a shower for the first time in days--what I don't understand is that they were refusing to give it to me when they had already had it cross matched in the lab -- meaning they already had a blood type that suited mine for a transfusion (and by the way a charge like that cost hundreds of dollars)!
When I thanked the doctor the next morning before being discharged he scolded me saying #1) It would normally take 6 months to build up the blood supply I lost but with the transfusion it should only take 3months—if he knew that then why did he refuse to give me the transfusion to begin with, didn’t he realize I would be taking care of a newborn?! and #2) The amount of blood lost was my fault because in his opinion I had not taken my prenatal vitamins. What this douche of a doctor didn't know was that the prenatal vitamins made me throw up and I took them for about six months and then when school started I began taking them at night to prevent throwing up. This was difficult for me to remember since I had established a routine of taking them with my breakfast. I felt humiliated and offended that a doctor who should have known how fragile a condition I was mentally, physically, and emotionally in had the nerve to say such harsh and heartless words.
What is also bothersome is that no nurse had communicated to me after delivering my son that I would have to ask/request pain medication. I did so unknowingly two or three times, but I did not know I was to ask every time. Because I requested the transfusion, I stayed Friday night (12/28/12) it was at that time that the evening nurse, Jill who had a terrible catty attitude, came in and my stitches were checked for a second time. It was during this time that she told me I had a hemorrhoid and she would bring me Tucks pads and Dermoplast. Neither of these products were offered to me prior to her checking me, which makes me think that had I been discharged earlier in the day and not received the transfusion, I would have suffered further rather than receive relief from the pain I’d been experiencing.
Thankfully, my best friend Lindsey Hazelwood stayed Friday night to help
me out and give my mom some relief so she could get some rest
(especially since my mother's diabetic and had already experienced low
sugars due to the lack of sleep). Hazel got all of my belongings
together and when Dr. Hjerpe came in she consoled me stating that, "For
centuries women have had babies without prenatal vitamins and even today
women in third world countries didn't receive the kind of care you did
while pregnant. Don't let this idiot get you down!" I'm so thankful to
have a friend that supported me as much as she. She gathered all my
stuff together and drove me to my house to pick up a few things (since
we weren't sure of how long we'd be at Brenner's) and then drove me to
Winston-Salem, NC.When I finally got to be with my husband and Caleb again, all was right with the world. In fact, at Brenner's I was able to hold my son and attempt breastfeeding (but that story is for another post). The nurses there were so supportive and courteous. I couldn’t have asked for a better pregnancy. I didn’t become high risk, have high blood pressure, or have gestational diabetes. I experienced no swelling and I enjoyed being pregnant. While in utero, our son grew as expected and was healthy every step of the way. We looked forward to everything labor and delivery offered and we couldn’t wait to hold our bundle of joy. Instead, the experience we had hoped for became a dashed dream. Dr. Buist used poor judgment. Dilating from a 5 to 5.5cm is hardly any progress. All of this has led to unnecessary worry, unnecessary accrued medical expenses, and heartache for what our son experienced. My husband and I feel that our son’s life was jeopardized unnecessarily due to the mishandling of his delivery. I should not have had to labor for 20+ hours. It should have been communicated to us in advance that our son was face up and that because I experienced the exhaustion I did that I was truly in no shape to be able to push. Otherwise, the vacuum would never have been used and our son wouldn’t have received the lacerations and supposed seizures he was thought to be experiencing. Our son should have been delivered by C-section; and/or the Pitocin administered should have been increased sooner and the doctor should have been available sooner after discovering we were dilated to 10cm rather than having to wait an additional hour like we did.
Because of the traumatic delivery our son could have died. We believe it is only by the grace of God and the power of prayer (we had people all over the east coast praying for us!) that our son did not suffer permanent damage after the trauma of the condition of his delivery and that he is still alive and doing well. I am sharing our story to make others aware and to prevent them from receiving the same kind of poor care and treatment we received from Women's Health Center and Morehead Memorial Hospital. As a woman, you have a right to create a birth plan for yourself stating you and your spouse's expectations. Adam and I will most certainly be doing that for Baby Davis #2.
Update (2/15/12)
**Upon receiving our medical records we also discovered that another patient’s chart (drugs administered during labor—i.e., Nicotine Patch, Nubain, Milk of Magnesia) were added to my record when I did not take them. You will obviously agree that this raised a red flag since I am not a smoker and I did not need my health insurance to potentially back out of covering me for misrepresentation. When we went to Medical Records to address this concern we asked for an addendum stating that that page is invalid and did not apply to us. No addendum was given as we were told that since my insurance company wasn’t charged for those drugs it therefore did not affect us and remains on my chart to this day—we were NOT given an explanation as to how these charges were found in my chart and why an addendum retracting those drugs was not needed.
