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MAMA-KANGAROO 038
I saw your initiative on B92 Blog, and, although I think my story doesn’t fit your criteria, I still decided to write it. I’m also not sure that something like this should be published, since we don’t want to scare people. The point of my story is that I lost my baby in labor. It all happened at the hospital in Zajecar, March 9, 2008. Before I go on to the story, let me just say that my partner, the father of the child, is a foreigner, who lives in an EU country. I’m a 25 year old defectologist. Because of my work, and also my naďveté, I decided to give birth in the town I live in. So many women did it, so why shouldn’t I! And also, it was from the start a high-risk pregnancy. I was treated first with hormones, and then later with “Gynipral,” which pregnant women today eat like candy, so I decided that it was better not to fly, but to wait and move after the baby was born. I was due on March 14. Let me also add that I weighed 80kg before I got pregnant, and I was in perfect health. All parameters were just perfect. I watched my diet during pregnancy and I gained only 11 kg. I did the triple and double tests early in the pregnancy and all parameters were ok. I had no health issues until week 37, when I started to swell. The doctor said my blood pressure was somewhat high – 140 over 90 – and she sent me to the gynecology ward, where I stayed for a week. I begged them to deliver the baby, but they wouldn’t. They said it was too early and the baby was too little. While I was there they delivered three other women with high blood pressure – both due after me – saying that they were at risk, and my condition was stable. After I was released from hospital, two weeks before my due date, on Feb 29 the contractions started. A doctor whom I knew and who was “my connection” was on call. He gave me drugs to stop the contractions, and when I asked him to deliver the baby, he told me not to play smart and that the baby was too little. The midwives rolled their eyes, saying how I was just spoiled and taking up a bed. They released me the next day, saying that I should wait till my “due date.” On the evening of March 8 contractions started and I called my obgyn, who told me to go to hospital when they were 10min apart. At 4 am I got a strong contraction that wouldn’t stop. I immediately went to hospital where the doctor on call said that the baby’s heart wasn’t beating and that “who knows what was wrong.” The next doctor who came at 7 am said that it was probably a case of placental abruption and that the same thing had happened to her daughter, but, what to do, such is life. Or maybe not, since in placental abruption there is a lot of bleeding. Of course, from 4 to 7, no one paid any attention to me, although there was no other labor in progress at the time. Around 10:30 I couldn’t take the constant contraction anymore and I started to scream. Only then a doctor came and examined me, and saw that I wasn’t dilated at all and that maybe they should do a C-section, although they don’t perform C-sections on dead babies. They took me to OR at 11, and brought me out at 14:45. The epilogue was placental abruption, which suffocated a baby boy, who weighed 3.450kg and was 50cm long (and who was in perfect health as determined at the autopsy). I bled heavily, and at the last minute they decided not to remove the uterus and somehow managed to save it. My kidneys and heart shut down and I had no pulse for 20min. I had to spend three weeks in hospital, two of which at ICU. It took me three months to recover completely. There were some adhesions between the uterus and the bladder, because of which I am at risk of premature delivery in my next pregnancy. The doctors’ excuse was that I was “too fat before pregnancy,” and that “I wasn’t at risk of placental abruption, because that cannot be foreseen,” and that they “couldn’t take out the baby two or three weeks before it was due for no reason,” and that they were even “annoyed that I knew too much.” I didn’t want to press charges, since I think that would only hurt me more, and I wouldn’t get anything out of it, since there was no money that can make up for such a loss. Still, I think it is rude to place the blame at me, or find fault with my education. The ugliest excuse was – you were fat before pregnancy – since there are so many women, much larger than me, who have their babies with no problems. I also don’t think that there is anything wrong with getting informed, since everyone has the right to know about potential risks for their own or the health of their child. And why is it so bad to say “We’re sorry, we made a mistake. We underestimated the risk.” That wouldn’t change much, but it would, at least, make it less ugly and somewhat humane. After all that, although the doctors say that I am “still young and the time is working for me,” I don’t want to try again. I don’t want to go through all this again, here, or anywhere else. I don’t want to take chances and I’d rather be an egotist, if that is what you would want to call it, than a masochist. Officially, no one can guarantee that the same thing wouldn’t happen again, and the risk of placental abruption is 10-17%. I once wanted to have 4 children. And now I know I never want to have a baby again. I will adopt. I’m sorry if this was too long or if it was a wrong story for your project. |
STORIES FROM MATERNITY WARDS Mama-Kangaroo 002
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