Story #54 - Rachel, Olney MD (USA)
“I still struggle. I have a lot of resentment, and I often think about the fact that I was so passive.
I'm mad at myself, and when I see other pregnant women, I sometimes want to scream, 'Ask questions and advocate for yourself! If something feels weird, demand answers or get a second opinion!'
What happened to me didn't need to happen.”
Up until 37 weeks, I had an easy pregnancy. Aside from weird food aversions and Chipotle cravings, it was incredibly uneventful.
The experience I had with my OB, Dr. F, was also positive at first. Easy going man. I run anxious, and he would never rush me when I met with him at his office. He owns a boutique practice, meaning it's just him, a nurse, and his secretary. Whenever I would call, he was always the one who would answer my questions. There was an obvious appeal to that kind of one-man show because it also meant he would be the one delivering me.
Towards the end of my pregnancy, we started talking about my delivery preferences. Dr. F. knew my husband, Brad, was a 10-pound baby, and he would always make these comments about whether or not I would want a C-section or vaginal birth for that reason.
He would say things like, “This area [Bethesda] is so frou-frou, I get a lot of moms who want to do it all natural even if the baby's in danger!” I didn't think anything of it, and I'd reassure him that I wasn't that way. I had to reemphasize on several occasions that I wasn't naturalistic and that I trusted him to tell me what would be best.
All I wanted was for my baby and me to be safe, and I gave him a lot of power over the decision-making process of my delivery. That... that really bit me in the ass later on.
We did genetic testing because both my husband and I are Jewish. I found out I was a carrier for Factor XI deficiency and went to see a maternal-fetal specialist, but it ended up being a non-issue, and nobody was concerned.
At 37 weeks, I went in for my routine appointment with Dr. F, and my mother-in-law was with me that day. The nurse took my pressure, then retook it, and left the room to get Dr. F. She didn't say a thing. They made me lie on my side again, not telling me why and retook my blood pressure.
I have managed generalized anxiety. I've been medicated in the past, but I was not during pregnancy, so this situation was starting to make me very anxious. Dr. F. told me that my blood pressure was high, something around 160, and there were small traces of protein in my urine, so he sent me back to Shady Grove maternal-fetal medicine where I had already done the other testing.
He said: “I want the specialist to decide whether you need to go in the hospital right away and have a C-section.”
At the moment, I didn't think it was weird, and I simply believed he was protective of me. I started crying. I wanted my husband. I wanted my mom; I was so anxious about the baby.
The maternal-fetal medicine specialist didn't have the best bedside manner. Any other day she would have been fine, but at that moment, I needed warm and fuzzy; I needed a hug and someone telling me that everything would be okay. We'd called my husband, and I calmed down a little bit when he arrived. They completed the test, and the baby passed with flying colors within seconds.
My blood pressure had also come down. The doctor told me to go back home with a urine jug and to fill it within 24 hours to make sure there weren't additional traces of protein. She didn't think I needed to go to the hospital at all.
That night, I bought a blood pressure cuff from CVS, which was a terrible idea. I was worried it was going to spike again, which of course, because I was so anxious, happened. We hadn't even picked up the jug yet that I called Dr. F. and told him my pressure was elevated. He told me to rest and to call him in the morning.
I didn't get the chance to do it. He called at 6 a.m. on his way to work. He told me that, based on my blood pressure last night, I had to go straight to the hospital.
He said, and those are his exact words: “I want you to go into labor and delivery today to be monitored, and I will tell them we need to get you on the schedule for a C-section.”
And then he asked: “When was the last time you ate?” I said I'd eaten a blueberry muffin around 1 a.m., and he said, “When you get there, the nurses are going to ask you if you've eaten in the last 12 hours. You have to tell them you haven't.”
So I went to the hospital to be monitored. My blood pressure spiked a few times while I was there, but overall, I was stable. My husband and I were starting to get strangely excited, like, “Are we going to have this baby today?”
But the on-call doctor that day sent me home. He said he didn't think a C-section or delivering the baby early was necessary based on all the tests they did. It was probably anxiety-induced, and he told me to get the urine jug (at last), drop it off for analysis, and relax for the remaining of the weekend. So, that's what we did.
On Tuesday, I got a call from Dr. F. He said: “We think it's best if you have a planned C-section at 39 weeks. We're worried that if we let you go through labor, it might spike your pressure.” I was surprised, so I asked if it meant that it would be hard to keep the baby or me safe if I didn't do a C-section, and he said, “Yes, we're worried it might happen. You need a C-section to keep you both safe.”
I'm such a freaking idiot that I didn't think to ask more questions. I know now that my results from the urine jug came back with no sign of preeclampsia. And even if they did, you can have a vaginal birth when you are preeclamptic. They put you on a medication to control the pressure, and you deliver.
So he scheduled a C-section for the following Tuesday. One week away from that call.
All this is happening without being professionally monitored; I'm only taking my pressure with the CVS cuffs. But again, we don't think anything of it. The week goes by. Friends come over, bring me food, try to keep me calm, and I'm somehow very much okay with the fact that I'm having a C-section. Baby is coming! Yay! Awesome.
I woke up on Monday at 3 a.m. having contractions, and I lost my mucus plug. I had terrible back labor, and when the contractions got to be five minutes apart, we called Dr. F. who advised getting to the hospital, and that he'd meet us there. The hospital is one hour away from our house, and while we were driving, I got another call from him.
He says: “I need you to be very careful about what you'll say to the nurses because they are really naturalistic. They're going to ask you why you're having a C-section, and they're going to ask you if you want a C-section. You're going to have to tell them that you do, that you and your doctor have talked about it, and this is the best course of action.”
When I got there, a sweet, sweet blond nurse checked me in and did precisely what Dr. F. said they would: she asked me if I genuinely wanted a C-section. I assured her that I did.
I trusted him. I trusted him, not knowing I had other options. And then, all of a sudden, my water broke.
My body was ready to do things naturally, but I was still holding on to the idea that I needed to have a C-section, so when they asked if I wanted an epidural, I said yes. Had I tried to do it vaginally, I would have put it off for as long as I could to be able to walk and breathe through each contraction. But it wasn't going to happen, so why wait, right? I hated it. I hated the feeling of being drugged. My heart was beating so fast. I felt loopy. It was terrible.
In the meantime, my best friend and my mother-in-law arrived, and they kept my husband and I company while we waited. My parents were luckily able to get there just 10 minutes before they rolled me into the OR, which was sweet.
Dr. F. is the one who delivered our son, Shane. Per his medical report, the C-section went normally. Baby was 7 pounds 4 ounces, far from the predicted 10-pound baby. It was surreal because everything felt like it was happening very slowly, and all of a sudden, I heard our baby cry. They showed him to me, put him on my chest: he was so beautiful. They took him back, cleaned him, and took me out.
After I was being stitched up, Dr. F. went to see my family and let them know how it went. Weeks later, they would tell me that he was sweating profusely and seemed agitated. They would also say that he was covered head to toe in blood.
I was in the recovery room when I started having horrible, horrible pain. So painful, I couldn't even move in the bed. My family was taking pictures with Shane; everyone was celebrating, but I couldn't enjoy any of it. The nurses gave me pain meds, but none was working. After a couple of hours, I was in such excruciating pain that they had to get me a Dilaudid for the pain to finally stop.
In the midst of all this, I was trying to breastfeed, and it wasn't going well. I was so drugged up that I couldn't hold my baby, so they eventually gave him a bottle of formula. I remember someone telling me, “Look at him, he's so hungry! He's taking the bottle like a champ!”, and thinking, “I don't want him to take this fucking bottle!”
Looking back, if not being able to breastfeed would have been the worst part of my journey, God! That would have been just fine!
The next day Dr. F. came in. My pain was somehow under control, but I wasn't doing well by any means. He very casually said, “We need to give you a blood transfusion. It seems like your hemoglobin is a little low, and we want to prevent any uterine gush. We'll give you one unit of blood, nothing too much, as a preventive measure.”
I flipped my shit. I called my parents and asked them to come back to the hospital asap.
It was 1 p.m. when Dr. F. said the transfusion would begin very quickly. I kid you not, it took them six hours to get things going. My dad had to call Dr. F. and ask where was everybody, and when they finally arrived with the blood, they couldn't get the damn IV in me. I looked like a heroin addict. I was so bruised up they had to take me back up to labor and delivery because no one could do it in the maternity ward.
I ended up needing two units of blood and didn't finish the transfusion until 2 a.m. Luckily, I felt much better the day after, and then the next, and I was discharged on Friday, a little less than a week after I delivered my son.
We went home. I had this beautiful, healthy baby, but I was also mourning over the fact that I couldn't breastfeed. I tried to pump, but it didn't work. My postpartum hormones were through the roof, and I felt devastated.
The following Wednesday, my parents (who live in Michigan) were still staying with us at our house, and we had my cousins over for a pizza dinner that night. I remember that night also discovering that my son had clogged tear ducts, and I recall it was a thing we were trying to figure out. I remember being mad at my dad later that night, something about filling the dishwasher the wrong way. Then, I remember opening the fridge to get a piece of swiss cheese, and having this sudden sensation of peeing myself.
I rushed to the bathroom, and blood gushed into the toilet, coming out of me like a faucet. I screamed for my mom, who was a few steps away in the kitchen, and told her to call 911.
If the hospital hadn't been 2 minutes away from our house, I would have died that night.
In the middle of my pregnancy, I had a weird anxious spell where I felt faint and lightheaded, and I had called an ambulance. It was a non-emergency, very much anxiety-induced, and they simply made sure the baby and I were okay. One of the paramedics from that day was on call that night. I remembered him, and he remembered me.
I got to Montgomery General Hospital, and they rushed me inside. My pressure had gotten to 50 over 30. I'd lost three-quarters of my blood. They called a massive blood transfusion protocol, and they didn't have enough blood for me at the hospital, so they had to fly some in from DC. They did an ultrasound on my abdomen, which was filled entirely with blood. The stitches from my c-section had come undone on all sides, and I was bleeding internally from two parts of my uterus. It's called a secondary postpartum hemorrhage. I later found out that my body had also gone into DIC and stopped being able to clot.
They gave me a total of 8 units of blood, plasma, and platelets that night. During the transfusion, my husband was sitting next to me with his face in mine, trying to keep me awake because I was going in and out of consciousness.
I have this image of my dad in the center of the room with tears in his eyes behind in glasses telling me it was going to be okay. Never, in my entire life, had I seen my dad cry.
Brad kept saying, “Rachel, stay with me,” until they put me in this horribly uncomfortable position to get the blood flow into my brain. The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to everybody while I'm being wheeled away on the gurney.
They repaired my uterus at Montgomery General, but because they are not a trauma hospital, they left my exterior open, then medivacked me the day after to Georgetown Hospital for further examination and surgery.
Brad told me later that he had to sign paperwork that stated they could remove my uterus to save my life when I arrived at the hospital by ambulance that night. He said he was afraid that I would be mad at him, that it was the most difficult thing he ever had to do. I told him, “What good would my uterus be if I'm not here?” I still have it. The surgeon at Montgomery General decided not to take it. There was a risk, but he said he thought they could do it without having to remove everything. I now have this long scar that I have to see every day. I call it my battle scar. It scares me; reminds me that I almost died.
Amid the crisis, my parents got ahold of Dr. F. over the phone. Before I was transferred, they wanted to know where he would recommend they send me, but he wouldn't give them any information. My dad had to forcefully ask him, “If it was your child, where would you send her?” for him to finally suggest Georgetown. Despite his many promises, he never came to visit.
I woke up in the ICU of Georgetown Hospital two days later, lying in a bed and intubated. My family told me that my husband didn't leave my side all this time. My parents had to pull him away to feed him. Both of us were away from our son for a total of three days with zero contact, which is heartbreaking — three days away from his parents when he was only 10 days old.
My family was also there when I woke up. I was confused, not sure if I'd been in a coma or what day it was. I was communicating with them with my finger until they gave me a piece of paper on which I wrote: “Cancer? Uterus? Am I going to die?”
The first two days after I woke up, I was an anxious mess, so much that they had to give me medication. When they pulled the tube out, I remember having to cough a lot and feeling my lips being so dry. My sister in law gave me her vaseline, and my brother fed me ice cubes.
The days I spent in the ICU were so hard. I kept looking at the ventilator and vitals machines and asking my husband, “Am I dying?” because the person in the bed next to me definitely was. They eventually moved me to the postpartum unit. They had different nurses there so I could have Shane with me. But I still could barely hold him. I was in so much pain I couldn't move or have clothes on. My mom bought me an XXXL nightgown because everything touching my skin felt horrible.
I was discharged about a week later. The first month back home was rough. I had this chart of all the meds I had to take. I hated being so dependent. My house was a mess. I hated that I still couldn't breastfeed. I hated that I couldn't be alone with my baby. I hated having to sit and do nothing. I felt robbed. This was supposed to be a wonderful time.
Those first few days are supposed to be memorable, beautiful. They are not for me. They are traumatic. And I hate that.
I hate that I'm still a “mystery.” I saw a hematologist, and they've ruled out everything. There's nothing wrong with me, which is good, but it also means that we don't understand what happened to me.
The medical reports filed by Dr. F. are full of lies. He claimed that I elected a C-section because I was concerned about my anxiety level and the pain associated with natural labor. He lied. It makes me sick. I have a new OB now, but he will never disparage Dr. F. That's just how it works.
I know now that I should never have had a C-section. I trusted that my doctor had my best interest at heart, but there was no reason for me to have that surgery. I keep reading my files, but there's nothing in them that gives me an answer over why my stitches came undone: was there retained placenta? Did he do a fucked up job with the stitches? Could they have left a glove in my uterus? My dad said there were chunks of things in the bathroom when he was cleaning up the blood all over the floor. It's unclear. Everything is unclear.
I went into labor spontaneously, my blood pressure wasn't high, and I wasn't preeclamptic. Of course, who's to say I wouldn't have had complications if I had had a vaginal birth? But why did I need a C-section? I didn't. I was manipulated. I trusted that evil man, and I want his license taken away, but I can't, for the life of me, write my fucking story down to file a medical report. I can't because it's too hard.
I know he's done this to others. I came across this woman who decided to become a midwife because Dr. F. also forced her to have a C-section. She was great to talk to. I also found out in talking with lots of other women that he has a nickname at Sibley: he's called the “Uptown Slasher” because he's always on the schedule for a C-section. Always.
I looked into lawsuits and talked to twenty different layers: no one wants to take the case. There's nothing wrong with me physically, and they don't care about PTSD. They don't care about my postpartum period being robbed from me. Unless I had died, unless I had lost my baby or he had had brain damage, they couldn't give two shits about what I went through. When I tell them that I almost died, they say, “Yeah, but you're alive.” I'm just another near-miss statistic. Even if I did manage to complain to the medical board, nothing would happen. It's impossible to take these people down.
My only power is to create awareness. That's why I contacted you after I read the stories you have shared of women with similar experiences. I am in the same maternal Near-Miss Survivor group, and that has been so healing.
But I still often feel powerless. I feel jealous of friends when they have beautiful birth experiences, and I hate the fact that I feel jealous. I want to be happy for my friends, but when I look back at my own first few days postpartum, I just feel pain. I was on oxy forever. My maternity leave also got eaten up fast. I felt I'd just started to feel like myself, and then it was time to go back to work. I was off for a little less than four months. I'm the breadwinner in the family, so I had to go back; otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to afford our life.
It's taken a long time to trust my body again and not think that I'm dying. I'm anxious because I don't know what went wrong. I don't know if there's still something wrong with me. But I'm getting there.
My gym community has been wonderful. Exercise is a stress reliever, and I feel safe there. It's also a great way to remember how amazing my body is and how strong I am.
My husband and I have just started to try again for our second baby. But it's scary. I'm looking forward to having more children, but every time I go to Georgetown to get tests, I shiver. I was there last Wednesday [September of 2018]. Everything looks good. I'm lucky because some women have something called Sheehan's syndrome after they have massive hemorrhages. Your hypothalamus doesn't communicate with your body, and you stop having periods and go into menopause.
We can't predict the future, but I'm hoping to get pregnant soon. I know it's cheesy, but I almost want this second birth to be a healing birth. I know something else could happen. I know they will have to do a C-section because they can't risk a uterine rupture, and I will take all these precautions. But I want to try again. I want to get excited about bringing a baby home and spending time with them.
April 21st was Shane's first birthday party. I spent thousands of dollars on his birthday party. Not because that's who I am, but as a coping mechanism because it was so painful to think about that day. I felt so guilty about not being happy on my son's birthday. It's terrible because women have miscarriages, they have stillbirths, and I have this beautiful and healthy child, but some days are so hard.
At the same time, I try to remind myself that other people's trauma doesn't invalidate mine; it doesn't invalidate the anger, and it certainly doesn't give me back those first few postpartum months. It's already so difficult to have a baby and to become a new mom. This didn't need to happen. And I didn't deserve that. No one does.
This interview was conducted in September of 2018. Since then, Rachel and her family welcomed another baby boy.
His birth was wonderfully healing.