Worst birth everFollow

Wait, I thought you were a chick?

Well congratulations on the newborn, and sorry you had to witness butchery. Definitly sue the crap out of the hospital for that.

I also thought you were a chick.

Sorry to hear about the ordeal, but glad to hear your baby is healthy, or at least out.

Oh, I suggest you check out the link in Katie's didlo thread, and pick up a faux ******, because chances are you're not getting laid again.

Holy ****. That kid is *never* going to hear the end of this.

I'm glad that everything turned out ok in the end.

The lawsuit can more than put the kid through college.

My god. Just... wow.

I can't even formulate words to describe the horror felt at reading your post. I didn't have an epidural when I had my little girl for reasons of horror second hand, your's is one of many to add to the list. But to hear that they screwed up so badly as to give too much and nearly lose the baby because of it and seeing your S.O. go through what she did? Just wow.

I really do hope that the cuts weren't too deep in the baby and that all turns out in the end.


As for the sueing part, it's entirely circumstantial. For what happened to your S.O. and the heart rate drop that could have killed the baby, a lot of people would sue. Your S.O. went through the trauma that she did because they screwed up.

However, it seems that a lot of things that are taken to the courts are more petty and the cases that do have something large and traumatic don't win and/or they aren't taken to court in the first place.

In the end, I've read a lot of people who are suing due to something that is only within their own nature: humanity. Mistakes are going to happen. Thank god they worked as hard as possible to rectify the mistake and that both your S.O. and your baby girl are alive and will be able to live after the experience. I hope that there aren't any other bumps of this magnitude for you to go over. Please give your S.O. warm wishes that things get better.

Maybe sueing isn't the course of action that everyone would take, but it would have at least been nice if the doctors had admitted their mistake to you. Hearing it from a student nurse just makes me wonder if perhaps the student felt bad that you weren't told.

*shakes head*

Edited, Feb 28th 2007 9:51pm by Leonai_art

We really need to start putting if were female or male in our sig because it's getting really confusing and that story will haunt my dreams >.>!

So why aren't you getting paid to make the t-shirts?

And this is why I'm having my birth in a birth center instead of a hospital, where my care providers will work with me on managing my labor pain via non-pharmaceutical means, and where epidural won't even be an option. The lack of disclosure most women get about the potential complications related to epidural is astonishing. It is NOT the wonderful "oh gee, I get to go through labor pain free and completely aware with no possible risk to myself or my baby" miracle labor-pain solution that it's touted as being. Epidurals are known to cause hypotension (depriving the baby of oxygen and leading to fetal distress and from thence instrumental delivery or surgery); hyperthermia in the mother (leading the hospital to assume there's an infection and thus resulting in the baby being treated as though s/he has an infection and thus being dosed with antibiotics and spending time in the nursery--possibly even in NICU); slowed or stalled labor (again running the risk of further intervention due to fetal distress); persistant and possibly chronic back pain and/or spinal headache in the mother (women have described migraines as being "a day at the beach" compared to these headaches); less alert babies with lower APGAR scores at birth; and, as you have now discovered from painful experience, there are times when they aren't fully effective--they may numb one side and leave the other with full sensation, or other variations on that same essential theme, where pain relief is too localized to be effective. It's rare, but some women have even died from epidurals. Most women, without doing their own research, are NOT made aware of these risks, certainly not enough to make "informed consent" decisions.

Sincerely, Yoda, your wife/SO has my deepest condolences. I urge you quite seriously to get her therapy to deal with this--she's going to need it. Her chances of PPD are going to be VERY high, and that doesn't even address the possibility of suffering PTSD. There are therapists who specialize in birth trauma, you need to find one and you need to do it sooner rather than later. Don't wait for symptoms of PPD or PTSD to start manifesting themselves. This could impact her ability to care for and bond with the baby, her ability to breastfeed (if that's the option she's choosing) and absolutely certainly her sexual function for years to come. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the battle she's facing.

If you or she has a LiveJournal account (or even if you don't, get one, they are free now) there are a couple communities for birth traums where you can probably get referrals to therapists in your geographic area. http://community.livejournal.com/birthtrauma/ is one, and if you want I can try to find others, that's the only one I know of off the top of my head. PM me if you would like and I will try to find more information for you, since that particular community doesn't look like it's terribly active.

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter, and my best hopes for your wife/SO to have a speedy recovery. I have a lot of contacts in the midwifery/childbirth community, so please PM me if you think there is anything I can help you find to assist her.



Edited, Feb 28th 2007 10:32pm by Ambrya

Ambrya.

Im not gonna try to dissuade you from your chosen method of labour and birth. But i would urge you to NOT write off all forms of treatment that are availiable. I know its personal choice, but you do sound a bit like you've made your mind up about the 'no mediacal intervention' thing. Some of what you say about epidurals, while not entirely untrue, is definatelt 'worst case' stuff. We give thousands of epidurals every year. There are very few complications as long as the correct procedures and precautions are followed. Refusing pain-relief is neither good for baby or mother. It should be researched by the individual for sure. But giving birth is not an ego trip. there should only be one expectation. And that is that mother and baby have a happy healthy outcome.

As I say, this is not the place for sucha discussion, but I have been witness to some incredibly sad scenes that have been directly caused by women (or their partners) utterly refusing pain relief or other types of treatment until it was too late. the grief in those situations is not the parents alone, believe me.. Their refusal has often stemmed from some pretty biased information that has come from mid-wives and other birth experts who are traditionaly opposed to medical intervention.

All I'm saying here is, keep your options open. For the good of you AND the baby.

After all, what we all want, doctors nurses midwives technicians, all of us, we all want to have a healthy mother and baby.

with respect....

Paulsol:

I don't want to derail Yoda's thread, out of respect for him. I will post my response to my journal and open it up for comments, if you would like to continue our discussion there.

If I wasn't upset before, I definately am now. Accidents or human errors are one thing. Blatent carelessness is another altogether. I don't care what the excuse for it is, I'm still angry at just hearing that a baby died like that.

Gratz on the baby girl;-)

If you don't sue, then maybe threaten them with a lawsuit unless they provide/prove to you (via your attorney) significant procedural changes will be made.

You could, literally, be saving someones life.

That's raw. Go to the newspaper with your story. You should let the residents of Oshawa know what they are in for if they go to that hospital. Since we can't sue in Canada, we get even.

Note: Telling the facts about a situation and not naming the actual people involved is not considered libel.