Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
21
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“We’ll Explain Everything Afterwards.”
“Get ready for the D&C.” -OB to OR team after mother was in the OR for repairs of tears incurred during her vaginal birth.
“Why are you doing a D&C, that wasn’t on the consent form?” -Mother to anesthesiologist positioned at her head.
“We’ll explain everything afterwards.” -Anesthesiologist to mother.
Why are you doing a D&C?” -Mother to nurse in the OR.
“We’ll explain everything afterwards.” -OR nurse.
After the procedures, everyone left quickly to go home as it was late at night, without any explanations of why a D&C was performed without consent.
Mother understood more clearly when she later received a bill for $1200 for the procedure.
There are 82 comments to this post.
First thought: “She should have said ‘I do not consent to a D&C until I’m given a reason that it’s medically necessary’”.
Second thought: Women shouldn’t have to be fighting for themselves while giving birth or paying for unnecessary procedures!!! Grrrrr!
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michele Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm (Quote)
The D & C shouldn’t have been performed on her without her consent, or without telling her why she needed one in the first place.
Another reason why I am a home-birth/birthing center advocate. My midwife never even touched me without telling me she was going to, asking if she could or explaining why she needed to.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 8:07 pm (Quote)
You can’t say she “should have” done anything. We were not in that situation and I am sure she negotiated it the way she felt was best at the time. Women can not be expected to go into their births fighting, and people should be cautious about advocating that. Birth is not war, and when you send women in to fight, they come out with PTSD.
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Claire Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 8:57 pm (Quote)
The point of my second thought was exactly that! It was a knee-jerk response to think of what the woman “should have” said or done and I wasn’t there and had no right. My second thought was exactly what you said, that women should not have to fight in birth. So as far as I can see, we are in agreement.
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I wouldn’t pay for it and I would tell the insurance company, if had is covered, to not pay for it either as it wasn’t consented to. If it works, and the insurance co doesn’t pay for it, they may think twice about doing it without consent in the future.
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Jane Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 5:26 pm (Quote)
It might well be worth getting the insurance companies involved.
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Beth Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 5:29 pm (Quote)
If less people were so complacent and uneducated about their choices, then this would happen a lot less.
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Jane Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 5:54 pm (Quote)
Until you’re in the situation, you don’t know what you need to know. Most of us are brought up to believe that doctors want to act to promote our health.We don’t know otherwise until we experience otherwise.
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Megan Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 5:56 pm (Quote)
i don’t know if i would’ve worded it like this, since it sounds like you’re implying that *this* mother was ‘complacent’ and ‘uneducated’!!
(i’m sure that’s not what you meant…but that’s how it sounds. this mother clearly tried TWICE to get an answer…and was ignored).
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Beth Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm (Quote)
Not at all. It sounded like she was trying to get information. What I meant, rather, was that if more women in general would educate themselves, not just take Dr’s information for granted and as the end all and be all of necessary information, then Dr’s would think twice about pulling this kind of nonsense because they would have to assume that all women know the difference between necessary procedures and consent.
I didn’t at all mean for my words to come out that way.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 7:51 pm (Quote)
Women do educate themselves about childbirth and pregnancy, it is just not in the way you may wish they would. But women are not going into the experience blind. They just don’t know that hte places they are getting most of their education from is not looking out for their best interests. It is important to realize that they are not belligerently refusing to educate themselves. Most women attend childbirth classes and read books and watch TV shows and go online and talk to girlfriends and relatives in order to gather information. The problem is not with the woman’s willingness to learn, the problem is the information she is being taught, oftentimes by authorities in her life.
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Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:36 am (Quote)
Often times, women only read what they want to read and ignore the “alternative” suggestions because they come from Midwives and not from Doctors. I’m the type of person where I read everything and make my decision based on all the information rather than half of it.
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Jane Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:51 am (Quote)
But when you read in 5 books that a doctor will perform an episiotomy only when medically necessary, and then your doctor performs an episiotomy because you have a perineum and no other reason, how were you to know you should have read further afield?
I didn’t know until my first birth left me traumatized that it could be any different, or that the hospital didn’t give a damn about me or any other laboring mother. I didn’t know I’d see my OB for five total minutes of my 24 hour labor. I didn’t know because all the sources I read agreed with one another, so I stopped reading about birth and started reading about babies.
For the NEXT birth,I changed everything I was reading and could practically have birthed the baby unassisted (I didn’t) but I was the one calling the shots. Most women don’t know they have to educate themselves until the system gores them and spits them out again.
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Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 am (Quote)
I’m sure a lot of pregnant woman call me intrusive but I talk to them and ask what kind of birth they’re having. If they tell me scheduled c-section I ask them why and then I refer them to read many different things about it and really make an informed decision about if they need one or not. I’m always telling women to go to the ICAN website and read the real statistics because they don’t promote NO c-sections just unnecessary ones. They are also a plethora of other birthing information. If I got even just one mother to birth naturally when she would have opted for unnatural means because it’s “easier” I have done a lot. But, I at least made those other women think about their choice. I’m sure at least a couple of them found out their unnatural births weren’t all they were cracked up to be and their next birth will be that much better for them and the child.
I had a negative first experience and hindsight is always 20/20. That’s why it’s up to women like us to make sure that we help the not so informed women get a little more information, lead them to get the information on their own, so that this butchering of a beautiful experience can be brought down to a minimal occurrence.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 am (Quote)
Initially, you stated that women needed to educate themselves: “if more women in general would educate themselves, not just take Dr’s information for granted and as the end all and be all of necessary information, then Dr’s would think twice about pulling this kind of nonsense because they would have to assume that all women know the difference between necessary procedures and consent.”
Then you continued to lay blame at the feet of the women themselves by stating: “Often times, women only read what they want to read and ignore the “alternative” suggestions because they come from Midwives and not from Doctors. I’m the type of person where I read everything and make my decision based on all the information rather than half of it.”
Only in this last comment have you changed your statements entirely to imply that you simply think we should be educating women. I don’t think anyone would disagree that birth advocates need to make an effort to educate women. What I disagree with is implying that the blame lies with the women themselves for their inability or unwillingness to educate themselves. I realize that sexism in our society is systemic, but I still cringe when we turn around and blame women for the abuses they suffer in maternity care (or elsewhere in their lives). Just as women are not to blame for the rising c-section rates as the media loves to insinuate, women are also not to blame for the current state of maternity care in this country and their routine mistreatment there.
Also, *of course* women in this country are going to believe what their doctor tells them over what some midwife says. Our country places a lot of value on education, and doctors are highly educated. Every mainstream book about childbirth is quick to point out that CPM’s or traditional midwives, which they call “lay” midwives, do not have a standard of education to attain to, and some have licenses and some don’t. Many women in this country choose OB’s because they have a much higher education level. If a woman has chosen an OB due to that, she already feels that she is receiving the best advice and council there is. Why would she listen to the advice of someone she does not respect enough to choose for her delivery? And most don’t respect them enough to even think that anyone should choose them for their delivery. Women are just not going to make a paradigm shift in thinking in the short time they are pregnant and suddenly gather information from all sides.
Also, why do you think that being educated will protect women from abuses in maternity care? Oftentimes being more educated leads them to make choices that go against what the hospital wants them to do, which places them in a position of being at odds with the hospital staff. Suddenly they find themselves fighting during labor and birth, and that is not conducive to having a good experience and not being targeted for assault.
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Sheva Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 am (Quote)
First of all, you are extremely articulate and your comments are very well expressed, so thank you.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. No matter how well we educate ourselves, docs and nurses can be very belligerent, and it’s hard to stand up for yourself during labor, because your emotional energies are directed inward.
Also, I absolutely categorically REFUSE to take the blame for the pain I suffered from misinformation given to me before my first child’s birth. It was not my fault for being uneducated. The blame lies squarely on the shoulder of the ‘med’wife who lied to me about the effects of the medication. Why should I accept the blame for her lie? How many people do I have to ask before I know that I got the right information??
Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 am (Quote)
I believe in personal responsibility. That’s not sexism. That’s reality. I do blame myself partially for the first bad experience because I didn’t take the time to educate myself on all possible avenues my birth could have taken. It’s not sexism every time someone lays blame on the individual if that individual happens to be a wooman. Perhaps, instead of trying to attack my statements and grossly misinterpreting them you can read what I actually said which was it being up to us, the educated, to help the uneducated see things in a different light and then maybe, just maybe, we can reach even one individual and make him or her think.
As I said, hindsight is 20/20. Being that we not have that 20/20 the best thing we can do is not argue with each other for the sake of argument but actually do something about it.
Remember that everyone has to take some personal responsibility for things that they did have even an inkling of control over. The desire to lay the blame on others is a big part of the problem this entire world is facing. I’m not disregarding the lies and blame the Doctors, Nurses and Midwifes are responsible for, I am making sure that people understand their part in the scenario as well.
But, where did I state that I don’t think we should educate other women, thus making my last statement an antithesis of the previous? (That was rhetorical, because I wrote and re-read my posts and know that I never once said that.)
Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:37 am (Quote)
Beth,
You said,”I believe in personal responsibility. That’s not sexism. That’s reality. I do blame myself partially for the first bad experience because I didn’t take the time to educate myself on all possible avenues my birth could have taken. It’s not sexism every time someone lays blame on the individual if that individual happens to be a wooman. Perhaps, instead of trying to attack my statements and grossly misinterpreting them you can read what I actually said which was it being up to us, the educated, to help the uneducated see things in a different light and then maybe, just maybe, we can reach even one individual and make him or her think.”
I did not misinterpret you. What you actually said in your first two comments had nothing to with what we, the “educated”, needed to do. You stated that the “uneducated” needed to educate themselves and then things like this would not happen. That places blame with the women. I didn’t mean you were being sexist by stating that, but when people say these things it reminds me that we come from a very sexist culture where women are often blamed for the abuses they suffer. (e.g. she shouldn’t have been dressed like that or she wouldn’t have been raped, or, what did she do to provoke her partner to make him beat her that way?). No woman deserves to be abused in the course of her maternity care, whether she is educated or not. Education does not protect women from abuse in maternity care, in fact, it seems to me that it is a risk factor for being abused. It is true that people need to have individual responsibility, but not being offered their legal rights to informed consent and refusal, or being forced procedures they clearly say no to, or being manipulated or coerced into having procedures they do not want, is not about a woman not taking responsibility. Those things are about violence and abuse against women. The woman is a victim, not someone who made the wrong choices.
You said, “As I said, hindsight is 20/20. Being that we not have that 20/20 the best thing we can do is not argue with each other for the sake of argument but actually do something about it.”
I am not arguing with you for the sake of argument. I am pointing out that I, and many other women, are tired of being blamed for the abuses we suffered in maternity care. We go into this thinking we are educated, and we think we are making the right choices, and then we are abused and mistreated. It wasn’t our fault, and there is nothing that we did wrong. Just as women who are raped should not be questioned about what they were wearing, I do not want to be questioned about what my “education” level was, and then blamed if it was not up to someone else’s standard. I realize you are not personally questioning me, but I get tired of reading statements like this over and over, that essentially blame women who have been victims of our system.
You said, “Remember that everyone has to take some personal responsibility for things that they did have even an inkling of control over. The desire to lay the blame on others is a big part of the problem this entire world is facing. I’m not disregarding the lies and blame the Doctors, Nurses and Midwifes are responsible for, I am making sure that people understand their part in the scenario as well.”
I will not take any blame for being abused in the course of maternity care. The people in the hospital were bent on acting violently towards me. I did not ask for that, and my education level, or lack of, did NOT warrant “punishment” from them. I have no responsibility in what happened. I was not allowed my legal rights to informed consent and refusal, and I was forced several procedures that I did not want. It was not that I was not educated about what procedures I wanted and did not want, it was that I simply was not allowed a choice in the matter. How is that at all my fault?
You said, “But, where did I state that I don’t think we should educate other women, thus making my last statement an antithesis of the previous? (That was rhetorical, because I wrote and re-read my posts and know that I never once said that.)”
Um, I don’t think that you stated that? Not sure why you are asking me this?
Michelle Potter Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:08 am (Quote)
I don’t say this to be immodest, but I happen to be a very intelligent, self-educated person. I have been a voracious reader since kindergarten (reading biographies of Shakespeare in the 6th grade), and a computer geek from way back (I’ve been blogging nearly ten years and worked for a local ISP before I became a SAHM, so no stranger to the internet and its informative wonders). When I was pregnant the first time, I read everything I could get my hands on. NOTHING that I read while pregnant warned me of the dangers of the two things that brought me down: Pitocin and Demoral. I’d never even heard of them before my first birth. I thought I was informed, but looking back I realize that I knew NOTHING whatsoever about what I was getting into. Not a damn thing.
When I had my first baby, I already had two step-children. My husband had supported his first wife through two natural births, and had experience in fighting (legally — he’d had to get a lawyer) hospital policy when necessary. (If you want to throw a “should” at me, I “should” have listened to him when he wanted to have our baby in a birthing center. I foolishly thought that having my first in the hospital would allow me to get some experience under my belt before having other children with a midwife. Hear that? I wanted MORE education and experience, and that’s what brought me down.) He is also his mother’s son — she was a La Leche League Leader and a natural childbirth advocate as far back as the 70s. I thought I had educated, experienced support. Ha. The nurses laughed him off and told him to mind his own business. He shut up because he didn’t want a repeat of an experience when he tried to stick up for his first wife so the hospital called CPS and accused him of being a wife beater.
I chose the hospital where my son was born based on my husband’s recommendation. The hospital has wonderful policies, beautiful birthing suites, tubs for water birth, etc. My step-son was born there, and it was a terrific experience with no problems. My husband’s first wife experienced severe hyperemesis during pregnancy and was on bed rest and IV fluids toward the end, but still had a great natural birth at this hospital. We wanted to use the same doctor, but he wasn’t available on our insurance. I interviewed literally every doctor with privileges at that hospital who accepted my insurance. I had trouble getting insurance though, so I was four months pregnant by the time I could see a doctor, and only ONE would accept me. I asked him a million questions and he seemed great. Until I was six months pregnant and he suddenly changed his mind about everything, and a month later dropped me as a patient because I wouldn’t bow to his whim. By then I had new insurance, so I got the doctor who delivered my step-son. He’d been so wonderful and supportive of natural birth when my step-son was born, and I was excited. I thought I was lucky and getting the best doctor at the best hospital. I had no clue whatsoever that I’d be drugged into submission and cut open from hip to hip.
My first birth started with Pitocin (just to AUGMENT my labor, they said), then Demoral (a safer alternative to the epidural I’d turned down, they said — really just a way to get me loopy so they could stick the epi in behind my back), and ended with a c-section. I had four more kids after that (3 VBACs followed by a necessary c-section), and every time I tried to get into a birthing center and was turned down. My insurance covered homebirth midwives, just not a single damn one in the fourth largest city in the country with the best medical center in the world (that’s where I live). I couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket. None of the freaking books covered that, either. By the time I was *really* educated, I was stuck with hospitals and OBs. And frankly, at that point, no amount of education saved me from abuse. It just meant that every damn thing was a fight, every time I turned around I was being threatened and lied to. How much does education count when you are physically held down, or when the OB tells you that he basically doesn’t give a crap about what you want and he’s your only option (sure, you can ignore everything he says, but that’s not the same thing as being treated with respect), or when you have to threaten to call the police to stop a hospital from taking your son away for their own convenience, or when you and your husband have to take turns staying awake the whole time you are in the hospital after your baby is born to keep the nurses from taking him while you are asleep, or when your are hospitalized and the doctor who comes to see you LIES about being an OB (should I have asked for ID??), or when you have to choose between having dangerous medication shoved down your throat and checking out AMA when you are actually ill (I chose AMA), or when the doctor who reads your ultrasound doesn’t tell you about the potentially dangerous problem with the placenta (maybe I should have gotten educated on reading ultrasounds myself, huh?) Yes, during my last four births I was educated enough to know that these things would happen. I was educated enough to complain, argue, and fight back when these things happened, but that didn’t stop them from happening. I was educated enough to know that I’d be better off NOT having my baby in a hospital, and eventually I was desperate enough to have an unassisted homebirth since that was my ONLY option outside of a hospital. I had a friend who was a L&D nurse who wanted to come help me, but she would have lost her license. Another friend was told she’d be kicked out of midwifery school just for sitting in the other room while I gave birth. I went to bed one night with a head-down baby, a fingertip dilated, and no contractions, and woke up the next morning gushing water and my baby coming rightthatverysecond feet first and blue. After that, UC was only an option if I didn’t care about my husband’s feelings at all, and I do. So I sent my educated butt back to the hospital for the next one, and the next one, and I grinned and bore it when I was told that VBACs got more and more dangerous the more you had, and that not having seen an OB for prenatal care was grounds for a mandatory c-section. (Argued, and got my way in the end, but again, that’s not the same thing as being treated with respect.)
A few days after I came home from my first baby’s birth, I picked up a book I’d been reading. I’d only been a few pages in when labor started. The whole premise of the book was that doctors are trained to deal with illnesses and injuries, and therefore do more harm than good when dealing with a healthy person. It was mainly about pediatricians, vaccines, well-baby check-ups and the like (like someone else said, I’d finished reading about birth and gone on to reading about babies), but also had a section on pregnancy and birth. One of the first things I read while recovering from my unnecessary c-section was about the overuse and dangers of Pitocin. I cried. At least I’d read the “right” book, just hadn’t read it fast enough.
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Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 am (Quote)
It’s terrible you went through that, horrible. It’s done and you have a choice now. To use that experience to help make other people births better or to remain so angry that one comment gets you this upset. This is a power that YOU hold, knowledge and experience. Not many people would look at it so clearly. They would think, “Thank God the Doctor was there because of all the problems which occurred during my birth.” without even considering that the Doctors may have been the cause of those problems.
Take it and use it, Michelle. Tell EVERY pregnant woman you meet to read up on everything possible. The internet is a vast cauldron of education, lead people in the right direction and tell them not to ignore one piece of information that comes their way, because it just may save them from the bad experiences that we went through.
I was told at 30 weeks, after my entire pregnancy, that a VBAC wasn’t possible because it was new hospital policy. I cried for a week while reading horrible stories of how women were strapped down to hospital beds, police coming to their door and taking them in custody to the hospital to perform unconsented procedures and c-sections…and then I found ICAN and someone led me to a Midwife who was willing to take me so far along and I defied the big bad hospital and delivered naturally at a different one. I happen to be lucky that I live in a suburban area of Long Island, NY and there were choices for me that many in rural areas don’t have, I count my blessings everyday.
Like I said, and will keep on saying, Use The Experience To Make It Better For The Future.
Maybe this isn’t the right forum for me because it seems that much of what I’ve said has been ripped and torn at. I’m changing my subscriptions, sadly, so as not to read nor respond to anything further here.
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Kat Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 am (Quote)
See, I do not understand this attitude. There was a lot of really interesting, helpful discussion here. Info that could benefit everyone from doctors and midwives to mothers and fathers, or doulas. Sure, the people here are passionate, that’s what I love about reading what they have to say. People had questions about stuff you said, the issues were discussed, that’s a good thing. But now you’re leaving because of it? I really don’t get that, and I hope you’ll reconsider when you’ve had time to cool down and think it over.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm (Quote)
I completely agree with everything you said about taking what happened and what I learned and making the best possible use of it, especially educating others. Normally I am much more constructive in my anger about this, but I was already having a bad day today and I just wanted to rant for a second.
For whatever it’s worth, I was never angry at YOU, and I didn’t realize you’d take it that way. I’m sorry about that. I’m angry because I am tired of fighting with doctors and hospitals. I’m angry because there’s a *slight* chance that I’m pregnant (though probably not), and instead of feeling hopeful I feel discouraged because I just don’t want to do this again. And I’m angry because my son got up in the middle of the night and got into mischief, and though that’s unrelated, it did contribute to how easily I got annoyed this morning. So sorry about that, too. (Though, like I said, I wasn’t annoyed at *you* so it did seem safe enough to blow of steam venting about a situation we all agree sucks.)
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Kelly Hanson Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 3:51 am (Quote)
It sounds like most of what you went through wasn’t only unethical or stupid, it was actually illegal so yes, in your situation, no amount of education was going to change much. However, most mothers are not actually being forced into anything. They are choosing it because they have been advised to or because they don’t know about an alternative.
That is not ok. We are mothers and these are our babies and the responsibility for doing the best we can for them lies squarely with us. It’s not the doctor or midwives responsibility to make the best decision for us. It’s their job to do the things they promised us they would do and take the best care of us they can while we are under their care. But we are the ones with skin in the game so the buck stops with us.
Think about it, if something bad happens to our body or our baby during birth your doctor or midwife will be sad, they may even face some peer review or investigation from their superiors but we are the ones who will be forever changed. For them it’s a bad day at the office, for us it’s a defining moment of our life. The responsibility rests squarely with the mother for the choices she makes and the things she allows to be done to her body and her baby before, during and after birth.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 5:45 pm (Quote)
That is a GREAT idea! Refusing payment for unconsented procedures! Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to recall some legal precedent for this. It may have been a lawsuit against a company that was sending out a product unrequested and then demanding payment, I think?
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Beth Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 6:26 pm (Quote)
Actually, I think that was related to magazine and website subscriptions. Also, unconsented subscriptions to phone services on cell phones. That can definitely be a precedent for this type of case though.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 6:32 pm (Quote)
That’s probably it, since I likely read about it on a tech website and that fits.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 7:44 pm (Quote)
If she signed a blanket consent form, that is all the hospital and insurance company will need and she will be liable to pay it. What needs to happen is for those blanket consent forms to be ruled illegal, then doctors would have to start getting consent for individual procedures. As it stands now, they can pretty much “legally” do whatever they want to you once you sign your human rights away at the door.
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Jespren Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm (Quote)
Yeah, I am flat out going to refuse to sign that blanket consent form. (stuck with a hospital birth, no choice)
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 6:59 am (Quote)
I go back and forth on that one. On one hand, I think if I should ever end up in the hospital again I would just not sign the form. But, on the other hand, I feel like that might get me targeted for being abused and mistreated immediately upon arrival.
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Jane Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:21 am (Quote)
OMG, the system sounds like a battering husband. “If only I could be totally compliant, he wouldn’t mistreat me.” 
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 am (Quote)
That is a good analogy. I learned that when you go in fighting, they fight back. And then you come out with PTSD. I don’t advocate for women to go in fighting due to the risk factors of doing so. I am at a loss of what to advocate for at this point though… Removing yourself from the system entirely seems to be the only option, but that is not an option for all women.
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Jane Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 am (Quote)
I just came back to see if I could delete that comment because it might be insensitive. But it does feel as if we’re powerless in some regard. Either we hand over our rights to a doctor who does not care, or we risk mistreatment and abuse, or we have to leave completely.
Having said that,I was VERY fortunate in that I was able to change insurance companies in order to change to a provider which allowed me to have three relatively intervention-free deliveries at the hospital. But they were probably figuring they were punishing me after my last hospital birth when they stuck me all the way at the end of the corridor and never checked on me. (Actually, I loved it.)
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Jespren Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am (Quote)
I think a woman is more likely to end up with PTSD when they have to fight and they don’t expect it than if they go in ready and expecting a fight. After all, in other areas, PTSD is more likley to happen after an unexpected stressure than after an expected one (soldiers who expect to go into battle are less likely to have difficulties than ones who suddenly find themselves in a war zone). I expect that refusing to sign that blanket waiver will 1) immediately put me in the ‘bad patient’ category and likely to cause strife and 2) will immediately let them know that I am serious and trying to push me isn’t going to work. I’m expecting a fight and am going in ready for it. If it happens, it will be what I was prepared for, if it doesn’t, then I will get to be pleasantly surprised. What’s the phrase? “Plan for the worst, hope for the best”. I’m in a hospital setting for prenatal care/birth against my wants/wishes, I know I’m in the middle of the ‘worst’ already!
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Jane Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:30 am (Quote)
I had PTST and PPD after my first birth. I never expected to be manhandled and lied to the way I was. I honestly thought the hospital was there to safeguard my health and the baby’s health, but because of what they did, I’d have been better off delivering alone in a ditch. I know I’m bitchy nowadays, but they made me that way.
My second baby died after birth. It was a known birth defect and we’d been preparing for her death since her diagnosis. We had awesome midwives (hospital) and a good birth plan. I called the shots. In my experience, it was actually easier to “recover” from the death of my daughter than the birth of my son.
(Emily’s story is here,but I don’t recommend pregnant women read it b/c it’s sad: http://www.janelebak.com/ctt/emilyrose.html
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:29 am (Quote)
Jespren,
I see what your saying and I think you are right that it is more likely you would get PTSD if you did not expect the fight. This is why I think it’s dangerous to tell women that they can just refuse this or choose not to do that, and they have the power and the control and then send them in to a system that has no intentions of giving up power or control. I think it’s a huge shock when she walks into a system that fights back, and manipulates and coerces and forces her to comply. This is why, though I think educating women is overall beneficial, it can also increase her risk factor for being abused and getting PTSD. In your situation, you may have less of a risk factor for PTSD since you expect the fight, however, being in the vulnerable state of labor coupled with raising your fight or flight/panic responses, as well as placing yourself in a position where they will want to fight back, I think may still place you at greater risk of either experiencing trauma or abuse, or both. I hate to say that, because I know your options are limited, and I have nothing to back this up with aside from personal observation, but I would personally be very careful about implementing a plan that consisted of fighting while in labor.
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Jespren Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 5:51 am (Quote)
I expect it will put me in a situation more likely to cause abuse, redicule, or resistance. I also expect that my baby will be safer for it, which, to me, is the most important thing. Two things I am afraid of: 1) the stress causing stalled labor and 2) court orders by overzealous medical workers. I had a traumatic first birth (due to physical trauma/birth complications not the midwife attending, although the doctors at the hospital we had to transfer to after the birth didn’t help) and I feel that going in guns blazing and with my will set is the only way I can deal with the situation of being forced to birth in a hospital. I realize that for most people it may not be the best course, but I didn’t get ‘labor fog’ first time around (which everyone assumed was because I’m a chronic pain sufferer) and have my husband and a doula to help me and back me up. I don’t like it, but I feel like it I go in with any less fortitude I will end up being abused/traumatized again because I’ll either have to garner that will in the midst of labor or accept interventions/treatments I don’t want/don’t believe are medically in my/my child’s best interest. Thank you for your concern, its well founded, anyone going in ready for a fight, better be actually mentally aware and ready for it.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 6:59 am (Quote)
Well, it seems you’ve thought this through. Good luck with your plan! You might want to arrive with a lot of cookies for the nurses, maybe you can get them on your side 
Sheva Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am (Quote)
This worked for me! I had a beautiful home birth and then 3 days later I had to bring my baby to the hospital for the bili-lights because he was yellow. (Never again.) Anyway, I was in no shape to take care of myself and wanted someone to stay with me. And even though my son was the ONLY CHILD IN THE ENTIRE WARD they wouldn’t let someone stay with me. Hospital policy, only the parent of the child can stay. Half an hour later, an advocate came up with some donuts and coffee for the gaggle of nurses needed to take care of the one baby in the ward, and suddenly the chair near my bed was available for my father to sit in while he kept me company through the night.
So arbitrary, but whatever works…
Chocolate works great, too, by the way.
Kat Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 am (Quote)
Jane, I understood what you were trying to say. It didn’t offend me. And the system IS abusive. Women should NOT have to fear retaliation for speaking up and asking for evidence-based care. I “bucked the system” with my youngest child’s birth, but I had already discussed what I wanted ahead of time with the midwife (she told me “I spent the last few years brainwashing the nurses there so they will believe things like eating during labor and water births are normal”). I also talked with a pediatrician who has privileges at that hospital so she would be on my team.
Even so, one neonatal nurse wasn’t pleased with me and told me to “think really hard” about what I was doing leaving the hospital 5 hours after giving birth. Obviously after parenting 4 newborns including one born at home I must be such a novice and completely inept.
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Jane Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:32 am (Quote)
They did whatever they could to discourage me from leaving early too. Except after my baby died, when the nursing staff lied to me in order to get me out. They promised I could have one at-home nurse visit if I left that day, and after I signed the paperwork to leave the hospital, they said, “Oh, and you won’t be getting that nurse visit.” I said f-it, I’ll go home and bleed to death, that’s fine, and I went home. That had nothing to do with my midwives, though. Sometimes you really don’t have the wherewithall to fight for yourself.
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Kat Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am (Quote)
I am so sorry that happened to you Jane. The death of a baby is hard enough, why medical personnel think it’s their job to make it worse is beyond me. After my late son was born and had just been airlifted by helicopter to the Children’s Hospital with no way to know whether he’d even be alive by morning, one of the ER nurses told me I had put them through a lot that night. I was too physically and emotionally drained to say anything at the time, but later I realized the absolute gall of what she said. My child later died, but hey, as long as it didn’t further inconvenience the ER staff.
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Michelle Potter had this to say,
Dec 21, 2009 @ 5:42 pm (Quote)
First, this mom was clearly mistreated and has every right to be upset. IMO, NO medical treatment, certainly not anything that has to be done in the OR, should be performed on a woman without first explaining to her what they want to do, why, what the risks are, what the risks of *not* doing it are, and then getting her explicit consent. It’s bad enough when doctors just bustle in and start doing things without explanation; it’s even worse to refuse to answer the patient’s questions or respond to her when she mentions that said procedure was not listed on the consent form she signed. And no patient should have to fight for her rights when she’s already on the table in the OR, presumably anesthetized, after a procedure to which she *had* consented. (Presumably.)
However, from a legal and practical standpoint, is it technically “without consent” if a doctor says he’s going to do something and you don’t say no? I’m having trouble figuring out how to word this, but… If I knew that a doctor was about to do something to me, like say a D&C, and I was fine with that, I probably wouldn’t explicitly say, “Yes, I consent to that,” unless I was explicitly asked. (I think the patient SHOULD be explicitly asked, though.) I, and I think most people, would simply allow the D&C to be done. I’m pretty sure this is legally called “implied consent.” I don’t like that this gray area exists — as I said, I think patients should be explicitly asked and consent explicitly given or refused — but I think that considering that it’s how MANY doctor-patient interactions currently work, it’s reasonable for the doctor to think he has consent unless told otherwise. Regardless, it’s still wrong that they deferred the mother’s questions until “after,” and that they never actually answered those questions.
I hope I was able to express this without making the mother feel that I am dismissing her pain.
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Jennifer Z. Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 8:00 pm (Quote)
Legally, informed consent and refusal means that a patient is given the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a proposed treatment (or non-treatment) and then allowed to choose or refuse the proposed treatment. Clearly that did not happen here, so legally she was not given the option of informed consent. However, in maternity care, they get past the legal laws of informed consent by having all patients sign a blanket consent form upon arrival to the hospital. Physicians feel this gives them the legal right to perform any procedure without getting additional informed consent for each procedure. Some go so far as to state that it is legal to perform a procedure even if the mother objects, as long as she signed that blanket consent form. So far, very few cases have been able to successfully challenge this issue.
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First of all, send a letter of complaint to the administrator of the hospital, and the head of OB/GYN, if applicable. It’s worth the few dollars it costs to get copies of your medical records so you can name names (of everyone in the room who heard you and ignored you).
Also, you can CC the same letter to the Department of Health and Senior Services in your state.
There’s one more thing – http://www.jointcommission.org/
They regulate all health care facilities and if the hospital conforms to their code they can get government aid and Medicare and Medicaid payments. No hospital can stay open without this aid. They *don’t* want you complaining to these people.Enough complaints can get them in trouble.
On the lower left hand side is a button to click to lodge a complaint.
Good luck!!
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Those are great steps for individuals to take but what about collective action?
at one hospital I used to work at when a woman complained to the ombudsman because her OB screamed at her, the only action she got was that she was dismissed from his practice
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Heather (qtberryhead) had this to say,
Dec 21, 2009 @ 10:35 pm (Quote)
I think it’s terrible that any woman is backed into a corner when she is in the midst of having a baby. It’s almost impossible for the most informed woman to be able to stand up for herself in most hospital circumstances.
I also think it’s safe to say that when any of us comment and say “I would have…” it is implied that what follows is what we would have liked to have been in a position mentally/physically/emotionally to say. I have yet to read a comment on here that belittled or insulted the “commentee” in any way.
My own hospital admissions form was mangled by the time I got done with it. I crossed stuff off, I added things…and the reason I did that was because I had read somewhere (Thank you anonymous author) that I could. At the bottom of the form I also wrote “Nothing without prior written consent.” I don’t know if that mattered or not…but I do recall signing a lot of forms while I was laboring.
When I handed over my initial signed forms, the nurse looked at them and said “You can’t do that.” to which I responded “Then send me home.”
They didn’t send me home, but I know my actions gave my single 18 year old self some leverage.
To the mom who submitted this comment…please let us know what happens. The only way we can improve any of the situations that end up as posts here is by learning from them, and curtailing such things in the future.
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Alice Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 am (Quote)
Wow, I didn’t know you could cross stuff out and write stuff in. Is it legally valid if you do that? If so, I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future, though hopefully I’ll never have to be in a hospital when I give birth again.
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jane Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 am (Quote)
I do that on my children’s school permission forms all the time. I write in things like e”except due to negligence”. They then took to putting lines at the bottom like “This form may not be modified,” and I crossed that off and initialed the deletion.
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Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 am (Quote)
A contact can only go as far as the law will allow it. If that wasn’t the case than people giving out loans can demand %100 interest and get it. Even though ‘negligence’ wasn’t built into the contract it is still the schools responsibility to make sure that students they take on trips are kept safe. If there is any negligence on their part they will be responsible. But, I’m glad that you altered the contract, nonetheless to cover yourself.
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Naomi Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:39 am (Quote)
I like that Jane…My FIL is a judge and it seems form and all that crap will only legal take us so far when the hospital system is so big and powerful (with the best lawyers and the general populous on their side most of the time). He actualy donates a bit every year to the hospital that forceably kept my newborn son with security guards!
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Beth Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:36 am (Quote)
I think that hospitals take advantage of a laboring mom. With my second I was in so much labor pain that I wouldn’t have had the energy or attention span to read a contract before signing it. They should have the moms do this before the labor starts, like send them home with a package. But, that would just give the moms and dads time to read it and question it and even, maybe, change their minds.
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:14 am (Quote)
Alice–I know, right? Unless I’d read that I could alter it (I mean, it shocked the nurse), I wouldn’t have imagined it possible. To me, those forms are worded in such a way that you basically consent to everything. While some of the “consent” part of the form is reasonable, much of it is so vague and general that it’s ridiculous. On my original form (16 years ago) it actually said that they were authorized to take pictures. In the situation of giving birth, I did not see that as something that would need to be done by staff. That’s just one example though. (I have a 16yo, my brain is toast right now). Also Alice, I highly suggest staying home to have the next one if you are capable of doing so.
Jane–I also massacre my kids school forms. More specifically the attendence one. I, not the district, will decide when/if my child needs to miss school. I understand that missing a lot of school is a problem, I also know puking in class is kind of annoying.
Beth–OMG, hospitals totally take advantage of a woman’s state of mind. In my situationm, I was not in active labor, but my water was broken.
I think that this entire discussion reinforces the idea of utilizing a doula. As moms, we really don’t have the learning curve that a doulas perspective can offer. After my hospital birth I wasn’t able to look back and think that I could “correct” enough of that nastiness in order to confidently enter into another hospital delivery. So I didn’t, I gave birth at home. I also know that is not an option for everyone. Doulas pick up on hinky things everytime they attend ANY labor…and I think that gives them the ability to research and discuss those things in order to find ways to address them at future births. Moms don’t get that level of experience…we’ll never be able to birth enough babies to have it all figured out. Although no amount of experiece would grant that, the more the better.
There is a place for OB’s in maternity care and many moms and babies would not be here without them. I’m just not sure that I trust an OB to decide that for me.
I also think that we are swimming against the current in a society that believes in blind faith regarding medicine. I believed in natural birth, and educated myself on it before having my first baby and I know that the information I had, kept me from being manipulated in ways that I have seen other moms be manipulated. It didn’t save me from a negative experience though. Many women are fortunate to have alternative birthing options around them from the beginning, and be raised with an attitude that pregnancy and birth is natural. More often I think that women end up turning to alternative options because the ones they initially had faith in proved to be traumatic or even dangerous. I’m just grateful that many of the girls in our lives will benefit from being raised with healthier attitudes about pregnancy and birth.
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Sheva Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm (Quote)
I have 2 girls, my friend has 5, and we are both very determined that our girls will know their options. We talk to them now (they’re all under 10 years old!) and tell them about our home births, birth in water, how we love our midwives, that pregnancy is not an illness, etc. Anything to make them be excited about birth, and not afraid. They know it hurts, but they also know that a doula and a midwife can help, and that it’s worth it, to have your baby at the end.
If nothing else, we can all educate our next generation (and any of our friends who haven’t tired of listening to us), so that at least something good can come of all this hurt…
I just read a snippet from a book called “Open Season” – a book about VBACs and healing from previous experiences. A beautiful, easy-to-read book that may hopefully give comfort to some of us.
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm (Quote)
That’s the way we should raise our girls…boys too.
My daughter was 3 when she informed my brothers (who were 11)that babies come out your “girl parts”. My stepmom was happy to let the boys believe that they came out your belly button, so she actually contradicted my daughter who replied “Nope. My mom has books, I’ve seen pictures. They come out your girl parts.”
My stepmom really isn’t simple minded like that, she just didn’t want to have that conversation right then, but my daughter was having none of that nonsense.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 am (Quote)
I have three daughters, and I talk to them about this, too. I’ve had conversations with my oldest daughter (11) about some of the comments on this site, and how insane they are. (My younger two daughters aren’t really ready for in-depth conversations, but they listen in when big sis and I talk.) I always say, “Of course having a baby hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt. It’s worth it.”
I agree that boys should know this stuff, too. I think it’s good for dads to talk about it with sons, not *just* moms. Boys need a role model to show them that caring about how their children come into the world is manly, and supporting and protecting his wife in childbirth is part of a husband’s job.
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Alice Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 am (Quote)
I was planning a homebirth but developed pre-eclampsia, so, hospital and induction. Alas. Hoping next time I’ll have better luck.
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 am (Quote)
I’m so sorry Alice. Have you had your baby then? I hope everything is OK.
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I am the mom that went through this. I actually had an unassisted Birth and transferred because of hemorrhaging. My son was posterior with a nuchal hand so I had two internal tears and a second degree tear. The OB didn’t come to stitch me up until almost 24 hours after the birth. When he was suturing me I was in so much pain because he was reopening the tears. He also didn’t see the internal tears at first so he was pulling on them without any numbing medication. He said he was going to suture me in the OR because I was squirming too much. I signed a consent form that said I was going in for vaginal repair. I didn’t fight about the D & C while in the OR because I thought maybe they are doing it because I had hemorrhaged. Although, I had brought my placenta to the hospital and the OB never even looked at it. If he was doing the procedure to make sure I did not have retained placenta he could have saved money and time by looking at the placenta. I had also stopped bleeding at that point so it was really unnecessary. A midwife I spoke to even confirmed that it was unnecessary. But at the time I had been through so much I wasn’t thinking things through that well. I just *knew* that something was off but that was it.
When I got the bill I was pretty upset and was about ready to fight it but when I re-read the consent form it said something along the lines of “the doctor can perform any medical procedure deemed necessary”.
It frustrated me a lot because they had me sign the form literally at the doors of the OR minutes before they did the spinal block. I had no time to read through it or really any of the forms I signed. If I ever end up in a hospital again I am going to read every word on every form no matter how long it takes me.
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am (Quote)
Liz–I’m so sorry. It sounds like the entire event was traumatic…and I’m so sorry for that. It seems that you were grossly mistreated because of the fact you didn’t actually deliver in the hospital…which is a bunch of crap. It scares me to think that women who have birthed at home might hesitate to seek medical attention if there are problems.
Although you may not have any “legal” recourse regarding this event, I would still suggest you write something up and mail them to the appropriate people at the hospital, and also to your insurance provider. Even if nothing comes from it, you just might feel better. (I would anyway)
Come to think of it though, I believe that you may actually have a valid argument as to the validity of the signed consent because of the fact you signed it under duress. I think that it’s possible to get a copy of admissions forms ahead of time in order to look them over…it’s a little annoying to have someone tapping their foot while you read through forms before signing your life away.
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Molly Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm (Quote)
You’re right, women who birth at home and need to transfer are routinely treated poorly once they get to the hospital. I know because this happened to me. The doctors and nurses at the hospital were so incredibly hostile toward me and unnecessarily inflicted pain on me, on purpose, even when I asked them to stop.
My son was born at home but he had some complications (meconium aspiration and shoulder dystocia), and once we got to the hospital the OB pulled my placenta out because it has been “too long”, and I hemorrhaged so I needed to stay in the hospital too. The whole 4 days I was there, plus the 18 days my son was in the NICU, everytime it came up that I had a home birth, they ridiculed me, saying I was stupid and if I had birthed in the hospital in the first place me and my son wouldn’t have the problems we had.
I can’t help but feel that everyone in the hospital birth business are horrible people.
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm (Quote)
Hahaha! Yes, you should have had your baby at the hospital, because as we all know, horrible crap never happens in the hospital. It’s all daisies and butterflies and everyone goes home happy. That’s why there’s this site…so we can talk about how wonderful the obstetrical community is.(Please tell me everyone knows I’m kidding??)
When I planned my homebirth, my doula and I were discussing the issue with a casual acquaintance who was an L&D nurse. She popped off some snarky remark about homebirth transfers and about how they “really need their c-sections” (when they transfer). My doula leaned over and whispered “Yeah, and they’re probably the ONLY ones who need c-sections.”
In my ideal world, hospital staff would recognize that their rightful place in the birthing process should be in cases of emergencies or high risk situations. Of course, in the real world, that’s not the attitude, and that’s not what’s taught or accepted. But you’re welcome to move to my ideal world if you’d like.
IMO you did right by yourself and your child by birthing at home, and when there was a problem you did the responsible thing and transferred to a hospital for further care. That doesn’t mean you’re stupid…that means you’re SMART.
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Jespren Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am (Quote)
We had to transfer to the hospital for about the same reasons (only our little one had a hypoxic brain injury and had to be on ECMO because the MecAsp was so severe, 32 day NICU stay), and the doctors were horrible. But a few of the NICU nurses, after hearing the story, especially how stuck he was, said quietly “thank God you had a midwife!” more than a year later my husband and I are still furious with the doctor who wrote in the chart (and I’ve posted this in the replies before so yes, I’m repeated myself) ‘despite a home birth parents have a normal interest in child’s health’
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Molly Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm (Quote)
Oh my GOD, thats the most disgusting thing I have ever heard a doctor say, “despite a home birth parents have a normal interest in child’s health”… I am speechless, which doesn’t happen often!
Im sorry you’re child had such a bad time of it. My son’s MAS was kind of a mystery, in that everything was cleared out easily but he still wasn’t absorbing oxygen well. Most MAS babies with my son’s level of severity went home within a few days, but my son was in the NICU for 18 days because of low O2 sats. Who knows…
I did have one nurse who said something similar about the expertise of midwives, related to the shoulder dystocia. My midwife did the Gaskin Maneuver to get his shoulder unstuck and the dystocia was therefore very mild, no PT needed and the injury resolved itself in a couple days.
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Mirage Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 5:13 pm (Quote)
Wow Jenspren that makes me absolutely sick! What a nasty bitter thing for that doc to have dared to write on your chart! The birth mortality rate in this country sucks enough as it is. If it weren’t for midwives it would be alot worse. Thank God for midwives!
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm (Quote)
Liz, that is terrible. There is just absolutely no excuse for performing such an invasive procedure without getting *informed* and *explicit* consent. It’s totally reasonable if you are lying there in the OR and the doc suddenly is getting ready to do a D&C for you to think it must be necessary. You tried to get more information, and they ignored you. I’m SO, SO sorry that you were treated that way.
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Knitted in the Womb had this to say,
Dec 23, 2009 @ 7:09 pm (Quote)
Wow Michelle…you’ve been on quite the journey!
For what it is worth…I do want to mention that babies are blue inutero, and only pink up after they start breathing. I’m sure it was really scary to see your baby being born footling breech—that would frighten me too. But hopefully you can reframe the “blue” issue a bit (I hope he/she pinked up pretty quickly once the head was out?)
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 11:44 am (Quote)
Thanks for the encouragement, but this was not a “normal” blue. This was a very deep, “something is obviously very, very wrong” blue. She was born not breathing, and the paramedics said her initial APGAR was 3-4. She was given oxygen and intubated, though on the way to the hospital she did begin to breathe on her own. At the hospital she had numerous scans and tests to check for brain damage, but all came back clean. Her only problems were a very minor case of Erb’s Palsy that healed on its own after 4 days, and what *might* have been one seizure, but was never confirmed, obviously caused no damage, and never recurred.
Like someone said in another thread, I was very lucky. My daughter could easily have died or been brain damaged. It’s my belief that vaginal birth is very dangerous for a footling breech baby, and even ICAN suggests that a c-section may be a good option in this situation. However, I also believe that my attempted UC was the best possible setting for her birth. Because she was head down the night before, and had been for two weeks, there was no way of knowing she was going to be born footling breech. Because of how fast she came, I would have had to have been IN the hospital already when labor started to have an emergency c-section. (I’ve read that it takes 30 minutes to get into the OR and be ready for an emergency c-section. At the 30 minute point in my labor, my daughter was already partially out.) Because of the time she was born, and where we lived in relation to the hospital, if we had rushed out the door to the hospital the second my water broke, we would not have gotten to the hospital in time, and probably would have been stuck in traffic on the overpass when she was born, difficult for the ambulance to reach. However, because of where we lived in relation to the firehouse, the paramedics reached us in less than 5 minutes. Finally, because we were planning a UC, we’d been hounded for nine months by friends and family asking, “What if this happens, what if that happens?” and had made emergency plans. My husband was gloved up and about to extract our daughter when the paramedics arrived, and they actually asked if he wanted to do it. He only let them so he could start calling around for prayers. On the way to the hospital, the paramedic who actually delivered our daughter told my husband that despite his years of training and having 3 kids himself, he didn’t think he would have handled this situation as well as my husband did.
I firmly believe that having planned a UC saved my daughter’s life, despite the fact that her birth was a serious emergency that required immediate transport to the hospital and nearly a week in the NICU. And as for me, I felt like the fact of our preparedness, involvement, and that getting additional help was our decision — as opposed to being in a hospital bed giving birth and suddenly everyone goes into emergency-mode and we don’t even know what’s going on — made a huge difference in how I mentally and emotionally processed what happened. I’d have another UC without hesitation if my husband was up for it.
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Liz had this to say,
Nov 24, 2011 @ 7:02 am (Quote)
I am the OP. I just wanted to add that I just recently found out that this hospital is being investigated for insurance fraud. I guess the hospital admins were pressuring doctors to diagnose problems and perform procedures that would get them more money from insurance companies. I wonder if that is the reason the D&C was performed, but I can’t prove it.
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John Allen had this to say,
Jan 6, 2012 @ 12:24 pm (Quote)
OMG, do you see whats occurring in Syria? Despite a brutal government crackdown, the demonstrations continue
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WHAT? Are you serious? But, why?
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