Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
28
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“He Doesn’t Have To Be Present.”
He doesn’t have to be present.” -L&D nurse to mother who stated that she would like to talk to her husband before making a decision about postpartum visits.
There are 59 comments to this post.
But he is part of the decision making process. Although at this point I have no idea what the decision even is. My first thought is that the nurse wants a decision NOW. My second thought is that the nurse didn’t even listen to the question that was asked, but answered the one she was expecting to get instead. Communications break down somewhere.
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This happened to me. I was 5 months pregnant and visiting this specific clinic to get a pregnancy confirmation for insurance purposes. She was asking about my interest in “Postpartum Newborn Home Visits” which is an elective service of a nurse visiting your home after the baby is born once a month.
After I politely declined again until I spoke with my husband about it, the nurse then said “You can do it without him knowing.” I clarified that I understood but I would like to speak with him about this decision over our child. After an awkward pause and her writing something down, she looked me in the eyes and asked, “Are you safe at home?” I could feel the flush come to my face after I almost hysterically answered that YES, I was most certainly safe at home. I was so irritated I could have burst.
She then said she’d put me down for some sort of adolescent services that involves visits more than once a month (I was 19 and apparently those under 21 are considered for this particular program). I then said, “You go ahead and do that, and when they call, I’ll decline any and all visits.” And I indeed received a phone call after my baby was born about a visit.
This same nurse, prior to the above scenario, asked if I wanted to keep the baby as she confirmed my pregnancy (I had made it clear that I was pregnant and that the only reason I was there was for insurance purposes).
After the appointment was over, she then smiled and encouraged me to come bring the baby in so they could meet her.
Yeah right.
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Cmat Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 12:24 pm (Quote)
What a trip! Let me make you feel awkward and all that good stuff, then request to see your baby! Haha.
I think I would have reacted the same way you did. I declined those visits too, they tried to push them a bit and I basically said “Look, I’ve worked in childcare for 7 years and have worked with ages infant through school age, I’ll be juuuuuuust fine.” and they stopped. Thank goodness.
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Jane Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 12:40 pm (Quote)
They all ask if you’re safe at home (with the exception of the homebirth midwives, whom I suspect were assessing my opinion of my marriage during those lovely long appointments.) There are also signs up in the women’s bathrooms at my ex-OB’s office.
I had the opposite situation with a nurse after I delivered my baby (the baby that died.) I asked if I could go home 12 hours after the birth, and they said I’d be entitled to have two home nurse visits to make sure I wasn’t bleeding to death. I said sure, whatever.
The nurse brought me the forms to sign to be released from the hospital, and after I signed, she said, “Oh, and we won’t be sending you a home nurse for a visit.”
I said, “Fine. I’ll go home and bleed to death.” It had just been one of those days. And yes, they let me go after I said that, and no, no nurse came to make sure I wasn’t bleeding to death. :-b
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KristiLee Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:40 pm (Quote)
I had an opposite experience as well… it’s funny how backwards their signs are!! I was 13 and getting on birth control without my parents knowing… got an STD and had it treated and no one alerted any authorities even then. The ticket that makes this so fantastic and a HUGE reason why I despise the agenda of these clinics – I was being abused by an older man, 3 times my age. So… yea, it annoyed me when they decided to take THIS experience as me being unsafe at home… GRR!
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 12:51 pm (Quote)
Grrrr. I have run into this attitude, too. Just because a woman wants to discuss a decision with her husband doesn’t mean he’s an abuser. IMO, the fact that a husband and wife discuss things before making decisions is a sign of a GOOD marriage, not an abusive one!!
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GranolaRN Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:02 pm (Quote)
In the nurse’s defense, you probably really did set off her Domestic Violence alarm. To her, the nurse visits are probably a great service and she couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t want to take advantage of it. She probably interpreted what you said as “I have to ask his permission” and got worried.
A woman is never at more risk for domestic violence than when she is pregnant. The leading cause of death during pregnancy is homicide. We screen everyone, multiple times, because it is more prevalent than anyone would like to believe and is literally a matter of life and death.
So I know she offended you but I hope you can understand that she probably was truly concerned about you because she misinterpreted your reasons for wanting to talk to your husband first about the nurse visits, and was really just trying to help.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:41 pm (Quote)
I’ve worked at a domestic violence shelter, and in several positions where I’ve been a “mandatory reporter” for child abuse. In some states, this means that you have to take a workshop about it once a year. The nurse could simply have been fresh from that workshop & too much in that mindset (it’s easy to leave those things thinking lots of things that are, in fact, quite normal, are abuse). Or she could simply have been someone who is ridiculous about such things. Also, it helps to keep in mind the nature of the clinic you went to–are most of the patients likely to be girls “in trouble”, and ladies with shaky home situations getting care anywhere they can? I had to take my daughter in for a physical for insurance reasons last year, and we didn’t have a regular dr. of any sort, so I took her to the county clinic. In the SF Bay Area, so the clinic people were just not used to having middle-class patients, with a stable home, whose first language is English and it showed. They were even wanting to make sure we had enough books for the kids (for the kid who would honestly rather have a “new” book from the thrift store book than a candy bar–we have a ridiculous collection of kid books), and asking if we owned guns (which I politely declined to answer, as it’s not their business), but the dr. was just asking questions down her list, not anything about us in particular. I may have been asked if we were safe at home, too. I don’t remember, and my husband was with me, but he stayed in the waiting room & did paperwork.
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Tracy Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 3:13 pm (Quote)
I was offered similar visits after the birth of my first. I was 17. Come to find out, the “home nurse visits” were sponsored by the state- partially funded by CPS, to check up on families they had no real reason to check up on.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 4:04 pm (Quote)
Honestly, I might have had them offered, too, through Missouri’s Parents As Teachers program. But I was already well aware that such things are at least partly “fishing expeditions” for CPS workers–and what they are allowed to consider abusive is FAR too subjective. Your family is much safer if you never EVER allow them into your house without a warrant. Even if you never even raise your voice to your kids & your house would pass a white glove test.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 5:42 pm (Quote)
Oh, I HATE dealing with those well-meaning “caseworkers” and their persistent refusal to take you at your word, because as we all know, if you fit a certain “at risk” demographic pattern, you are either an idiot, an abused victim, or a person who leads a lifestyle that is unhealthy for parenting – and at any rate, if you fit any of these descriptions, your word means nothing and should be totally ignored.
I’ve dealt with way too many of them, mostly because I’ve been on Medicaid, I think (because poor mothers are obviously “at risk.”)
So I’ve been steered aggressively (but oh so caringly) to parent-as-teacher role model programmes.
And reminded persistently about vaccination schedules and appointments that simply must be kept. Or else.
Been forced to sit through forty five minutes of patronizingly simple talk about what HIV is and how it can cause AIDs and the danger that could put my baby in, because I declined to be HIV tested (I have been a peer counselor on HIV in the past, I think I know all about it.)
Been asked, repeatedly, if I feel safe at home and if I have anything, anything at all, I need to confide in someone about. Anything! I am safe, right? Am I sure?
Been asked point blank, in several successive appointments, if I use any street drugs or alcohol, and if I know that quitting smoking is a good idea (I have never smoked in my life, I think smoking is disgusting, and my parents, who were chain smokers and who never did a single thing to protect me from their smoke, nearly killed me when I was five by refusing to abstain or smoke out of doors for my sake when I had a case of bronchitis that nearly put me in the hospital.)
Been told about these nice parenting classes where I can meet my peers, learn the best way to care for my children, and earn points toward a gift card at Target or Wal-Mart. Really, I ought to go. At least once. Don’t I want to learn the best way to care for my children and have a little fun socializing with other new mothers?
Been offered information about job training and GED classes. (I have a master’s in English from the University of Oxford. I’ll pass on the GED, thanks.)
Oh, yes, and been reported to CPS. (Once for breastfeeding in plain view in the NICU, and several years later, twice by a kindergarten teacher who didn’t like my questioning her teaching methods and decided to teach me a little lesson about respecting my “betters.”)
In addition, I have been on the receiving end of generically rude, brusque, highly impersonal treatment on various and sundry occasions, most recently when I went to a local health clinic to sign up for sliding-scale dental treatment and to apply for childrens’ Medicaid, and pregnancy-package Medicaid so that I can get my tubes tied postpartum after this last child is born. Somehow I wound up being steered into their “community midwifery care” programme, which I wasn’t interested in, because I have my own midwife and already paid her up front, thanks. Only went a couple of times. It wasn’t just that I already contracted a very experienced direct entry midwife who spends an hour or so with me at each appointment and treats me like a human being. I wasn’t opposed to having the clinic in the background, because it was backed by doctors, and in the highly unlikely event of a serious medical emergency, it would be nice to have a doctor who backs midwives on hand rather than somebody assigned to me at the emergency room. but I don’t want to go back. I hate being treated like ignorant dirt.
So there it is.
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KristiLee Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:35 pm (Quote)
Well meaning case-workers violate so many of our rights – children and parents alike. I’ll give the nurse that much. Who knows… if she’d not given me such a terrible experience I might have welcomed them into my home and regretted it. Great service or not… I’m not interested in them being in what is none of their business. If I have a question or need help – I’ll reach out. 
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 7:17 pm (Quote)
Yeah, I got reported once, too. By the first pediatrician I took my newborn daughter to. He screwed up the math converting her weight from pounds and ounces to grams, decided she wasn’t gaining fast enough (NOT true, she was over her birth weight and less than 10 days old–I had a perfectly good baby scale at home & checked her daily) & started working on undermining breastfeeding, which I didn’t need to have anymore trouble with, just then!–then reported me to CPS when, with the advice of my midwife, I changed to the pediatrician in the next town, who actually had some sense. I never let the CPS person past my front door, did show her the baby, but did not let her hold her–and I told her that, if she really just wanted to hold the baby, she was welcome to come back off-duty, but she wasn’t touching her on-duty. Oh–and we were running the tavern that was downstairs from our house, I had a newborn, and had only been home a few days from having been in a major car wreck, given birth a month early, and spending a week at the NICU 150 miles from home with said new baby. Oh, and my parents (from WI) had just left for home. So my house was a WRECK. But my child was clean and well-cared for.
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Umm Abdullah Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 4:46 pm (Quote)
I went through this too, because I was on medicaid(and 19, and happily married!).
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Umm Abdullah Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 4:56 pm (Quote)
I also had to deal with the nurse visit thing. In the hospital I agreed to it, then decided against it, and once the nurse came to our home, I told her we really didn’t need a nutritionist to make sure baby is being fed, RN to make sure our unvaxed baby is getting vaxed, and a social worker(for everything else) all coming to our home. I got 4 or 5 more phone calls from the same or similar agencies trying to send people to my home, after I told them no. I finally had to lose my cool to get them to back off! its been a long time and they haven’t called back!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 28, 2010 @ 7:54 am (Quote)
All right, Nurse “I’m In Control Here, Not You,” pipe down and let the mother have her request. Technically the husband doesn’t have to be present, but there’s a little problem in that you aren’t the mother, SHE is, and she asked for her husband. So go get him.
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This happened to me. I was 5 months pregnant and visiting this specific clinic to get a pregnancy confirmation for insurance purposes. She was asking about my interest in “Postpartum Newborn Home Visits” which is an elective service of a nurse visiting your home after the baby is born once a month.
After I politely declined again until I spoke with my husband about it, the nurse then said “You can do it without him knowing.” I clarified that I understood but I would like to speak with him about this decision over our child. After an awkward pause and her writing something down, she looked me in the eyes and asked, “Are you safe at home?” I could feel the flush come to my face after I almost hysterically answered that YES, I was most certainly safe at home. I was so irritated I could have burst.
She then said she’d put me down for some sort of adolescent services that involves visits more than once a month (I was 19 and apparently those under 21 are considered for this particular program). I then said, “You go ahead and do that, and when they call, I’ll decline any and all visits.” And I indeed received a phone call after my baby was born about a visit.
This same nurse, prior to the above scenario, asked if I wanted to keep the baby as she confirmed my pregnancy (I had made it clear that I was pregnant and that the only reason I was there was for insurance purposes).
After the appointment was over, she then smiled and encouraged me to come bring the baby in so they could meet her.
Yeah right.
[Reply]
Hmm…. I may have missed something here. Okay, so the mother wanted her husband there, but the nurse is right.. he doesn’t have to be there. I personally didn’t bring my husband to my post-partum check ups. I had him stay home w/ the baby, particularly b/c the swine flu & pneumonia were going around. I guess I just need the rest of the story from OP to understand how that comment was so ‘ridiculous’ or ‘absurd’.. :/
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 12:58 pm (Quote)
The nurse was offering a service that involved people coming to the mom’s home after the birth, and mom wanted to discuss it with her husband. By saying, “He doesn’t have to be present,” the nurse was implying that discussing the visits with the husband was not necessary, and that the mom could/should go behind his back. (This is made clear in the OP’s explanation above.) That’s why the comment was so creepy — a woman says she wants to discuss a decision with her husband, and the nurse somehow takes this to mean her husband is controlling and/or abusive and the mom needs to be saved by scheduling services behind his back.
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GranolaRN Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:06 pm (Quote)
But during pregnancy a woman is more at risk of experiencing domestic violence. Homicide, usually at the hands of a spouse or partner, is leading cause of death during pregnancy, as a matter of fact, and screening for domestic violence is every single bit as important as screening for pre-eclampsia or preterm labor or any other serious complication.
We don’t do it to offend people or encourage women to lie to their husbands or to be creepy or whatever. We do it because it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to ignore.
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Kate Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:30 pm (Quote)
This screening must not be a standard thing. I’m currently about 35 weeks with my first pregnancy and have never had anyone ask me any questions that could be interpreted as domestic violence screening. OHTH, my husband has also accompanied me to all my prenatal appointments and been present for all questions too.
I understand the potential for the whole domestic violence issue and agree that it’s an important thing to watch for. However, after Mom has acknowledged understanding the question and still declines the services, the nurse needed to back off and respect the answer. “No thanks,” doesn’t mean keep asking until the answer changes to “Yes.”
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GranolaRN Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 2:25 pm (Quote)
You wouldn’t/shouldn’t be screened in front of your husband. It’s not a valid screening for domestic violence if it’s done in front of the potential abuser, and could potentially cause a woman to be “punished” if her abusive spouse is angered or threatened by the screening. That’s probably why you haven’t been screened for domestic violence.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 3:58 pm (Quote)
The problem is that there is a tendency within the DV community to work from the notion that all men are abusers till proven otherwise. In the shelter in which I worked (as a salaried full-time employee, not an occasional volunteer), this went to the extent of tacitly encouraging the women to try out lesbianism instead.
If the woman’s husband is not abusing her, those questions really are offensive, and telling her, “Well, your husband doesn’t need to know you’re doing this” is WAY out of line. ANY woman with a healthy relationship with her spouse/partner is going to be offended by that! Better ways to screen must be found.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:21 am (Quote)
1) This gives both feminism and outreach an undeserved bad reputation. Why can’t the rescuers of the world adopt a little common sense? Sigh.
2) “All men are abusers until proven otherwise.” (Whether the person thinking this is a volunteer at a battered womens’ shelter or a well-meaning hospital caseworker or nurse who believes in profiling new mothers from “at risk” backgrounds, whatever she considers those backgrounds to be. In this case I am using “she” deliberately, not because I think all nurses and social workers are female, but because I haven’t encountered the assumption of abuse among male professionals and paraprofessionals.)
Compare that statement with the next: “All labour and birth is an emergency or dysfunctional until proven otherwise.”
Sound familiar?
Is there some kind of unofficial Interventionist Manifesto out there, or something?…
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Kate Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 7:05 pm (Quote)
I think it has more to do with the culture/attitude of the OB office I visit and the fact that it is a very small town than anything to do with my husband being present (although that obviously presents a problem if they even wanted to ask.)
Thinking back, I have been in once by myself to have blood drawn for testing and aside from trying to get done with me as fast as possible, not a single other question was asked (if opportunity was the only thing stopping them.)
Honestly, most Drs/nurses that I’ve seen don’t stop long enough to get any sort of read off their patients much less be able to pick up on something like domestic abuse.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:58 pm (Quote)
There’s a difference between asking standard screening questions and asking these questions in response to a woman wanting to have a discussion with her husband. I have experienced both, and I agree that the former is not creepy. It’s slightly annoying, but understandable, and I always hope that it actually works to get women help when they need it.
However, whenever I have experienced the latter, it was always just a tool to dismiss and disempower my husband, and to remove him as an obstacle to getting me to go along. (Ironic, isn’t it? Imply that my husband is overly controlling so I will try to prove that he isn’t — by allowing you to control me.) I’m willing to bet you have never used these questions as a weapon to hurl at perfectly innocent husbands and marriages, and maybe you’ve never even seen it done, but I can assure you it happens. And from the OP’s account of when and how the nurse asked these questions, that’s what it sounds like to me.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 2:05 pm (Quote)
Um, sorry, I sort of left out a whole thought there. The first sentence should be more like, “There’s a difference between asking standard screening questions and asking these questions in such a way as to imply that a woman’s desire to involve her husband in the decision making process is somehow strange or suspicious — that it’s indicative of abuse.”
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GranolaRN Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 2:29 pm (Quote)
All I can say is that a woman refusing a free and potentially very helpful service because she insists she needs to talk to her husband about it first would absolutely set off some alarm bells in my head and I would immediately start asking those types of questions. The risk of not asking the questions is much greater than the risk of hurting someone’s feelings by asking. The bottom line is that more women die from being murdered during pregnancy than from ANY other cause, and a good nurse is not going to ignore potential warning signs that a woman is in trouble, just because someone who is NOT in trouble might get offended. It’s worth offending a woman who is safe to save a woman who is not.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 2:43 pm (Quote)
“All I can say is that a woman refusing a free and potentially very helpful service because she insists she needs to talk to her husband about it first would absolutely set off some alarm bells in my head and I would immediately start asking those types of questions.”
Wow. Seriously?? Wanting to talk to her husband before she invites a stranger into their home sets off alarm bells for you?? I don’t even know what to say to that. Wow.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 2:51 pm (Quote)
PS, I do not mean for that to sound snarky. I’m really, genuinely, that shocked. To me, it’s not only totally reasonable to talk to your husband about something like this first, but sort of rude not to.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 3:41 pm (Quote)
I might make such a response as a polite way of saying “No”, myself. Yes, I am quite safe at home. No, we do not in any way abuse your kids, but we don’t vaccinate, & we are planning to homeschool, & there are just too many stories out there about out-of-control & vindictive social workers (a few being people I know personally!)–and the laws are written in such a way that the only way to protect your family from the Hell caused by such creatures is not to allow them into your house.
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GranolaRN Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 4:54 pm (Quote)
Right, but look at the situation from the nurse’s perspective. A young woman comes in to what I assume is either a crisis pregnancy clinic or a planned parenthood-type clinic, without the father, to confirm her pregnancy. She’s offered what many 19 year old new mothers (and older than 19 new mothers) would find a very helpful service, and refuses in a way that suggests she may need to ask his permission – that she has to decline until after she talks to him. Replying that she is not interested until after she talks to her husband implies, unfortunately, that she IS interested but needs his permission to allow these visits to occur. That implies, to the nurse, as an outside observer, that the father may be overly controlling and that this woman perhaps needs some help but is not able to ask for it. You would not believe the number of women who come in to the hospital because “I fell” who are covered in bruises, have obviously been beaten, and STILL will not accept any help with the domestic violence they are experiencing. So yes, I would ask about abuse, and I stand by my statement that I would rather offend someone who does not need help than not help someone who does.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 5:18 pm (Quote)
Believe me, I DO know! I have picked them & their little kids up from the ER, and taken them to the shelter more than once..and, distressingly often, watched them leave a few days later, to go right back to the guy. I worked at a DV shelter for a year. The problem is, in lots of very healthy relationships, a woman would not agree to have someone come to the house regularly without having to discuss it with their husband–and, for that matter, in many households, especially with quite a few of the more Fundamentalist religions (NOT necessarily just Christian Fundamentalists, either!), asking permission from the head of the household would be part of the discussion. In such cases, this is NOT abuse. It’s just how these folks roll. Suggesting that a woman do something behind her husband’s back when she has already indicated that that is not how she s things, is offensive. Find a different way to screen–especially considering that the percentage of abused women is pretty small–and this question is going to be seen by anyone else as an attempt to undermine marriage and family (which these programs do, anyway, all too often). Is it really worth seriously annoying 95% of your patients (some of whom might not have alternatives to your clinic, and may then go without prenatal care because they are not likely to come back to your clinic after that), in order to catch the small percentage of DV cases a question like that is going to catch?
Remember, first and foremost, the things the DV community is all too likely to forget, in my experience: the VAST majority of men are NOT abusers. Assume the lady is not being abused until you have GOOD reason to think otherwise…and a lady not being willing to make family decisions without discussing them with her husband is most likely to be a woman with a very healthy relationship who wants it to stay that way…even if she’s only 19 (there are plenty of very young couples who DO make it long-term. My Dad was 19 when I was born, and my parents were happily married for 38 years…breast cancer took my Mom a year and a half ago)
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:46 pm (Quote)
I don’t care how well-meaning this sort of outreach is. If, after you have described a service, I have turned it down because I don’t think I need it, or if I simply say, “This is a major decision, and as such I would like to discuss it with my husband, because it affects him and the offspring that is half his, it isn’t just about me,” THAT SHOULD BE THE END OF IT.
I don’t care if you think I am being abused. I don’t care what the statistics say. If you have done your duty, then that is the end of it.
PERIOD.
Your persistent refusal to take me at my word is a profound insult. I dislike being treated like a child or a liar.
I have given you no permission to assume that I am a victim.
Capiche?
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:48 pm (Quote)
I’m sorry, as much as I loathe the phrase “agree to disagree,” that’s the only place I can see you and me going from here. I completely understand the perspective of being on the lookout for and trying to actively help women who are possibly being abused. I have first-hand experience here. But to me, saying that declining a service (and no matter how valuable you think it is, I personally have always found the idea of nurses coming to my home to teach me how to parent to be creepy, and I thought so when I was a 20 year old new mother, so it’s not exactly a universally beloved service), saying that a mother declining this service until she discusses it with her husband is a potential flag for an abusive situation makes as much sense to me as alarms going off when she says she needs to get home and make dinner. Sure, women who are abused need to get home and make dinner, but so do the vast majority of women. And from my perspective, virtually every married woman I know (regardless of age) would talk to her husband before signing up for a service that brings strangers into her home.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:33 am (Quote)
Ah, but this is it in a nutshell, wonderfully illustrated: regardless of whether the context is medical (birth interventions) or social (mentoring programmes and other, similar crisis interventions), we are only the mothers.
They, on the other hand, are the professionally trained experts.
They know better than we do, and whatever course of action they suggest, recommend, aggressively push, or coerce on us is, however unwelcome, For Our Own Good, and if we would just be reasonable for a change and also maybe try to see things from their perspective, we would understand and be grateful.
Because really, they do have our best interests in mind.
Surely one day we will realize this.
Can’t we just see that they’re the GOOD guys, not the enemy? What more proof do we need?
Yadda yadda yadda.
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:51 pm (Quote)
PS. “Replying that she is not interested until after she talks to her husband implies, unfortunately, that she IS interested but needs his permission to allow these visits to occur.”
Not to me it doesn’t.
To me it means they have discussed things and decided that this is a service they can do without.
Am I missing something?
By the way, I have, in fact, been in abusive situations – my parents were abusive, and one of my boyfriends was abusive – so I do know how controlling works. I’m not naive or stupid. I just don’t see how you can assume that every single young woman who fits a certain demographic must automatically be falling into a certain pattern.
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Mama Mirage Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:04 pm (Quote)
“Replying that she is not interested until after she talks to her husband implies, unfortunately, that she IS interested but needs his permission to allow these visits to occur.”
Nurse asks me if I want to keep the baby. I assume she means abortion. I would be very upset. By 5 months pregnant I LOVE the child growing inside me and the suggestion makes me ill. Makes me want to deck Nursie.
Now Nursie suggests a program to send covert CPS snoops into my home under the guise of help. I’m upset again. I can take care of my own baby, and even if I was totally lost on it I’d call my mom, my sister, or my best friend. Or hey all of the above. But Nursie, who just wanted to know if I want to keep my beloved baby, now wants to know if I’d like to cave CPS come “tech” me how to parent so that if I do it “wrong” they can take my baby away. That’s twice now that Nursie has threatened my unborn child. Nursie is NOT my friend. I wouldn’t tell Nursie if I’d been abused if she was the last nurse in the hospital.
Nursie continues to bully me about accepting the snoop brigade into my home. I’m mad. Defensive. But I’m not a naturally confrontational person and tend to stutter and stammer when attacked. Nursie is making me feel attacked. So I think of the person I love and trust most in the whole world- my husband. I tell Nursie I need to talk to my husband. This is a reminder to myself that Nursie can’t hurt me or my baby. I have a husband who loves me and this baby and we’re a family whether Nursie wants to see this or not. Nursie is not going to take our baby away- hubby and I will not let this happen. So telling Nursie that hubby and I need to discuss it is my way of reminding her that this is a family unit and she’s not dealing with some lonely teen who doesn’t know what to do about being pregnant. Obviously this backfires.
Nursie attacks my husband by insinuating, several times, that he’s abusing and controlling me. I see red. Now I, who do not do well under pressure, am having to stand here alone and defend my husband and my child against this nasty bully of a nurse who has done nothing but try to tear my family apart from the moment I walked in. I start crying in pure anger. I feel like an animal she’s got backed into a corner and she won’t stop attacking everyone and everything I love.
I leave fuming. I may even hug my husband and cry on him in the parking lot. I never want to go back to a hospital. It’ll be too soon if I ever see another nurse again.
This is how the scenario would have played out if I was the mom victimized by this nurse. It is NOT okay to bully and abuse someone in order to find out if someone else bullies and abuses them. It’s NOT OKAY to do damage to the emotional well-being of the vast majority of mothers in order to catch the few to whom the nurse would not have been the first and promary abuser. Two wrongs do NOT make a right.
I got married at 19. I’m 27 now and still happily married and in love with my husband. He has never and would never raise a finger against me. In fact he spoils me rotten and our worlds revolve around each other and our kids. He’s my soulmate. My other half. And I do discuss everything with him. Everything. Because of so many reasons but most of all because I love him and he loves me and it’s just plain rude to cut your beloved other half out of decisions, especially those that affect him or his children. And SO WHAT if I need my husband’s permission for something!? He earns the money- I’m a SAHM, so YES I need his permission for anything that’s going to cost us HIS hard earned money! He’s never denied me anything I need and rarely anything I want but it would be pretty RUDE of me to spend the money HE earned without discussing it with him first. There was a time when we had only one car so I needed his permission before doing anything that involved the car- I needed to ask if it was a good day to drop him off at work and then pick him up after so I could use the car. SO WHAT?! Does that mean he’s controlling and abusive? No, what it means is that I love and respect him enough to not drop it on him one morning that ‘oh BTW honey I spent $1,000 and I’m taking the car today so if you had lunch plans you’d better get a ride and if not well lets make you a nice sack lunch!’
Mama Mirage Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:06 pm (Quote)
Ugh sorry for all the typos. Need an Edit button!
KristiLee Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:30 pm (Quote)
Hi! I’m the OP. Granola, I can look at the situation from the nurse’s perspective all day long but it’s simply naive and foolish to think that such a process of “screening” would get any results. You say that my refusal of this “free” service is an indicator and that is so ridiculous. First of all, it’s not free… secondly, I called for a specific purpose of confirmation. I was not there for counseling or services of any kind.
In regards to how the whole visit played out, it was much deeper than taking me out of a potentially harmful situation. She was manipulating my relationship with my husband by trying to put him in view as a controlling man. The only way, I felt, to get out of that was to give in… which I ended up doing and had to tell the caller on a later date to take us off their visiting list. She was a bully, offensive and made me uncomfortable and as though I needed to protect my husband – even though he had done nothing wrong… no further steps were taken just enough to make me feel incredibly small. Frankly, she would have been NO help if I actually WAS being abused. I felt extremely awkward and would have found no comfort in a woman berating me about my living situation. It was not simply her asking once… but she asked several times despite my clear desire to speak with my husband – which is emotionally abusive to an already abused woman.
To be honest, though it would have annoyed me personally, I would understand more if she stopped before asking if I was safe at home. If a woman isn’t safe at home, they haven’t left because, believe it or not she’s protective. If she is going to get help from that situation, she needs to know it’s a safe place to talk without someone looking down on the other person. I know this because my mother was abusive and I still to this day catch myself being very protective and defensive.
I was there for pregnancy confirmation. And yes, I avoid doctors and nurses like this now, Heather (I have 3 children now and this experience was so very prevalent in my first two pregnancies and births). It changes how you view the system and it changes your trust in doctors and nurses. That’s on this nurse and the several others I came into contact with. Offending me once by asking if I want to kill my baby… offending me twice by asking if I’m being abused at home… offending me three times by simply basing it on my age… and one more time by pretending none of it happened and having the audacity to invite us back to spend time with my child… this is much more than handling a domestic issue… this is pure ignorance, it’s out of line, and abusive. To both healthy women and abused women alike.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 6:56 pm (Quote)
Yes.
At some point, “well-meaning” offers of intervention and information-sharing cease to be informational, and betray a belief on the part of the would-be Good Samaritan that the recipient of his/her “caring” is incompetent or worse, and that it is best to use force if warranted for the recipient’s own good.
We rail about that a lot when we talk about unwanted medical interventions, too.
It’s the same principle at work.
The bottom line is that we feel we ought to be allowed to determine things ourselves. We don’t want all this well-meaning intervention unless we actually ask for it. It might be well-meaning, but it still tends to come across as a form of harassment. We don’t WANT to be saved from ourselves. We want to be treated like competent adults.
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Heather Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 7:20 pm (Quote)
Same here. Actually, I just stay away from the medical establishment as much as possible. If any of us need a doctor’s care, we get it, but we leave them alone otherwise. And will generally try appropriate “alternative” treatments first, which generally work.
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Mama Mirage Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:27 pm (Quote)
Yes exactly- it’s the nurse in this case that is being abusive and not the husband. It’s not okay to bully and abuse someone to find out if someone else is bullying or harassing them.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:47 am (Quote)
Precisely. I don’t care if being bullied, wheedled, coaxed, or otherwise harassed is done for selfish reasons, or done by a Rescuer who sees it as “for my own good.” It’s ALWAYS harassment.
And if it crosses the line into “we’d better just take care of this for you, I can see you’re not in a state to be reasonable about it and all my alarm bells are going off,” it is COERCION.
There is no such thing as “good” coercion.
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My observations in no patidular order.
The husband could have worked nights and had a big problem with day time visiting nurses distrubing his sleep.
OP was probably giving off a vibe of having been abused because she had been. Know-it-all nurse was just 6 years late.
“I’m not interested in that. I have the number for La Leche League” might have gotten rid of Know-it-All nurse more effectively than mentioning the husband.
Even though it has been awhile since I was last pregnant, I am pretty sure they don’t screen 30-35 year old women with 10 year marriages and good insurance.
Anybody who would suggest abortion to somebody 5 months along does not meet my defination of a care provider. When I read whatever was written about did you want to keep the baby I assumed she was suggesting adoption. I am throughly disgusted with this know-it-all nurse. After that comment, nothing out of her mouth would be taken as concern for myself or my baby. Know-it-all has completely wrecked her image as a safe person to talk to and has shown herself to be someone who considers her clients trash with so many problems that killing a few of them would be an improvement. YUCK!
Granola, are you sure you want to continue to defend this wrech? Clearly you would never behave this badly. So why put her in the same boat with you?
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KristiLee Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm (Quote)
They may have been suggesting adoption… Now that you mention it, I suppose because of my past experience with them (my sister was pregnant and wanted to go through them so I called for her to see if they provided maternal care – she then said only if the mother plans to “terminate the pregnancy”) I assumed it was abortion.
Nonetheless, Jane poses a good question below regarding what would she had done if I WAS unsafe at home and what if I declined THOSE services as well? Would/could she have put me on some similar list as she did with the nurse visits?
Just to clarify, I’m not downing on centers that advocate for women against domestic abuse. I just don’t believe that this was the motive of this woman.
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CCindy Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 5:18 am (Quote)
Terminate is always abortion. “Keep” could go either way; continue the pregnancy and not abort or raise the baby as opposed to give up/release for adoption.
I’m afraid Sarah might be right. If they know that you are being abused, they can’t make you leave, but they can take your children, even your newborn straight from the hospital.
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I have a question: if a woman says, “Yes, I am unsafe in the home. I am being abused,” what do they DO?
I’m totally serious: what do they do? They can give her the number for a battered women’s shelter, and they can encourage her to call. But do they do anything else?
And worse: can they do that “something else” without the woman’s permission, even if she denies abuse is occurring (as in the OP?)
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KristiLee Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 12:40 pm (Quote)
Good question, Jane. I was just talking with my sister about this very thing and I’m curious to the answer as well!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:19 pm (Quote)
“I have a question: if a woman says, “Yes, I am unsafe in the home. I am being abused,” what do they DO?”
In my neck of the woods, that’s easily answered: They cluck sympathetically like the worried mother hens they aspire to be, give you a referral to battered womens’ shelters and places that offer free or sliding-scale psychological counseling, and contact information for Legal Aid. And a little card written at a very basic reading level that you can stuff in your wallet that tells you how to pack an “escape bag,” make plans to take care of yourself and your finances, and reminds you to call 911 if you or your child is in immediate danger. Then they call CPS. Stat.
And they pat themselves on the back for being good, competent rescuers who always have the mother’s and child’s best interests at heart.
Not sure if they skip the handouts and pamphlets when they have a mother who they suspect is being abused but who, astonishingly, insists that her home situation is okay, but I am told they often call CPS just in case.
Because they have our best interests and the best interests of our children at heart. Not that anybody gives them credit for it.
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Jane Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:52 pm (Quote)
What if there are no children in the home?
Even if CPS gets involved, they can’t remove the woman from the home.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 3:04 pm (Quote)
They can after the baby is born and ready to go home from the hospital. 
In cases where it’s a woman who shows up at the ER with signs of abuse, and she’s not a mother, there’s probably nothing the nurse can do short of digging up some handouts and advising her to get help. Having never had that sort of experience of people trying well-meant interventions before I was a mother (when I really WAS being abused!) I can’t really dredge up personal experience.
My husband says that police hate getting domestic violence calls, which can be made by the person being abused, but are also often made by neighbors who overhear the screaming and hitting. Apparently it’s quite common for the woman to deny that any abuse is taking place and to redirect her helpless rage onto the police themselves, even when it’s rather obvious that yes, there’s been some violence done to her and one would think she was glad for a rescue attempt. Maybe this is an extreme example of how attempts to help will always fall flat unless the person needing help is the one who initially reaches out for it.
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Add Your Comment.
And the point? Missed. Thoroughly.
“No, you see, I love my husband and he loves our baby too, so we wanted to consult with each other. That doesn’t mean we can’t visit separately. It does mean we respect each other.”
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Jane Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 4:36 am Jane(Quote)
Actually, is she talking about the husband visiting wife and baby, or the baby remaining in NICU while the mom goes home?
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