Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jul
23
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Why Would You Want To Wait And See If This One Survives?…”
“Why would you want to wait and see if this one survives? You obviously have no problem conceiving!” -OB to mother, who had signs of a miscarriage and was proposing a D&C.
There are 81 comments to this post.
beccaisadoula had this to say,
Jul 23, 2010 @ 4:27 am (Quote)
Sick… NEW DOC, NEW DOC, MOVE DOWN MOVE DOWN MOVE DOWN!
[Reply]
“I have no problems finding a doctor, either. Should I shoot you?”
Some doctors forget that a miscarriage is not just a medical event to the mother. This is not the same as removing a curious mole from your shoulder.
[Reply]
Signs of a miscarriage and an ACTUAL miscarriage are two differnt things right?
[Reply]
Chelsea Reply:
July 25th, 2010 at 7:50 pm (Quote)
Yes! I’m glad this guy wasn’t my doctor.
In fact I was bleeding and sick when I was about 8 weeks along with my daughter. Everyone thought I was miscarrying and suggested “getting it over with so I could get pregnant again sooner”
I now have a beautiful, healthy, perfect 3 month old baby girl who was a home water birth. Here’s to waiting to see.
[Reply]
That is just a disgusting comment. Aren’t doctors taught any kind of tact when it comes to patients? Don’t they know that from the time we know we’re carrying a child it doesn’t matter how early or late in the pregnancy it is, most of us (I realize some don’t feel this way) are attached to that baby. Jeeze, especially someone that has a history of loss. What’s so wrong with the wait and see tactic??
OP- I hope you and your baby are okay. I hope you found a new doctor. If by chance you did happen to experience another loss then I’m very sorry for your loss. Never ever go back to that callous butthead again! <– I'm sure you absolutely have already decided that though!
[Reply]
I can’t imagine if someone had said that to me a couple months ago when I miscarried. I would never do a D&C as a first resort regardless of if I had signs of a miscarriage or if they had already definitively determined that the baby was dead and I needed to “finish” miscarrying. In that instance, I’m glad I didn’t go with an OB. They may have actually picked up the miscarriage earlier and when I didn’t pass it in their time frame would have been pressured into a D&C.
And, yes Kendra, that is a baby as soon as you get that second line. And it’s still a baby even after you lose it. Breaking open the sac and seeing my baby was one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It looked like a little porcelean carving.
[Reply]
There are plenty of ‘false’ miscarriages. Subchorionic hemorrhages can make you think you’re miscarrying when your baby is just fine. I would rather find out the baby was truly deceased by waiting than find out he/she was actually alive during a D&C!! I don’t know about that doc but I’d be horrified if I wasn’t actually miscarrying and “removed” my healthy baby.
[Reply]
Nadia Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:31 am (Quote)
i went in at 11 weeks with a threatened miscarriage. i was gushing blood everywhere and cramping. i was bawling so bad i could barely check into the er. it was just awful. i can’t imagine if they’d have just written me off and tried to just schedule me for a d&c right off the bat. after bloodwork and an ultrasound we found out everything was fine for now. they didn’t seem super optimistic but they let us enjoy our relief with happy tears without any stupid comments. just told me to follow up with my midwife, wich i did as i already had an appt scheduled for that monday. they confirmed it was probably just a subchorionic hemorrage and explained that a lot of women bleed in pregnancy. it was very scary to me though because that exact same week the previous year is when i miscarried. i would have been devastated had anyone been so callous and rude to me! i am still pregnant and nearly 19 weeks.
i hope whomever’s this is, got a second opinion and a new ob! i also hope it worked out and your baby is ok!
[Reply]
it isn’t a baby unless the woman wants it to be a baby. But the one thing it is, is hope, potential and dreams. An early miscarriage, when the mother bond even for just a few seconds, can be just as devastating as a full term stillbirth. Both are the complete destruction of hopes, dreams, potential lives unlived, and of her motherhood.
What really really pisses me off is when people as a woman when she’s had a miscarriage, why isn’t she over it yet? Some things you never get “over” and the loss of a child, even just the potential child, is one of those things!
[Reply]
Dawn Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:35 am (Quote)
????
It’s the same whether a woman wants it to be a baby or not. It’s just either given a chance at life only if a mom wants to continue the pregnancy. Obviously, even if she wishes to continue the pregnancy she can still experience loss.
[Reply]
Robyn Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 am (Quote)
It’s all about perception. In the first few weeks, it’s only an embryo. After that, it becomes a fetus. I’m not sure at what point the medical community views it as a baby rather than a fetus; I think after birth. However, for a mother that wants a baby it will always be her baby from the time she gets her positive test. It’s not that it really *is* a baby yet, but that this is how she perceives it.
[Reply]
Dawn Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:04 am (Quote)
This is exactly why women get treated so differently by OB’s and other medical people. It’s because it’s all about perception. How is the OB to know how a woman perceives the pregnancy?
I would say it’s the same type of tissue no matter what the perception. Either it’s her child or it’s not.
[Reply]
cathi Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:07 am (Quote)
Actually,no matter the stage of development, it’s still a baby. Isn’t a fish or a puppy. It’s a baby. Dehumanization of the baby makes it easier to tell women to “get over it”….very sad.Also, to Elizabeth, ITA and there are plenty of cases where a twin miscarried, but the mom didn’t know there were two, and still found herself pg a few weeks later, and carried the remaining baby full term. Wonder how many remaining twins got D&C’d? I don’t even want to think about it!
[Reply]
Mary Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 am (Quote)
My last pregnancy was a twin pregnancy where I lost one baby in the first trimester. My midwife absolutely did NOT recommend anything other than to wait and see how my body handled it. I carried both the living and the baby that passed. Then around 20 weeks the twin reabsorbed. The surviving baby is now just over 2.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 am (Quote)
You really think there is a differnce in biology between wanted babies and unplanned babies? I dont want to get into a pro-life pro-choice argument, But it is never a good idea to tell woman it isn’t a baby or even it isn’t a baby yet! That is just rude.
[Reply]
mamamor Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:53 am (Quote)
I think that the suggestion that it’s not a baby until it’s born undermines the mom regardless of the outcome; either way it’s a reason to not fully or deeply mourn a loss. It also suggests that moms do not understand the choice that they make when they do choose to end a pregnancy, which feeds into the determination that women should be required to have an ultrasound, etc. In the end it assumes that women are as clueless and inept as the many stories we hear about OB arrogance, and I believe the source is the same – in the complex but longstanding notion that women are lesser than men.
[Reply]
Sherry J Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:58 am (Quote)
I agree with CCindy. Many years ago, I discovered I was pregnant, and at 11 weeks, when the midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat, an u/s showed that the baby had died. Several weeks later, I began showing signs of an infection, so a d&c was recommended. When I was on the table, I asked the doctor if there was any way to tell what the sex of the baby would have been. The doctor actually raised her voice and yelled at me,” THIS IS NOT A BABY- IT’S A FAILED FETUS.” I was so stunned, I couldn’t even react. To me, that “failed fetus” was my baby- period.
[Reply]
Birth Unplugged Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 am (Quote)
Wow, Sherry J, that is awful! I’m so sorry she said that to you.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:20 pm (Quote)
“Failed fetus?”
It’s WHATEVER THE HELL I SAY IT IS, Doc. Isn’t that one of the crucial messages of allowing mothers rights in determining their own reproductive issues – when they conceive, whether they carry the offspring to term, what kind of prenatal care they choose, what kind of birth they get to have, and how they raise the baby (or who will raise the baby, in the case of adoption) after it is born?
No doctor has a right to contradict the mother’s perception of her child. Or anyone else, for that matter. Personally, I see the term “fetus” as interchangeable with “unborn baby,” because to me it is a stage of development, just like a teenager or adolescent is a child at a later stage of development. But that’s just me.
If a mother wants to call her baby her BABY, then that is what it is – regardless of the circumstances. For instance, when I had the abortion sixteen years ago, I called the child I was losing my BABY to the clinic workers, and G-d help them if they dared contradict me. It must have been one of the more humane clinics. No one did.
Whether that doctor was insisting on calling it a “failed fetus” out of politics, pedantry, or simple egotism, it was totally uncalled for.
The nerve…
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 5:50 am (Quote)
Sheery so so sorry you had to deal with that. Send me the crappy female OB’s address and I will go slap her for you personally! and to all other “care providers read…
And if the mother wants to know the sex of her miscarried baby then tell her if you can. Maybe she wants to name the “failed fetus” as a way of coping with her grief and something unisex like Chris isn’t what she had in mind. It’s not about YOU DOC. It is about Mom. If you need to let off steam, do it elsewhere! Otherwise known as “If you don’t have anything nice to say STFU!”
I think I am going to have to open up a dealing with grief practise for OB’s. Do you think my school of hard knocks degree would be taken seriously? These providers really need their emotional temperatures taken every few months.
[Reply]
Honeybee Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:26 pm (Quote)
I know that even in an unwanted pregnancy that’s terminated (By choice or not) it is still a loss. Sometimes a woman lies to herself and says it wasn’t a baby yet because it makes the loss easier on her. And it will come back to bite you. I was a mess for months, and I hadn’t wanted my pregnancy. But losing it still hurt. NOT grieving the loss of a “real” baby was not easier.
[Reply]
KushielsMoon Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 7:03 am (Quote)
What I think is rude, is everyone assuming that every pregnant women *wants* you to call her fetus a baby.
I know not one but TWO women with planned, wanted pregnancies who would correct anyone who called their fetus a baby. “I don’t have a baby, I have a fetus.”
Using different words isn’t going to change what is inside the womb. But your word choice does affect the woman who is pregnant. If *she* wants to use fetus, then use fetus. If she wants to use baby, then use baby. The only rude thing about either term, is using it when the woman doesn’t want it to be used.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 12:24 pm (Quote)
Which is why people – especially medical professionals who think they know everything – need to learn to take their cues from the mother, and wait for the mother to say what she is carrying. Fetus, baby, whatever.
Mother comes first.
The disrespect we show mothers by taking away her right to not just her own reproductive decisions, but even her maternal *perceptions*, can have nasty consequences. For instance, the rate of postpartum depression in the United States is ludicrously high. So are the rates of child abuse and neglect. I don’t think that’s coincidental.
[Reply]
prochoice doula Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 4:58 pm (Quote)
Thanks for this, Momof3. I agree… babyhood is in the eye of the carrier. As a full-spectrum doula, it is not my job to define what is being lost or born for the woman. If she uses the word “baby,” I use baby. If she uses “fetus/embryo/pregnancy”, I use those terms. My opinions come in when I do activist work, public policy-type stuff for education and legislation. My belief that a baby’s not a baby until it’s born gets left at the door when I do doula work… it’s 100% not my job to put words in the woman’s mouth. ESPECIALLY when a wanted pregnancy is lost!
[Reply]
Similar thing has happened to me twice. First with a pregnancy between my 3rd and 4th children. I went in for spotting and an u/s found a very small baby with a faint heart beat. I was supposed to be 7 weeks and baby measured 4.5. The Dr said, “This doesn’t look good. We can schedule you for a d&c on Monday or we can wait if it’s that important to you.” I was appalled and started to sit up to get the heck out of there when she looked at the St. Christopher’s medallion around my neck and said, “Well, I see you are Catholic so I guess the best thing to do is go home and pray.” I went home, called a different Dr. and she saw me through the next 2 weeks as we waited for what turned out to be a devastating loss. That was 12 years ago and, to this day, I cannot get over her words…. there was a baby. There was a heart beat! How could that not be important enough to wait for?? I sooo dislike Drs who know everything. She happened to be right about the outcome but I had a Dr with my 6th child who did an u/s at 6 weeks and saw nothing but an empty sac. My hcg levels were very high (18,000) so he told me that what I had was a blighted ovum and that I need to go home and discuss my options with my husband. I could have a dnc, a pill to start a m/c, or I could wait to m/c naturally, which he did not advise. I told him that I would go home and discuss with my husband the ONLY fact that he would accompany me the following week because I WOULD be coming back for another u/s. The next week, the Dr walked in, shook my husband’s hand and said, “Well, should we get this over with?” I will never ever ever forget the look on his face when, there on the screen, was a perfect 7 week old baby with a perfect heartbeat. He stuttered and stammered and said, “I …I just don’t understand.” Fool. I sat up and I said, “I hope you remember me the next time you tell a mother her options.” Dh thought I was rude. I thought I was quite generous with my politeness.
I am sorry for the OP. It is a horrible thing to go through, no matter the outcome.
[Reply]
“Oh Boy, threatened miscarriage! Why don’t you want to rush in to surgery now?! I sure do.”
So it sounds like either the m/c was unconfirmed or it was confirmed the baby was fine. And the doctor wanted to do a D&C without finding out if the baby was okay first?! Are OBs that surgical-happy that they’ve forgotten their purpose?
[Reply]
Cara Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:37 am (Quote)
An OB’s purpose IS surgery.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:09 am (Quote)
No an OB’s purpose is to First Do No Harm. and if he or she has forgotten that then they are USELESS! I don’t think all OB’s are this surgery happy. But this site is dedicated to the ones that are.
[Reply]
Cara Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:42 pm (Quote)
Actually, a lot of med schools don’t even administer the oath any more. Obstetrics is a surgical specialty.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 12:26 pm (Quote)
Whoa. Wait a minute. So specialists don’t have to take the Hippocratic Oath? That’s a little scary. To me that would be like saying special forces units in a given country’s military are not subject to the Geneva Convention…
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:12 am (Quote)
OBs are surgeons. That’s their job. The problem is that they’ve spread out to trying to do well-woman care and well-pregnancy care, which wasn’t originally supposed to be their job.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:24 am (Quote)
Didn’t the well woman care and well pregnancy care come first and the c-sections, hysterectomies and mastectomies come later?
If they want to keep the surgical basis they need to hand over the well woman care and well pregnancy care to someone who can focus on it. Like a midwife. Gee, really, amazing!
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:34 am (Quote)
I’m not a historian, but I think the surgical aspect appeared as part of moving birth to the hospital, along with the sense that the woman’s body is a defective machine that requires help in order to do its work.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:21 am (Quote)
Not sure myself but the c-section rate was 5% in the 1960′s and I know women (grandmother for one) who had their first (or first few) at home and their last (or last few) in the hospital. It hasn’t been that long. It has actually all happen quite quickly. I would say the attitude of the woman being broken came before the doctor’s ablity to do the c-section relatively safely. There were several years of twilight sleep and forceps before they would risk surgery at the drop of a hat. And the EFM had to be invented to really get the rates up to 20% in the mid 80′s and 25% in the 90′s.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 am (Quote)
When did they start routine episiotomies?
I believe hospital birth began with family physicians attending the births. When it became a sign of affluence to be able to birth in a hospital, many women wanted to do it. Yes, women have been viewed as broken far longer than we’ve had safe c-sections, and early on the driving dynamic of childbirth was that the mother was dirty and the baby was clean, hence things like shaving and tying the mother’s hands so she couldn’t touch the crowning infant.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:19 pm (Quote)
Forgive me. Your original statement stands. They did go almost 100% surgical once they entered the hospital. Since my focus is almost always on c-section, I forget that episiotomies are surgical too.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 12:37 pm (Quote)
Routine episiotomies (and routine use of forceps) became standard in the 1920′s, when the newer generation of middle class women started flocking to hospitals to give birth because hospitals offered “twilight sleep,” and the young women of the day saw this form of perceived pain relief as their natural right, as an aspect of being modern, emancipated women. Bottles of formula also became seen as a form of liberation, since in theory, you could hand your husband a bottle and say “here, it’s your turn to feed the baby, I want to do something for myself right now; my biology is not my destiny.”
Twilight sleep, followed by general anaesthesia at the moment of crowning, necessitated rapid and drastic measures, because the baby was compromised, and the drugs rendered the mother unable to push. Hence the forceps. And the radical episiotomies. Anything to get that baby out quickly. Mom was knocked out cold, she wasn’t going to object.
There were a lot of blue babies born in that era, due to the cocktail of drugs that got used.
Prior to this, the previous generation of women still needed a lot of assistance more often than not – women in the middle classes on up (before the flapper era) wore extremely tight, wasp-waist corsets that cut off oxygen and reshaped the body permanently, often with unhealthy results. Some women in the upper classes whose husbands insisted on a twelve inch waist even got subjected to surgery that removed their lower ribs. (I’m sure it wasn’t their idea originally. It couldn’t have been…) Unfortunately, if the woman survived that operation, obviously there would be unpleasant health results, including difficult pregnancies and births. Poorer women, meanwhile, were deformed due to malnutrition, including ricketts. Childbirth with a deformed, ratchety pelvis is not safe or pretty.
Still, the routine of “knock her out, cut her open, yank out the baby” didn’t really become *routine* until the twenties.
Or so I understand it. I’m gleaning this from _Birth As An American Rite of Passage_ by Robbie Davis-Floyd and _Immaculate Deception_ by Suzanne Arms.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 1:44 pm (Quote)
Thank you, Sarah. It’s been a while since I read BAARoP and I never read Immaculate Deception.
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 9:11 am (Quote)
Boy am I glad that my farm wife grandmother didn’t go for any of that nonsense. She had her babies from 1940-1960 with several of them born at home. My city grandma wouldn’t have been exposed to such nonsense either. Not a big enough city or enough money in the family to put on such airs! There are advantages to staying close to the earth and obversing the animals.
[Reply]
Heather P Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:31 pm (Quote)
You are correct. They are surgeons. But that is not their purpose. When a woman gets pregnant she goes to the OB she does it not for surgery but so she can have her baby “safely”. I’m pretty sure that even ACOG’s motto says nothing about surgery.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:42 pm (Quote)
Obstetrics is a surgical specialty. Women don’t consciously think “I am going to see a surgeon for my birth,” and if they did, they would probably question why they need a surgeon to attend their low-risk birth. (Higher risk births are different. I’m talking about the average woman who has no reason to believe she cannot birth safely and who has had no problems during the pregnancy.)
The obstetricians are trained to perform surgery. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be obstetricians. Family doctors can attend births but can’t perform c-sections. The reason to have an obstetrician is to have a surgical specialist attending the birth.
The question is: which women most benefit from having a surgeon on standby, and which women don’t?
[Reply]
Serene Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 9:10 pm (Quote)
Exactly. Its a SURGICAL specialty, but it SHOULD be fulfilling another purpose.
The women that benefit from having a surgeon on standby are the ones like me who ARE high risk for more than just the standard reasons (ie “you are little, baby is big etc etc). I was high risk because I have a severe thyroid condition that made me tachycardic and hypertensive. I was also very weak because of it, and I am also a type 1 diabetic among several other chronic issues. I am a doctors nightmare. But, my obstetrician was brilliant. Basically I got the birth I wanted, even though I was induced and in hospital, I felt safe, secure and in control. They were brilliant.
Even though I would have LOVED to birth at home, I am not stupid enough to think that in my health state, it is a safe option. There are times to have an OB, but a low risk birth is not one of them IMHO.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 25th, 2010 at 4:38 am (Quote)
That sounds perfect. I belonged for a while to a practice that had both midwives and OBs, and women could choose which side of the practice they wanted to see. If the midwives found a problem, they could consult with the OBs or transfer care to the OBs. (Although it never went in the opposite direction; no OB ever said, “You’re too low-risk for me to see–you need to go to the midwives.”)
The ideal solution would be to have OBs seeing only the women who would benefit from seeing them and the low-risk women seeing midwives. In other words, keeping every woman at the intervention-level that would be best for her specific situation.
The US currently has too many obstetricians for the number of high-risk births (and actually, if a birth truly does become high-risk, often they refer the woman out to a maternal-fetal specialist anyhow!) so I can’t see the model changing in the very near future.
[Reply]
When I was pregnant in 2005, I was 15 weeks and started gushing blood. Soaked my clothes, the seat of my car (I was driving when it started). I called my OB’s office and was told, “You’re probably miscarrying. Go home and put your feet up. If you haven’t stopped bleeding in 3-5 days, come in.”
That did not sit well with me, so I went to the ER. Turns out there was a strong heartbeat,but all I was told was to go see my doctor in the morning.
I called the Dr. my doula recommended and he got me in THAT day. Turns out I had a cervical polyp that was causing the bleeding. I called my OB and went off of them, and told them I would not be back, nor would I recommend their office to anyone.
My son will be 5 next month.
Had I listened to them, I would have thought I was losing my baby and that there was nothing that could be done.
Idiot doctors and their lack of compassion really get my goat!
[Reply]
Lisa Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:23 pm (Quote)
Mary, good for you for following your instincts! Just curious, whatever happened to the polyp? I was diagnosed with one during my 2nd pregnancy, it never bled, and after birth my midwife said it was gone. I’ve never known anyone else who had one and I was just wondering.
[Reply]
Here is the follow up to my submission: My “unviable fetus” is now a perfectly healthy 14 month old 
I dropped that OB like a bad habit and found myself a wonderful midwife!
[Reply]
Birth Unplugged Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:26 am (Quote)
I’m glad your baby was okay and so glad you switched providers after that horrible comment! Congratulations!
[Reply]
Heather P Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm (Quote)
Yeah! I’m so happy to hear this. Congratulations! 
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:25 pm (Quote)
Awesome.
What a horrible, horrible OB, though. So glad you got a REAL care provider.
[Reply]
cheeks023 Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:19 pm (Quote)
I’m so happy to know that this turned out well in the end. Congrats on the little one!!!
[Reply]
Robbin Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm (Quote)
Thank God. I hope you sent this OB a picture. What a %$^%#%^#*&%^*…oh man, i can’t believe anyone would say this to anyone.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm (Quote)
Ditto that. I would have sent a birth announcement with a picture and a “nice” little note.
[Reply]
Kelly Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:15 pm (Quote)
Awesome. Congratulations! I agree with the others… I hope you sent that doc a birth announcement!
[Reply]
prochoice doula Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 9:52 am (Quote)
Wonderful! I’m so happy he was wrong! Congrats on you and yours.
[Reply]
What a sick (*&%^*(&^^!!! I would have had NO kind words for that person. I’ve had two m/cs, no d&cs (and won’t get one unless I’m hemorrhaging) and yes, that’s a baby the moment there are two lines.
On a related note, I have a friend who had a d&c after a miscarriage that will now never have children. They destroyed her ability to conceive.
I can’t believe that doctor thought nothing of killing that helpless baby 
and suggesting it to a worried mother Makes me sick.
[Reply]
just chiming in here as another person who gushed boood at 11 weeks and has a healthy 5-year-old to show for it! I was with a midwife, though, aso I never went to the hospital. we waited until the bleeding stopped completely (2 weeks) then took another pregnancy test (positive) then scheduled an appointment to hear the heart beat. the day after we heard the heart beat, I felt him move for the first time!
[Reply]
With my second pregnancy, I did an 8wk ultrasound and it showed a tiny embryo with a heartbeat, sitting next to a big sac of blood. My midwife told me that if I passed any blood or a clot, I should remember that picture so that if I ended up with another caregiver at ER and they told me I was threatening miscarriage, I’d know that it was most likely just that sac and it wouldn’t be as stressful. When I did have some dark spotting later on, this was SUCH good advice. Thank goodness some CNM’s are very thoughtful and even empowering!
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jul 23, 2010 @ 1:34 pm (Quote)
What is it with these obstetricians who would rather “let nature take its course,” or worse, hurry it along with a D&C or some similar invasion, than attempt to stop preterm labour or, failing that, administer steroids to give the micropreemie’s lungs a chance?
And the brutality with which they deliver the “bad news” (which is indeed bad news, but ought to be phrased as “I see you as a nuisance and an inconvenience, and I have no interest in maintaining your pregnancy, despite the fact that it is my job to provide emergency medical care when necessary,”).
Heinous. Simply heinous.
[Reply]
mamamor Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:52 pm (Quote)
I am confused. With my second pregnancy I started having what were basically cramp-like contractions at regular intervals in the middle of the night. I was in Mexico, in the Yucatan, and I went to a 24 hour clinic that prescribed a couple medications, one for gas to help my appetite, one to stop the contractions, and maybe some vitamins. We were in a small town, so the next day we went to the nearest city (in a free ambulance because we were ‘tourists – thanks Cancun) for an ultrasound. It was external, which was nice, and lasted just long enough to find the heartbeat and see that it was in fact still strong. The doctor added Progesterone to the list of meds to ‘bulk up the placenta for travel.’ They also put me on bed rest for 5 days before I could travel. Overall I was really impressed (and ended up with a really healthy almost 10 lbs baby and am pretty sure I was just severely dehydrated). The Yucatan has an interesting history of being really progressive, concerned with women’s rights, etc, but I would have though the treatment would be roughly comparable here. Am I mistaken?
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pm (Quote)
In my experience, and from all the horror stories I’ve heard (also the glowing stories from happy, grateful mothers who raved ecstatically about their “wonderful” OBs, all while detailing prenatal care and labour practices that made me want to run and start worshipping at the feet of the Porcelain Goddess) prenatal and birth care in America is ghastly, unless you skip the mainstream and go straight for a free standing birth centre or a homebirth midwife.
It’s a conveyor belt over here.
It doesn’t surprise me that you got more compassionate treatment in Mexico, although the cynic in me wonders if you would have been treated with the same kindness if you had been a destitute peasant living on the outskirts of Mexico City. Mexico isn’t ideal. The c-section rate there is 50%, hospital maternity wards are similar to what ours were like decades ago, and traditional midwives are on the defensive in many areas.
That, and I just read a newspaper article that talked about a handful of low-income women who had all been sentenced for twenty to thirty years in prison for aborting their offspring. Two had been raped, which in Mexico is seen as a justifiable and legal reason for abortion; one had a “spontaneous abortion.” You know, a MISCARRIAGE. She MISCARRIED her baby and was sentenced to a long prison term for murder. I don’t find that very compassionate. The first thing I thought when I read the article was, “Oh, my word, do any of them already have young children? How terrible for the families.” It was in the Latin American Times if you want to try a web search, if you’re interested. Or I can copy the link from my Facebook wall.
[Reply]
mamamor Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm (Quote)
Well, it wasn’t necessarily compassionate, either. And I was probably aided immensely by being from the States. I did get to see a Mayan partera (midwife) while I was there – she said my ovaries were swollen and gave me a uterine massage… OUCH! She also said if I were about 3 months she could tell if it were a boy or girl, because boys develop their appendages and start moving around earlier. Interestingly, there are a few parteras, but almost no one delivers at home – they all go to Valledolid, or the bigger city nearby to deliver. And there, the practices are a lot like what you hear about here. But through in a lot of underlying racism against indigenous women. I think though that there seems to be a resurgence of partera-based care, but that also seems influenced by trends outside of Mexico. It isn’t necessarily a return to indigenous midwifery, but something a bit more ambiguous. It’s really interesting when you consider all of the cultural upheaval that occurs as people redefine themselves in a tourist economy. I was there to learn Yucatec Maya, and had a really interesting conversation about how, in older yucateco, there was a particular word for being pregnant; now, you would say k’ohaan t’i champaal, or sick with baby. The people I talked to said it was the Spanish influence, and how women didn’t know how to carry a baby anymore.
Mexico City is also an interesting issue, because laws are passed there that don’t apply to the rest of Mexico. So even if things seem fairly progressive in Mexico City, they often aren’t elsewhere. But the influence of liberation theology has made politics work really differently, and a lot of priests advocate for a full spectrum of maternal care because of the poverty there. At least, that is my impression.
I would love to see that link, too.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 1:14 pm (Quote)
Sorry it took me a while to get back to you.
Here’s a link that has more hyperlinks than the original piece that I stumbled on:
Apparently miscarriage is a crime. Who would have thought it.
[Reply]
You know, I also had a Dr tell me, when I had a blighted ovum, “If it makes you feel better, you’re not really losing anything. It’s not like conception ever occured.” This was with a pregnancy between my 8th and 9th children. Obviously, I had been around the block a few times and was not stupid. I was stunned that she seeming thought I was. I said, “So, you’re telling me that my husband’s sperm never met my egg?” She said, “Well….yes, but…” I said, “But what?” SERIOUSLY??? I got up from the table, got dressed and walked out the door. She was left standing with her mouth open and the nurse was asking, “Where is she going?” I went home, called an old partner of hers (and the b*tchy OB refused to transfer my records) who saw me that afternoon. She was, by far, the BEST, OB in the world. I am convinced. She reassured me that I was indeed losing somethimg very precious and that even though my baby had not developed, my dreams and love for him/her had. She saw me through 3 weeks of watching and waiting just to be sure until I finally did m/c and she stayed on the phone with me as I was m/c’ing, calling back through the night after it was over to make sure I was okay. She has since left her practice to stay home with her children. Good for them for a shame for mothers who are left to deal with the likes of the first Dr.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:28 pm (Quote)
The doctor could be censured for refusing to release your medical records. If that ever happens again, contact the state licensing board, because that’s usually laid out in state law and they are VERY good at getting on the doctor’s case when the records aren’t released in a timely fashion.
[Reply]
Lyn Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:45 pm (Quote)
Yes, the OB that I transferred to had just left the group that the 1st OB was a part of. She explained to me that her former group was not releasing any of the records of patients that had decided to follow her to the new practice.(Office drama, I guess) She explained to me all of the options I had for getting them but we both decided that I could give her all of the history and info she needed vs. me adding to my stress level (worrying about what was happening and trying to tend to 8 children. we also had our house on the market and were having one built). We decided to wait until later and then I could go after them if need be. I never did try to get them because of everything that was happening at the time but, to my knowledge, they never did transfer them. At least not during the 3 weeks that I was being seen by my new OB.
[Reply]
You know what makes that comment even worse? The damned assumption that just because she was pregnant right then she would “obviously have no problems conceiving” again. It just doesn’t work that way for everyone. I heard similar comments from well-meaning people several times after my miscarriage. Well, that was SIX YEARS AGO. Welcome to infertility.
Moral of the story: don’t make assumptions about women, their bodies, their abilities, their pasts or their future. Just don’t. And THINK before you open your mouth, for mercy’s sake.
[Reply]
Penny in TX had this to say,
Jul 24, 2010 @ 7:08 pm (Quote)
Even if the pregnancy *is* lost, it doesn’t mean that a D&C is necessary or even advisable.
In 1996, I learned at 16 weeks (from my home birth midwife whom I had called when spotting started) that there were no heart tones. I waited to deliver and one night about a week or so later, I did have some contractions, but nothing more. Since I had no sign of infection, my midwives were fine with waiting as long as I was, and though I considered cytotec induction at around 20 weeks when I was getting tired of waiting for something to happen, I decided to let nature take its course.
As time passed, I became convinced that my body must have reabsorbed the baby’s remains, until one night at 36 weeks, I went into “labor,” and delivered the remains, which we were able to mourn and bury. Like a ripe fruit falling off the vine with ease, the time I waited allowed everything to proceed simply and I healed (physically) quickly.
The next three months were very emotionally challenging for me, as were the first 16 weeks of my subsequent pregnancy, but for me, I believe a D&C would have been much more so, for a variety of reasons.
[Reply]
Add Your Comment.
Thats just as wrong as you can get!
Sorry… just… Speechless!
[Reply]