Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
20
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Why Would You Want To See It? It’s Just A Lump Of Tissue?”
“Why would you want to see it? It’s just a lump of tissue.” – L&D Nurse to mother who had a second trimester loss.
There are 31 comments to this post.
This happened to the mother of a friend of mine in the late 70s. Mrs. B’s first pregnancy (with my friend) was textbook perfect, but she then suffered 4 late losses in a row. She would get to 4-5 months and would just go into a fast and furious labor. For the first three, she managed to get to one of the two local hospitals for the births. The babies were immediately taken from the room. She never got the chance to see them, find out the sex, or bury them. She thought that was just the way it was.
The fourth loss happened too quickly to get to the hospital, 15 minutes start to finish. The baby was born at home. She said he was perfect, like a little doll. Her husband called an ambulance, and she was taken to the other local hospital which happens to be a Catholic facility.
The baby was taken from her in the ER and she never saw him again. A nurse came in and very aggressively pushed for permission to baptize the baby. Mrs. B isn’t Catholic and didn’t really care one way or the other, but since it was obviously important to the nurse she agreed. She then asked if she could see her son one more time. The nurse replied, “Why would you want to see it, it’s just a lump of tissue.”
Mrs. B was in too much physical and emotional shock to advocate for herself, but 30+ years later she is still upset that this nurse would insist on baptizing a “lump of tissue” but didn’t think it appropriate to give a grieving mother time with her son. She also regrets not having the chance to see her other lost babies.
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K Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 7:20 pm (Quote)
My mother-in-law had a similar experience, but hers was a baby (her only girl) born alive at about 28 weeks who lived for 3 hours. She never held her or even saw her, and was still in the hospital when they had the funeral, so she didn’t go to that either. It was nearly 40 years ago and she still has emotional trauma and a lot of other problems that I think have a lot to do with that experience. It’s just unconscionable that women are treated this way! I am so sorry for your friend’s mother and hope that one day she will find peace.
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Marie Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 7:51 pm (Quote)
I’m so sorry for her losses. What an awful thing to say and do to her.
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Kat Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 8:45 pm (Quote)
You never know just how many people have been deeply affected by the loss of a baby until it happens to you/a family member. My husband’s great aunt came up to me after our son passed, and told me she had a baby girl who was stillborn, many many years ago. She had named her Penny, back then they didn’t really “let” the family have the time to grieve and say goodbye. She seemed to think it was good that we had pictures of our son.
It seems to me history has proven that allowing families to say goodbye, and acknowledging the life of their baby allows them to heal much better than trying to force them to act like the child never existed. Sure, on the surface you have a person putting on a brave face, but that doesn’t mean inside they aren’t dying a little bit more every day. But hey, as long as they play along and act like they’re OK so nobody else feels uncomfortable, that’s all that matters, right? Ugh.
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BeckyJ Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 9:53 am (Quote)
Americans and other industrialized countries have a way of shoving our dead aside or not wanting to see them because it disturbs them. Alot of cultures will keep their dead with them for some time before they will prepare a funeral or burial for them. It provides time to grieve with the person still there. For alot of people they find closure by seeing the person one last time or for a length of time. This just doesn’t happen in the U.S. And it’s so sad that so many tiny tiny babies are taken away, never to be seen by mother or father ever again. 
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Amy Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 5:58 am (Quote)
So that’s why my mother didn’t know what gender her miscarriage at 5 months was I’d always been too afraid to ask her. She insists all of her miscarriages were boys, though, I guess because she ended up with just girls. We’ve come a long way, but we still have so far to go….
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Kristen Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 7:23 am (Quote)
My grandmother lost one baby at about 6 months, and another at 7. She did name them, and they have plots in the cemetery, but she absolutely refuses to talk about it. My mom has told me everything I know about it, because she was old enough to remember. I don’t think she got any time with them, either, and it’s haunted her for the rest of her life. She also seems to blame the cascade of unnecessary interventions and horrible doctor that delivered my mother for causing damage that seemed to turn her perfectly competent cervix into an incompetent one..but of course, she’ll never have the peace of knowing if that is true or not.
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Trisha Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 7:44 am (Quote)
This is such a sad thing. So sorry for all who have experienced this horrible event.
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Jessica had this to say,
Dec 20, 2011 @ 7:51 pm (Quote)
That just sickens me.
Even if they haven’t developed any distinguishable characteristics they’re not just lumps of tissue. They carry our DNA; they were and are a part of us. They took shelter in our bodies and we spent quality time together. Whether or not we should see them is our business, not the hospital staff’s.
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Robyn Reply:
December 21st, 2011 at 10:19 am (Quote)
I agree. I had a 12 week loss. The baby measured at 9 1/2 weeks. My midwife gave me the option to see it. I had two thoughts run through my mind: 1) that it looked just like the pictures online that tell you your baby’s development. 2) that it looked like a tiny porcelean carving with these two little black dots for the eyes. I would have been pissed if someone tried to ruin that though process with “it’s just a lump of tissue”.
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Um…no. Just, no. Especially by the second trimester, that’s not a “lump of tissue.” That’s a fully formed human being. The proportions are a little funny, but so are the proportions of my 8-month old! Did this nurse really think that lying to this woman would help? Or was she simply incompetent.
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first time mommy had this to say,
Dec 20, 2011 @ 10:58 pm (Quote)
No. That is not a lump of tissue. That is a baby. Now let me see and say goodbye to my baby.
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This breaks my heart. I recently had a 12 week loss; delivered at home. Holding him in the palm of my hand was so miraculous. 10 fingers, 10 toes. Absolutely beautiful. When the paramedics came (called 911 for hemorrhage), they dumped him in a biohazard bag. Then, at the hospital, a random nurse barged in my room without introduction and demanded to “take the fetus away.” I had a full on panic attack and screamed at her that she could not take my baby (I had lost so much blood that I could barely move, but there was NO WAY I was going to let her take my child). We hid his little body in my purse so no one could steal him away! (this was just 5 months ago!!! I guess some things never change. )
On the other hand, I work in maternity at a different hospital. I have seen time and again that the nurses there treat each and every loss with loads of respect. Pictures, footprints, locks of hair. Those babies are loved and cared for. I guess I just A.) went to the wrong hospital, and B.) was taken to the ER instead of L&D.
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I’m SO sorry this kind of thing EVER happens to anyone. I had 2 miscarriages, 7 months apart, 17 years ago. One was at 16 weeks, the other at 20( they weren’t sure whether to classify the last one as a miscarriage or a stillbirth).With the 16 week one, the ER staff was very sympathetic to me about what happened, but they still only gave my husband and I a few short minutes before they rushed the baby away. With the 20 week one, the baby was expelled a few minutes before the doc walked in. But the moment he did, he turned, saw the baby, and said ” Damn, that’s a big fetus.” I said, ” That’s not a fetus, that’s the baby we just lost.” He shrugged, then grabbed my baby, and unceremoniously dumped the poor little guy( I say “guy”, but I hadn’t had the chance to even see whether it was a boy or a girl)into what looked like a deli container, and tossed it up on the counter. He then sat down, grabbed the cord, and began trying to pull the placenta out. I sat up and asked him if my husband and I could have a few minutes more to process what had just happened, and he left the room. no sooner did he walk out than a nurse came in and started unhooking my IV, as she said,” You know you’ll be back in here by the end of the day for a D&C, don’t you?” I asked her what she meant, that we only wanted a few minutes alone, and she said that the doc came out of the room, told her I was being unreasonable and demanding to leave. I had lost so much blood that I could barely stand up, but no one there seemed to care.I would have fought it, but I did not want that same doctor coming back in the room. As I got dressed, I told my husband I was taking my baby with me, but when I turned to the counter, there was nothing there. I did end up going to a different hospital the next day, but I wasn’t about to return to that one. I never learned the sex of either of them.
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Tiffany had this to say,
Dec 21, 2011 @ 2:31 pm (Quote)
This is horrible! There is no excuse for treating someone this way.
I had a 16 week loss in an ER. When the doctor realized that the baby hadn’t passed yet like he thought the first thing he asked was if I wanted to see it. I chose not to because I just couldn’t handle it, but I really appreciated that he made it my choice. Reading stories like this makes me really aware of how lucky I was to get that doctor.
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I also experienced a 12 week loss. We had chosen a girl’s name and I wasn’t far enough along to tell, so to us ‘it’ was a girl. She was born at home and we didn’t take her to the hospital. The doctor wasn’t happy about it, but there was nothing she could do about it. I held her in the palm of my hand for a long time and she definitely was more than a lump of tissue.
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Add Your Comment.
So are you, and you are infinitely more repulsive to me than my baby.
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