Dear Dr. C,
It has taken me nearly twenty months to get up the strength to write this
letter. In that time, I’ve debated with myself over whether or not what I need
to tell you will make a difference; how to phrase what I need to say; whether or
not to even write this letter at all. I think though that it is important for
one to know about some of the less obvious long-term consequences and impacts of
one’s decisions. If nothing else, perhaps it will help me purge some of my own
demons.
I am angry, Dr. C, beyond any level of anger I’ve ever felt.
On Thursday, May 1st 2003, at approximately 10:30am, I entered MFS hospital
in spontaneous labor, exactly on my due date and after an extremely healthy
pregnancy. After laboring at the hospital for, what I believe to be, a minimal
amount of time, the decision was made, by you, to cut me open and take my baby
out of my uterus. By the time my perfectly healthy child was pulled out of my
body, it was less than twelve hours from the first time I noticed a contraction.
It may seem, on the surface, that it is unreasonable for me to be angry about
the healthy and "routine" surgical delivery of my child. That is why I hope
you’ll read on.
Three weeks before my daughter was born, I presented you with a birth plan
during a regular visit. Perhaps I should have approached you differently to
discuss my ideals, or perhaps you were in a bad mood that day, but regardless,
your reaction was less than supportive and bordered on unprofessional. In fact,
you refused to look at it. When I attempted to discuss the birth plan with you,
you became defensive about your skills, saying "You can swing from the ceiling
for all I care, but if I want to do something to you I will do it. I have
delivered hundreds of babies and you have not delivered any." When I attempted
to express my fears to you about the possibility of a cesarean section (which
was, to my knowledge, not anticipated at that time) you wrote me off and told me
you "have ways of dealing with that."
I never wanted to tell you how to do your job. I did, however, feel entitled
to some sort of conversation where we could share our expectations and come up
with a mutually agreeable "game plan". I went into this pregnancy believing that
you and I would be a team – you, being the expert in physiology, and me, the
expert in my own personal body. Instead, you dismissed my attempt at a dialogue
regarding what was likely the single most important event of my life, and took
my feelings for granted. It took me weeks to recover from this conversation. In
fact, in the car ride right before my next visit, I was sobbing uncontrollably,
completely terrified of seeing you. My typically low blood pressure was at a
record high and you sent me to the hospital. I couldn’t tell you the reason
because I was so upset and didn’t want to face you. I couldn’t tell you I was
angry or frightened out of my skull. I felt like I was too far along in my
pregnancy to switch practitioners, and wouldn’t have known where to go anyway. I
was very confused, and extremely vulnerable. Nevertheless, I clung to the belief
that ultimately you were looking out for my best interests.
I now believe you were looking out for your own interests, mine being
distantly secondary. Some clues which have lead me to conclude this include:
- off-handed conversations during regular (non-prenatal) exams where
you emphatically expressed your disdain for trial/injury attorneys, which
now suggests to me that your mindset in delivering my child was focused
prominently on your own personal fears of litigation (it should be noted
that I never gave you any indication that I might sue you, rather, the
conversations were about my work);
- your attempt to speed up my labor by ordering my water bag membranes
ruptured as well as pitocin augmentation after what is by industry standard a
very short amount of time;
- and, a conversation you had with my husband during my labor explaining that you had another patient nearly ready to deliver besides me that leads me to believe you may have been in a hurry.
To me, it feels as though I was just a body that needed to be "treated for
pregnancy" to you, and perhaps a human being after I was cut. While I try to be
more optimistic than this, it’s also hard for me to shake the worst thought that
perhaps previously hidden misogynistic true colors finally bled through you
during the birth plan conversation, and that you cut me open to prove to me that
you really could do whatever you wanted to my body, or to punish me for having
my own ideas about my daughter’s birth.
I’d like to believe you did the best you could have for me and my daughter,
but it’s hard to think you didn’t at the very least act mainly in an effort to
avoid litigation before considering your patient’s (my) needs. I believe a
doctor should put their patient first, and that the personal risks one takes on
while practicing medicine, such as malpractice, should be regarded as
occupational hazards that come with the job. Practicing medicine that is not
primarily in the best interest of your patient is not ethical.
I also can’t get past the feeling that I was victimized. Regardless of what
your goals and intentions were, the result has left me feeling robbed, broken
and exploited. The greatest gift I could have given my first child was the gift
of birth, but I didn’t give it. You did. And I can’t even say it was worth it
because I was never really allowed a chance.
As I understand, my baby girl had no signs of distress upon her first
breathes of air or anytime afterward. This means: I was pumped with chemicals
and stripped of this natural and beautiful gift for nothing. My body was
mutilated and scarred for nothing. I have numbness and pain in my abdomen for
nothing. My hands were strapped down onto a table and I did not get so much as a
peek of my baby until she’d been in the world for I don’t even know how many
minutes, and then she was whisked away and kept from me for four precious,
irrecoverable hours for nothing. I struggled with nursing her for three weeks of
devastating feelings of failing my baby for nothing. I have surgery nightmares
for nothing, sometimes while I’m wide-awake. I have bouts of insomnia over this
for nothing. Every time my daughter has awoken screaming in the middle of the
night I wonder if she’s having horrible flashbacks of her violent birth. There
has not been a single day yet where I haven’t thought about it. I can’t even
look at her baby book or watch the videotapes of her first days or look at the
pictures without becoming sad. I wanted desperately to be able to celebrate the
birth of my child, but I fear that day will always be bittersweet. I want to be
able to tell my daughter the story of her birth with tears of joy, not with the
tears of the anguish and regret I feel now.
Dr. C, I am filled with remorse over the things I should have done better, or
at least differently. I, too, took the birth of my daughter for granted. I felt
that whatever might happen would be meant to be and I should take it all in
stride, but that’s just not how it’s been. I hope you’ll understand that I do
not foresee any time in the future where I will be able to face you. I simply
cannot imagine when I will be in a headspace where I can accept that everything
that was done to my child and me and taken from me was entirely for the benefit
of my child and myself. I will pay you the $179 that I owe you as soon as I’m
strong enough inside to write the check, but I can’t say for sure when that will
be. Right now, it makes me sick to think about paying for everything that
happened to us and all the subsequent suffering my soul has since carried. I
only hope that, when you read this letter, you will look at each and every
patient as a person who will react both physically and emotionally to what you
do on their behalf; and that you will not take birth (or other women’s health
matters) for granted.
Thank you for your time.
