Things Don’t Always Go as Planned

My first pregnancy was uneventful until it wasn’t. Almost seven weeks before I was due I started bleeding—talk about scary. I was at a restaurant with my husband and friends. We called the doctor, and he said to come to the hospital. My doctor at the time was a cousin of my father-in-law, and the hospital was a local hospital. Four days after I got there, they decided to check the fluid level surrounding the baby, at which time they realized my water bag had ruptured the night I was admitted. Next thing I knew, I had an emergency C-section. In hindsight, it was four days overdue. But we got lucky. My son was born at four pounds, eleven ounces, and his lungs were well developed. I had a partial rupture of the placenta; the results could have been devastating. But my little boy was healthy, and I was okay too.

A couple of years later we were not so lucky. Again, my pregnancy was uneventful. And again, seven weeks before my due date I was perfectly fine until I experienced unbelievable pain. As luck would have it, we had a meeting at the company with all of our international folks, and I had to excuse myself and could barely walk out the door. I headed to the nurse’s office, and she was really concerned. We called my obstetrician, but he was at a family event out of town and couldn’t be reached. We then contacted his partner, who was not concerned and told me to go home and rest. I do not like to call doctors, and I seldom complain—but something was crazy wrong with me, and this doctor had told me to go home. Instead, my husband took me to the hospital, and I was barely able to stand the pain. The hospital managed to reach my regular obstetrician, and he called a third partner who rushed over—and once again, I was in for emergency surgery. My placenta had ruptured, and I was bleeding out. My baby boy did not make it, and I was in surgery for several hours. I’m told I was lucky the bleeding was controlled and that the doctor didn’t have to do a hysterectomy. It’s more than thirty years later, and I still can’t describe the devastation of losing that little boy. I was told he was perfect. His name was Matthew.

We found out two weeks later that the doctor who had told me to go home had been diagnosed with a brain tumor a few days after my incident. His partners had known something was not quite right with him, but I guess his actions in my case brought it to a head. He died less than a year later. We had all the grounds we needed to sue him and the practice, but what would have been the point? It wouldn’t have brought back our baby; and even if we had been advised to go to the hospital sooner, we likely would have lost the baby anyway. It’s very scary to know that some doctors will “cover” for other doctors despite grave concerns.

The lessons learned: There are doctors and there are great doctors. You deserve a really great doctor. If something happens once, it can happen again. Be smarter than I was. I liked my obstetrician, and he cared for me a great deal—but he wasn’t as good as he should have been. The first time around the doctor and the hospital team should have confirmed my water bag had broken long before they did, and with the complications of my first pregnancy, they should have been on the lookout for a repeat performance before it happened.