I have grown up playing sports. Both my parents love sports and watch sports. I lived and breathed soccer throughout my entire youth. Actually that is a lie, I still do. I am currently a Varsity boy’s soccer coach at a Christian school. Any sport takes a toll on your body and if you play competitively, you are bound to end up with an aliment or two. My aliment is my right knee. I can pop it in and out of place. Seriously. It’s gross. My varsity coach use to look away and call me disgusting all the time. I would play, it would pop out, I would pop it back in and get back up. So needless to say I made the decision to have surgery done after the last game of my senior year.
While at the hospital I went into surgery and woke up with a woman’s hand down my shirt. I can’t even begin to tell you the confusion I had. Ha. She was taking off those little heart monitor things, and said “well that was an awkward time for you to wake up…” um, yes mam it was. They went and got my parents to come back. When my mom got back she was all agitated. I asked her what was wrong and she went on a rant. Apparently they said the surgery would take 1.5 to 2 hours. After about 2.5 hours my dad went up to ask if I was out, they were starting to worry. The receptionist informed them that it still stated I was in surgery and they would page them when I was out. At 3.5 hours my parents were ticked. They went back up to ask what in the world was going on, super worried at this point, and she said “oh she is just waking up, you can go back”. My parents were so mad.
When I was 17, I didn’t understand why in the world they were so upset. It wasn’t a huge deal, I was ok. Given I was incredibly creeped out by the lady with her hand down my shirt when I was waking up, but it didn’t ruin my experience. But for my parents, they still talk about it. My dad will still say how mad he was and that people don’t mess with someone’s family when there is a kid on the operating table.
I took me 8 years to understand what he actually meant by that. When I experienced my first miscarriage, I decided to let everything happen naturally. I was already bleeding pretty heavily so I thought it would happen any day. My doctor was so against this. He told me that it was a terrible decision and he was giving me a few days to do it on my own, otherwise he was scheduling a D&C. It ended up being about a week, I’m not sure if he forgot that threat he had made, but I was able to do everything on my own. In a fear of possibly bleeding too much, Josh took me to the hospital. Throughout the whole trip to the ER, I had 3 different nurses, 2 doctors, 1 ultrasound tech and someone that wheeled me to the ultrasound. (I think there was a shift change somewhere in there, that’s why so many nurses and doctors) I got checked out and they informed me everything was under control and that I had passed everything that I needed to. When my actual OBGYN called them back, he went on a rant stating that I didn’t listen to him and that he wanted me to have a D&C and demanded that I have one now as a precaution.
Let me just stop there. I did ALL THE WORK. Passing a small baby still causes your body to contract. I still had to do some kind of pushing. I sat on the couch and in the bathroom in a lot of pain, all so that this heartbreaking process was over. There is NO WAY I am now going to put myself through a surgery after they have confirmed that everything that needed to be was out and I just put myself through that for what nothing? Um, no.
After a lot of finger pointing and very vivid conversation with the doctor who came back to tell me what this OBGYN recommended, they made me sign a “leaving without listening to medical personal” paper. I did gladly and was finally able to go home after 6 hours.
Being in the hospital that night was a nightmare. On top of the argument I had to have with the doctors, I also had to say out loud “I am here because I am worried I am bleeding too much from the miscarriage I just had”, 9 total times. 9 stinking times. They were incredibly lucky that I am not a super emotional person because I would have been worse than I was. It is hard enough to go through such a life altering experience, but to feel alone and like you are just being looked at like a person there to help pay the bills is too hard. No woman should ever have to sit, cry and tell you what has happened and why she knows she passed everything, 9 times. What are those clipboards for anyways? Do you not keep any information on them?
My experience at 24 with my first pregnancy was terrible. Now, not all of my experiences were bad. Once I found the right OBGYN, seriously she is the BEST, it has been fantastic. She pushed my insurance to allow my testing after the 2nd miscarriage to be covered, she put me on medication (prenatal, folic acid, progesterone and baby aspirin) 3 months ahead of when we were going to start trying again, and ALWAYS has time to talk to josh and I if we need to. Seriously I couldn’t be happier. She gets it. She knows what I am experiencing is real.
My alert to everyone in the medical profession is this, we are real. What we are experiencing is real. I am sure that sometimes it is hard to not get caught up in it being your job and you have to get through the shift. I am sure there are moments that you are just going through the motions. (I watch grey’s anatomy, I know how it is! Ha!) All of that is ok. I am not blaming you for it; I do it with my job sometimes too. But please, from the bottom of my heart, when a woman experiencing a miscarriage comes in; don’t look at her like it is not serious. No matter how many you have seen. For that woman, in that moment, she is scared, sad, and worried; otherwise she wouldn’t be in there.
(Please know this: I know not all doctors, nurses, aids and techs are like the people I interacted with that night. Some are just as compassionate at my current OBGYN is. For that I thank you personally.)
I said before that I am on progesterone. I found out when I went to pick up the prescription that my insurance doesn’t cover it. I just got a letter in the mail yesterday giving me their reasoning. It stated that I was unable to receive progesterone if I have a history of “spontaneous abortions”. Abortions. Really? We couldn’t have come up with a better word for this. Thanks a lot insurance company for the reminder.
I appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment