#nightmaredoctor

It’s been 3 weeks now since I gave birth for the second time. This time, i decided to face it while in my home.

O.K. a throwback to how I labored the first time: 

I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant. My doctor told me that I would be induced once I hit 41 weeks and I didn't want the Pitocin, so I walked, did my squats, and bounced on the exercise ball. I also took a teaspoon of castor oil (drank it and it tasted awful). It’s an old wives tale on how to get labor started. It worked because in the middle of the night,  at 2:30am, I wake up in full labor. I was having contractions every 2 to 3 minutes. Although I had prepared to labor at home until my contractions were 5 minutes apart, we had to rush out to get to the hospital. We almost didn’t make it there because we crossed paths with one of those long trains that kept stopping and backing up. We made a u-turn, went back on the highway and finally got to the hospital. In the meantime, I called my doctor, kept resisting the urge to push, and by the time I was admitted, I was 8 centimeters dilated and couldn’t get the pain meds I was crying for. I actually wanted to go about it naturally, without meds or anything, but my will power faded when the strong contractions started coming in. Anyway, I couldn’t get anything. The nurse put in an IV and I was attached to what I thought was a fluid IV bag. At 7:30am, my son was born. I had an episiotomy and I realized later that I was given pitocin and it all made sense. After my second push, my doctor said that baby’s heart rate was abnormal and that he needed to come out that instant or she’d give me an episiotomy. Baby’s heart rate was being aggravated by the unnecessary pitocin. I was already well on my way to being fully dilated when I got to the hospital and didn’t see the need to have the let’s-help-you-dilate-by-giving-you-stronger-and-closer-contractions medication. On the next push, I was given the episiotomy. I’m very easy going, sometimes too much so as long as my son was a healthy baby, I figured I didn’t need to make it a big deal. My son was indeed physically healthy. He was hitting his milestones beautifully every month, until i realized he wasn’t really talking and his eye contact was off (around 18-month and). In the meantime, it took me a good 6 months before I felt ok again. The episiotomy wouldn’t heal right so, after 2 visits where I was literally cauterized with silver nitrate sticks (they look like q-tips and they burn you at the touch), I had to have surgery. The first cauterization, I had no warning and the second time I cried once she told me I still had not healed properly and she had to use that again. The third time I went to the doctor, she had to do minor surgery and re-sew everything because of scar tissue. Needless to say, After that visit, I had decided to never go to her again. I had an appointment to get the stitches removed and have a follow-up but I cancelled it with no rescheduling date. I am a rehabilitation nurse (after surgery kind of rehab) so I got a stitch removal kit from work which I used to remove my stitches because I was done having painful procedures, I just wanted to heal. I used honey to help the site finish its healing process (underuse natural way to help with healing). A few days later (6 months after delivering), I was like new again. I decided that, if I was to get pregnant again, I would be cared for by a fellow nurse, a midwife, who would probably see me as more than just a number. I personally know some doctors, (friends and family) but the reality is, most doctors don’t see the patients as people but as disease processes and numbers so they don’t see or treat these ‘numbers’ humanely. 

This ends blog post #2. My babies need a little TLC!!!