R was anxious this morning, told me he was feeling shaky and scared. I could feel the baby moving as we ate breakfast, and tried to reassure him.
I arrived a few minutes late to the fetal assessment room. The nurse was one I hadn’t met. I climbed slowly and gingerly onto the bed, nursing the rib I broke on the weekend (another story), wincing at the pain, but not feeling overly anxious about the test.
The nurse started to move the monitor around my belly, trying to find the baby’s heartbeat. Nothing. She tried some more. Still nothing. I thought about how I hadn’t felt the baby move on the way to the hospital or, really, since breakfast. She tried some more. Still nothing.
I panicked. My chest constricted. I began to breathe more quickly. ‘You can’t find his heartbeat?’ I asked the nurse, my voice high and scared. ‘You can’t find it?’
‘No, no, no. I can’t do this again. I can’t do this again.’ I was sobbing and breathing hard and didn’t want anyone to touch me or look at me. Another nurse came into the room. They called for an ultrasound machine. I felt like throwing up. The second nurse told me I had to ‘think good thoughts’ and I wanted to push her away from me. Good thoughts don’t keep babies alive, I wanted to scream. And if the baby is already dead, then good thoughts sure as hell aren’t going to bring him back to life.
I waited for the ultrasound. I couldn’t look at anyone. I couldn’t control my breath; I sobbed and heaved and wondered how I would ever tell E that her Baby Brudder was dead, too. It didn’t matter that I had felt him move only an hour and a half earlier. ‘He’s just hiding,’ the nurses tried again to reassure me, but that’s what they said with A, too, and she wasn’t hiding.
The ultrasound machine was wheeled in and the woman who brought it was as unable to look at me as I was to look at her. I remembered everything about being in assessment at L&D when the doctor looked for A’s heartbeat and confirmed what I already knew, that she was gone.
‘There he is. His head’s over here. He’s lying cross-wise. There’s his heart. There it is: look. He’s ok.’
But, I couldn’t look. And I couldn’t talk. Could only cry and cry and cry.
‘There we told you,’ said the second nurse. And then, clucking, looked at my chart and added, ‘You still have a long time. Two months. That’s lots of time. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.’
I keep replaying these words over and marvelling at the insensitivity of them. Keep doing what to myself? Why would a person in my position, with my experience, not be expected to react the way I did to minute after long long minute of no heartbeat on a monitor? I am holding myself together so well on a daily basis and I cannot consider my reaction today to be either irrational or inappropriate. It made her uncomfortable and that was what she had a problem with: too fucking bad, lady. ‘You need to think positive,’ she said. Why couldn’t she see that my reaction today was testament to how positively I have been thinking despite my terrible fears? If I was not thinking positively, to some degree, then what happened today would not have been as shocking and distressing as it was.
I cried through the whole test, even as this little boy started to kick and roll and assert himself, the fact of his living, his life. The first nurse, who was kind and sincere, murmured at one point, ‘I wonder what you’re thinking?’ And I wished I could tell her, because I think she really wanted to know, to understand.
But I couldn’t talk. Everything had gone out of me except the tears.
Why would a person in my position, with my experience, not be expected to react the way I did to minute after long long minute of no heartbeat on a monitor? I am holding myself together so well on a daily basis and I cannot consider my reaction today to be either irrational or inappropriate. It made her uncomfortable and that was what she had a problem with…
*****
Exactly.
Normal: You.
Pretending, Uncomfortable, Scrambling: Them.
But nobody’s going to be able to tell you pretty little lies
not ever again
because you know all too well
the sword truth
wields.
I’m glad he’s okay. Gladder than glad.
And I don’t like people accusing you of doing something to yourself,
when they’re so clearly unaware of what
has been done
(irrevocably done)
*to* you.
xo CiM
Oh, honey. I’ve been right there in your shoes (except my nurse was not an insensitive d-bag). You are holding it together the best way you can. There are no guarantees and sometimes hope feels like the way hurt gets in. Sending love and light your way and hoping the next two months pass as quickly as possible.
What a breathtakingly insensitive medical professional. You went through a traumatic experience and today you had to go through something that was bound to trigger memories of what happened. It didn’t go well.
Any woman would have been frightened. You have good reason to be frightened. You did as well as you could. You did well.
That nurse needs to go and fuck herself. Your response was not irrational nor inappropriate. It was human. You are human, and your response is undoubtedly the most real and honest response to too closely revisiting the trauma of losing A. Ripping the nurse’s throat out with your bare hands? That would have been irrational and inappropriate. I may have been inclined that way, but again, you restrained yourself.
❤ ❤
I probably would have told the nurse to go fuck herself and never come near me again. Can you change locations for your NSTs? I would definitely at least have a long conversation with the Office Manager about how this situation was handled extremely poorly by her staff.
SO sorry JLD about that horrible visit, but I am very glad little boy was just hiding. I am right behind you at 27 weeks, we will hang in there together okay?
I have been a lurker here. You write so beautifully about your A and your E and new baby boy.
Honestly I would have reacted exactly as you did, silent and crying and screaming inside once I got home. So, don’t beat yourself up for whatever reason, like I know that I would. You love and you hope and that’s why you reacted the way that you did.
Someone needs to tell the nurse to read your chart!!!! If your husband reads this blog, I’m telling him to call the office and be the one to assert for you.
Take care and pamper yourself today. Whatever feels like spoiling yourself…do it!! (well I’m writing this on Wednesday and likely this all happened to you earlier in the week or last week even)
Oh I just can’t believe this, but then I am assuming this was at Women’s and I know a couple of the nurses in the NST room really need to be put out to pasture. This one of course deserves something more. If you or your husband have it in you I agree that it might be worth a complaint. The service can’t get worse than that! I am so glad that your little boy is ok though. May he continue to grow and be healthy.
How terrible. And wonderful that he is alive. I’m glad there was a kind nurse there too amidst the horribleness.
Some people are in the wrong flippin profession. I’ve been there, no heartbeat found with the doppler and the nurse asking me when I felt him last and if I was leaking, then her rushing out of my room to page the resident on duty for an ultrasound. And then there he was, safe and sound. I’m so glad your little boy is still safe and sound J. I keep thinking about you, and him, and Anja. xx
Some people are indeed in the wrong profession. I have to say that out of all the nurses I’ve encountered over the years, the real bags of misery seem to be in the minority. I recall one though who had been a nurse since the dinosaurs roamed the earth (she was the only one who still wore the “uniform” instead of scrubs and the white hat, OMG) and she was just bitter, resentful, and crabby. She should have retired years ago.
Your post brought back memories of the last u/s we had with LM. I’d been in labour (on my own for the first and only time) the previous night, then the contractions stopped, and around noon the next day they sent me for a BPP and MCA doppler (I have Rh disease from a failed Winrho shot) to see what the plan would be next. Not one but two peris stood there, staring at the u/s screen, muttering to themselves, about how they “didn’t like the look of this at all,” and all I could think was, “Oh no. Not again. I’m NOT going to lose another one right at term.” They’d already mentioned his BPP score was not great. I was yelling for my doula to find out what they were saying and I was two milliseconds from completely losing it when they finally turned towards me and included me in the conversation to tell me what was going on (which happened to be a separation of the amnion and chorion–it wasn’t there even a week earlier at my last scan–and I would be admitted and wait for a bed for induction, which thanks to the health care system was 10 hours later).
Everything turned out okay and LM is here with us today. Still, these doctors were peris and I wish they’d had a little more consideration and tact when dealing with someone who’d previously experienced perinatal loss.
Thinking of you. ((HUGS)). You’re doing so well. Not long now…
When you feel up to it, maybe consider writing them a letter about your experience and how this impacted you. Unbelievable.