(This is an email that Juliana wrote to me after i asked her if she would share her birth stories with me..I have used only the first letter of the names that could identify the OB, midwives or doula's involved. However, I'm sure that Juliana would be more than happy to divulge that info)

Abigail - 2004

Hey Justine,

I'm going to attach a word document that was written to the midwife I had initially hired to provide my prenatal care and to catch Abigail. The last physical contact I had with her was when I left the doctor's office (noon) for the hospital to have my labor augmented on March 9th, 2004. Abby was born in the wee hours on the 10th. After we ended up firing the doctor, he forbid anyone in the office, my midwife including, to have any contact with me. Just know for yourself though that the office had a doula available for my use (I would have had to pay an additional feeirectly to her). One problem though: even though she was for hire, she also worked for the doctor and midwives in the office. Can you say huge conflict of interest where a doula is concerned??? One other mom that was in my childbirth education class (coincidentally also taught by the same doula) had actually hired her to be her doula. Ended up being C-sectioned by our doctor. So the key here is that your doula should not, under any circumstance, be remotely associated with your doctor, especially financially. My situation was very complicated because I had been led to believe that I would be attended at home. All I needed was a true midwife, not a medwife and definitely not a doctor. If you have any other questions, let me know. Actually now that I think about it, I'm just going to insert the letter I wrote my midwife into this message in case you can't open it or whatever.

Hugs,

Juliana

Dear S.,

I want to start off by telling you that having the experience I had at the WHP has made me even more leery of obstetricians and certain that I could have given birth at home. When I switched to your care last October, I thought I was going to receive the type of care that I had read about in all my midwife/natural birth/attachment parenting, etc. books.

The truth is that I did with you... up until my care was commandeered in January by Dr. W and his wife. The less I saw you, the more I should have started to question things. M. always referred to me as a patient. Dr. W. stuck me so hard for my CBC in January that I had a huge bruise on the top of my hand for 2 weeks. He never came to the house to inspect it in February. M.M. had the same insurance as me but she wasn't being allowed to have a home birth. All these little things I overlooked that now tell me how Dr. W. had no intention of allowing me to birth at home. I spoke with M.M. a few months ago and have yet to hear her complete story but when she told me that she wasn't allowed to have a home birth, I know I should have researched a little more. I can't help but think that once you weren't issued a provider number by my insurance, my hope of having a home birth was a lost cause. I try not to feel betrayed, I'm sure Dr. W promised you all kinds of things that he never followed through with, including that he would let me birth at home. What I believe in my heart though, is that I could have if I had been only under your care. I wonder how many home births Dr. W had ever attended and how naive I was to think that he was going to allow me to birth my baby instead of him gallantly delivering her.

I know you must have a lot of questions that he never answered, I will try to fill you in as much as possible and allow you to draw your own conclusions as to his actions. I arrived at the hospital at about 3:30 and at 4 pm I was hooked up to the Pitocin. Dr W came in to check me and said I was dilated to 2cms. I was so relieved...finally some progress for all this pain! I was still going to try to do it without pain relief and was doing alright-sitting on my birthing ball, changing positions, etc. I went to the bathroom at about 5:30 and was cornered by Dr. W saying he wanted to give me something light to help me sleep. I refused at first but wanted so much to trust him (I was thinking back to some stuff I read where the doctor said his exact words and how the mother eventually was given a C-section). He gave me Stadol. It knocked me out cold for what seemed like 15 minutes and then came the tidal waves. The contractions were so much more intense now that I was so completely groggy, they were unbearable. He came in again (6 PM) and told me I was thinning nicely. I thought I was dilated 2 cm 2 hours ago? Remember when I left the clinic on my way to the hospital and I started to well up with tears? You told me it was good to cry, that it would release endorphins. Being so groggy and in so much pain, I finally broke down and started to weep. The nurse told me to stop crying because it would waste my energy.

At about 7 pm, he came in and told John that I was spoiled. I'm not exactly sure why but something about me having to have my way because I was refusing the epidural and not listening to his (Dr. W) pestering me to get it. Then he told me that I wasn't letting the contractions work for me because I was tightening my abdominals and thigh muscles. The last straw was when he came in and said he could have had this baby out 2 hours ago by C-Section.

At that point I accepted the epidural. I ended up getting it at around 8:30 that evening. After that I fell asleep and woke up with a strong pain on my right side similar to my bladder being so full it felt like it was going to burst...that kind of pain. I don't remember who checked me but I heard that I was at 10 and that it was time to push, it was about 2:20 am, March 10th. There I was laying on my back, not allowing gravity to help bring the baby down, delivering in the position most likely to cause tearing.

Everything he was telling me to do was the complete opposite of all that I had read. I tried to think back to how we were told to do it in the childbirth classes and realized that we hadn't been told. I'm assuming that we hadn't been told because there really was no specific way of doing it, you just breath the way you normally breath, right? That's what all my midwife books said. I still had that annoying cough and he was telling me to hold my breath for the entire contraction on the monitor. When I had to let my breath out he would tell me I'm not doing what he asked. He told John to push my head down into my chest while I was pushing and holding my breath. During my entire pushing time, his cell phone was ringing off the hook. Finally he gave it to John to answer and after John told the caller that "Dr. W is in labor”, they just hung up. John later told me it was probably M. I pushed for a bit and Abby was born at 2:53. I asked him how badly I had torn and he ignored me. My mom later told me while I was pushing he had 4 fingers in there stretching me out. He cut the cord without asking John. I'm assuming he never read the birth plan John and I had made requesting that either he or my mother cut the cord. I was so certain the nurses would be the ones who weren't going to accommodate me, when he was the wolf in sheep's wool the whole time. The birth of the placenta was awful; he was pulling on it and pushing down immensely on my belly because I guess I was still bleeding. I believe his aggressive delivery of the placenta and hurrying to go home led to a bit of the placenta being retained and hence more blood loss. I had several black outs that morning prompting Dr. W to say that I might need a blood transfusion. The more I thought about it the less comfortable I was with the idea. Then I spoke with my father and he told me that there a bunch of things that the blood is not screened for including Epstein-Barr virus that some percentage of Americans are unknowing carriers of. I was still undecided when Dr. W called the nurses to see how I was and whether or not I had agreed to the transfusion.

When they told him of my indecision, he asked to speak with me. He told me that he thought we agreed that he "would be driving this bus". The bus being my body and me just a passenger? I asked him to let me think about it a little more. At about noon on the 10th, I had this terrible urge to use the restroom and when I got up I passed a tennis ball-sized clot. I passed out on the toilet in the head nurse's arms and had to be revived with smelling salts as my blood pressure had plummeted to 50/40. The nurse paged Dr. Ware to inform him about my situation (they were thinking I might need a D&C) but he didn't end up calling in until past 3 pm. They had brought in a local OB/GYN to check me over and while catheterizing me again, the nurses gasped. It was very swollen and bruised and one of the nurses remarked how awful it looked.

When Dr. W finally called in and was told that I had transferred care to another doctor the nurse said he seemed quite pleased. And that was it. It was not a gentle birth by any stretch of the imagination. I am thankful he didn't practice his other surgical skills by giving me an episiotomy or a C-Section. I have since joined a group called the Birthing Circle of Frederick here in Maryland and have learned even more about midwifery and healthy, natural childbirth. Thing is, the more I learn and review my labor start to finish, the more I realize I was cheated. I trusted my body, my baby, and a doctor. Two out of three isn't bad, right?

Caroline - 2005

With Caroline, all I kept telling myself is that as long as no doctor was being consulted regarding my "progress", I would be OK. And I was. After mild contractions for about 2 hours, I got into my own bathtub and floated. An hour later Caroline was born gently in our home. No complications, no hemorrhaging, no latching on difficulties. Nothing but a healthy mama and baby!