Trying not to Think of the Future

by S. Browning

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999

I am writing in behalf of my sister, Mary who just left the hospital yesterday after her second miscarriage in 2 years. I know her pain and therefore can relate to yours.

7 years ago my sister gave birth to a wonderful, healthy baby girl named Nina. There were complications during and after the birth. The baby was stuck for over 2 hours, and after attempting forceps and suction finally Nina was born with Mary suffering a 4th degree vaginal tear. After the birth, she hemorrhaged and had to be given 2 units of blood. She stopped bleeding and they sent her home. For 2 weeks after that she started bleeding again, with the her blood loss increasing a little more daily until 2 weeks after her delivery she hemorrhaged again and was rushed to the ER for an emergency D&C.

Her Dr. had left placental tissue in her, and ignored her daily complaints of blood loss. She was given 2 units of blood again and finally she began getting her strength back and to recover.

2 years ago, she got pregnant again and at her first routine visit at a new Dr. at approx. 6 weeks gestation, her sonogram showed a multiple pregnancy. By the way, Mary has never taken any type of fertility drug with any of her pregnancies. There are no multiples in our family either. There were 3 amniotic sacs, 2 of which were "empty", the fetus was being absorbed by her body and the 3rd sac which contained a 6 week fetus, looked fine but they could not pick up a heartbeat. They said that this could be due to the age of the fetus and they wanted to give it another week.

The next appointment also showed no fetal heartbeat and after discussing in detail with her doc, they decided to do a D & C to prevent any further complications. They did the procedure, it went very well and she recovered nicely. Her Dr. was a rock throughout the whole thing, he was wonderful and gentle and caring and had a wonderful bedside manner.

In June of 1999, Mary became pregnant again. Due to an insurance change she was not able to see her last Dr. that she loved and had handled her last miscarriage. She was sent to a Dr. that she did not know who was a resident at a hospital that the county knew as being dirty, negligent and uncaring. But she felt that she had no choice. At her first routine visit at approx. 5 weeks, everything went well. They did HCG level tests and routine prenatal tests. The day after the visit, the Dr. office called Mary and insisted that she come into the office immediately, the HCG levels were very, very high and they wanted to make sure there was not an etopic pregnancy. She raced up there and they performed an intravaginal ultrasound. There was no sign of a tubal pregnancy, but upon viewing, they discovered yet another multiple pregnancy. Twins this time. One sac was collapsing, and the other contained a 5-6week fetus. They were able to pick up a heartbeat, but said that it was weaker than they would have liked, between 80 and 110. They expressed their concern about a possible miscarriage, but said let's wait and see what happens and sent her home. They continued to do 2 more sono's 3 days apart and after seeing that the heartbeat still seemed weaker than usual, they gave her a 50/50 chance of carrying to term and said they would see her in 2 weeks for another sono.

Three days ago on a Friday night at 1:00am in the morning, while sound asleep, Mary got up the go to the bathroom to pee, while in there she thought God I sure am peeing a lot, and looked down to see that she was not peeing, she was pouring blood instead. She had not had one cramp or pain before or during any of this. She kept bleeding profusely, put on a pad walked to her room to wake up her husband and her pad had became saturated in the short time that she had walked to the bedroom. She went back to the bathroom, showed her husband and he immediately called 911. She did her best to clean herself up and lay quietly on the bed until the paramedics arrived. They immediately transported her to ER and gave her a vaginal exam which disclosed that her cervix was dilated. They then moved her to do a sono, they did an external first, then a vaginal. The sono revealed that the then 8-9 week fetus, never grew after 7 weeks, apparently shortly after her last dr. visit, the heartbeat went from weak to nonexistent and her body began to miscarry a week and a half later. Even after all the blood and tissue that she lost in the bathroom, the sacs and fetus were still in tact. I thought that was strange.

A couple of hours later, they prepped her for surgery to do a D & C. During the D & C, the doc was performing a D&C by hand instead of by suction and she hemorrhaged again. Her blood pressure dropped and they immediately gouged yet another IV in her to pump some plasma into her. (I say gouged because of the 6 inch bruise on her arm afterwards). The Dr. later told her after she asked why her abdomen was so horribly sore, that when she bled out while his arm was in her scraping her uterus, that he punched her in the stomach with his other hand trying to put pressure on her uterus externally to try to stop the bleeding. They were able to stop it thank God, and continued to give her plasma instead of whole blood, (why, we don't know).

Her Dr. was very robotic and mechanical before and after the D & C, never expressing that he was sorry or asking her how she was or how the hospital or nurses were treating her, nothing. Only told her the reason for the bruise and abdomen pain after her asking. They kept her overnight for observation until Sunday morning, and her Dr. took 30 seconds of his schedule to tell her to go home.

She is at home now, very tired and weak, but otherwise doing ok considering the 2 days she had just experienced. She's trying not to think of the future too much, just to concentrate on getting well right now. She is going to call her insurance co. and insist that she see her normal Dr. from this day on and refuses to take no for an answer. I 100% support her. After her horrid experience at the hospital and the Dr., I think they will have no choice but to accommodate her wishes. (There were a lot more terrible things we saw and heard at the hospital that I did not disclose).

This is our story, I hope that someone can learn or relate to this story and I hope that our next entry will announce the birth of a beautiful new baby girl or boy in the arms of my sister, Mary. She deserves it! God Bless you all.