Spirit of the Tiger!

                When I get in a rage, I often think about my favorite animal, the tiger. I envision a tiger at peace, her tail lazily flopping up and down in some mild display of boredom. She’s a large beast, her great girth not so imposing though, until she stands up in a rage. I see this tiger’s teeth, as ferocious and ugly as murder, and I try to invoke just a bit of that.

                On Friday, I spent the majority of my day trying to finish up what I’d been so desperately trying to take care of… my Rhogam shot. I’ve waited twenty eight weeks to get it, and after my previous appointment, I was so completely stressed out that the idea of having to jump more hurdles to get this one thing was breaking me. I don’t understand how the medical field can insist that something like Rhogam is detrimental when having a baby, and then make it so difficult to come by?

                My day started at nine. I woke up, got ready, and headed out to the hospital. There I was told to go to the Labor and Delivery Floor. Once I arrived there, the nurses (who by the way, were extremely nice), told me that I needed to be registered, and that I couldn’t get my shot until I had blood taken and reviewed by a lab, the results would take about three to four hours to come back. Oh, and they told me that I HAD to have the shot the same day as the lab work. I never really did inquire further as to why, but apparently it all had to be done in one day, even though I would be allowed to leave the property while awaiting the results.

                I won’t delve too much into the annoyance I had to go through from there. Between going to the lab, being told I should have been given paperwork from Labor and Delivery, to going back to Labor and Delivery, then escorted at last to registration, I finally had blood drawn and was on my way out at about ten thirty in the morning. Tacking on about four hours to that, I gave work a call and let them know I might be late coming in, but I would make sure I had an excuse.

                Two o’clock p.m., I call the office to see if my results are ready. When they tell me it’ll be about an hour, I wait patiently, then decide I’m just going to head straight over because I’m starting to get anxious again – I had a sneaking suspicion at that point that things were going awry.

                The nurses in Labor and Delivery welcome me back, and let me know my lab work still hasn’t completed. They say maybe another hour, get me set up on a bed, strap some monitors over my belly to hear the baby’s heartbeat, and then throw on the device used to measure my BP and set it to go off every fifteen minutes. At that point, I start to get agitated. I didn’t understand why it was taking so long, nor why I was then being hooked up to monitors. Part of me guessed that they decided hearing the baby’s heartbeat would soothe me… little did they realize I don’t stay distracted for very long.

                At 3:40 the nurse returned to tell me that the lab had called, and that it was going to be another hour and a half. At this point, I started taking off monitors, which put quite the look on her face.

                “I  have to leave,” I told her, “I’ll be happy to come back another day when I can devote the whole day to this, but I just don’t have the time for this right now.”

                Scrambling, the nurse got right back on the phone with the lab, and talked them down to thirty minutes, which I agreed to. We didn’t bother putting the monitors back on.

                At four thirty, I was injected with Rhogam… finally.   They monitored me for an additional fifteen minutes to ensure I did not experience a reaction to it, then sent me on my way. Honestly, for all of that work, I expected a large, intimidating needle with a lot of fluid accompanied by a tremendous amount of pain.

                While the liquid was oily, the needle was small, and nurse who injected me very nice. She explained that relaxing the muscles would make it less painful, and even rolled it between her hands to try and warm it up since she also explained that cold liquids were more uncomfortable.

                This entire  process would prove not to be in vain though, as some interesting results came of it. To begin with, the nurses were extremely kind, and we did exchange a number of words. I was relieved to discover that my clinic’s head nurse would not be involved in the birthing process, and I found out that at this particular hospital the baby is not taken from the mother unless it is being taken into critical care. Yet probably most profound, I had been monitored for over an hour, blood pressure measured every fifteen minutes. I asked the nurse after how my blood pressure looked over all. She explained that it was a “little high” when I came in, probably because I was agitated or had worked myself up a good bit. However, over time it had dropped, even become a bit low. My ending BP was 112/70.

                I let the nurse know why I was so interested, that my clinical nurse had said I have “red flags” for preeclampsia. The reaction I received made me feel good, as the attending nurse’s face contorted.

                “No, no,” she said, “I don’t even know why she would tell you that.”

                Needless to say, I was left relieved to have finally gotten the shot, and furious with my clinic.

                How much half truths, or lies, have I been receiving? Vincent thinks I have this outrageous mistrust in doctors, that I will refute anything they say. The truth is, I do to a reasonable extent, but for the most part, I want to know that I am safe. I’m an average woman, although I question things to a higher degree than most. Still, this is a prime example of how even someone such as myself, the cautious type, had been pulled along, and made to feel foolish.

                To make matters even more extreme, the next night I got to talking with my father, and a friend of his who is currently in nursing school and very close to finishing. She just completed her course concerning prenatal care and labor, and was very informative. She explained to me that inductions are very common, but reaffirmed my previous research that they are nothing akin to natural childbirth despite what my clinical nurse had told both Vincent and myself.

                I felt so awful and angry, and to make matters worse, I had this image in my head of her, enjoying her weekend, not giving a damn about me since I had so easily been mislead.

                Sunday morning… couldn’t sleep. I organized my thoughts, wrote and rewrote them, and then made the call. I left her a nasty message. Not cussing or calling her names… that trash is not my style. But I did let her have it.

                I told her:

                This is Amanda Keller, you saw me Thursday morning. I’m calling because I’m very upset right now, so much that I’m pretty sure my blood pressure is high again. This is the second time you’ve overreacted to a situation. First, when the unidentified antibody showed up. You said it was definitely an issue, that it couldn’t be anything else but something to do with the pregnancy. Then I go to the specialist and find out it’s nothing.

                Now, you said I have the red flags for preeclampsia. I was monitored for over an hour at Baptist Hospital while waiting for my Rhogam shot, and they say my blood pressure was a little high because I was agitated but after I calmed down, that it is fine, that I absolutely don’t have the symptoms. Do me a favor, next time I gain ten, twenty, or even fifty pounds, don’t freak out, run out of the room, come back and  take my blood pressure and then wonder why it’s gone up.

                And another thing, I also talked to a recent nursing student. I don’t understand how you say the synthetic drug used in inductions is akin to normal childbirth when they are flat out teaching the students it’s not. I don’t know when you went to nursing school, or when you got your information, or perhaps the rest of the world is lying to me. However, it seems like it’s a lot easier for my to verify what everyone else is saying than what you have told me.

                I apologize for leaving this message to you, but I’m stressed over this, and while you have told me that emotions don’t affect the baby, that’s another thing I learned: that the higher blood pressure and stress associated with the emotions mean that they do affect him. I may be a first time mother, but I don’t need this and I can’t believe you made me feel bad about myself!

                : Then I hung up.

                Still upset, but greatly relieved, I vented to Vincent later that night. What a relief it was to have him home. While I am certain it was the last thing he wanted to hear about so soon after his return, I couldn’t emphasize enough how foolish I felt, and how much it had upset me that we had been taken advantage of.

                Then, there’s the pride aspect of it. I wonder, will I feel proud of myself if later in life I have to tell my son, “Well, I didn’t like or agree with any of the things that were done to me, but I just didn’t do anything about it.” I told Vincent, I’d rather be seen as a tyrant than someone who will be walked over. What kind of example will I set for my own child if I can’t feel proud of my own decisions, or stand behind them. Granted, I admit I thought that I would be able to wait until he was in school before I started having to defend my son and myself (..looking forward to that first parent-teacher conference), but I guess that was silly of me to think that.

                My clinical nurse called me this morning. I suspected she would, but what I wasn’t prepared for was how docile she sounded. I expected we would have a phone chat, and I was ready to answer, reminding myself of the tiger. Instead, she tells me, “I got your message and we don’t want you feeling bad so why don’t you come in and see the doctor and he can talk to you.” I told her I couldn’t today, and she asked if I was sure. I said maybe tomorrow.

                So I call my family, who offered some great perspective in all their wisdom. The first was my father, who advised, “Why do they want you to come in? You‘ve been cleared by other medical professionals as being ok. If you don’t want to go in… don’t. Tell them if he wants to see you, he can at your next appointment, but that you don’t feel like being stressed out by going into the clinic again.” Ect. Ect.

                Then, my mother, who asks, “If he just wanted to talk to you why couldn’t he over the phone? Every time you go into that clinic someone gets billed for your visit, be it our tax dollars or someone else’s.” Which is completely true. All of the extra tests which were ordered, going to the specialist, moving my appointments closer together because of the supposed preeclampsia… all of this costs taxpayer money.

                My concern, however, was also that the nurse is going to use the doctor to her defense, which I completely expect. They apparently have been in league for years… so, seeing him as someone with more authority, I’m sure she expects me to sit down and listen to him explain why inductions are practical as well as safe ect.

                So I called back… office was closed again (seems to happen a lot even on weekdays), and left a message for the front desk that my schedule’s tight, and I’ll just keep my appointment for the tenth. If the doctor has anything to say to me, I let her know he could see me at my appointment or call me. I keep thinking about the tiger, and how I want to be seen.

               

                How many other women, I wonder, have been lied to, or strung along? I hear about them all the time… friends who were deceived. Then, there is the great majority. The women who tell me that all three of their births were induced, for example, and they seemed normal. Why? Well, imagine, if you don’t do any research, that the first birth sets you up for the next one and so forth. If you put your trust in the hands of a professional who told you the things I had been told and you did not question them, I suppose you would come to expect it from all of your births.

                Now, in no way am I mocking mothers who are happy being induced. I realize that this comprises the majority of the American population at this point. Only when I talk to those learned in the subject, or foreigners do they stare in wonder and remark at how incredibly irresponsible it seems to have an induction purely for the convenience of it. As I’ve said before, America is the land of convenience, so I suppose it would seem perfectly natural for childbirth to play along into that.

                However, some of the best advice I’ve gotten in my time, “If a procedure is not medically necessary, then you probably don’t want to have it done.” I personally, feel in no way scared of childbirth.. anxious, certainly as well as curious and excited. But my body was made for this, right? It’s the other people I’m concerned about.

                My father drives quite confidently. On the road, he is brilliant, smooth, he knows the laws and maneuvers accordingly.  Yet often times, I cringe at the way he drives. The other day, he commented on this and I told him, “I trust you. I understand you know what you were doing, but just because you do doesn’t mean anyone else abides. What’s to stop someone in the next lane from swerving over recklessly and hitting us?” It’s the perfect metaphor really.