Our Happy Homebirth Ended in a Horrid Hospital Visit

After our beautiful unassisted homebirth, we waited several hours for the placenta to come, but it did not. After six hours, we cut the baby's umbilical cord and started getting ready to go to the hospital. I called ahead to inquire about their procedures for retained placenta. I stated a desire to try minimally-invasive techniques before D&C and not to be admitted. The nurse was optimistic and said that usually a D&C is unnecessary, but if I did need one, it would be quick. The doctor's response was more pessimistic--that I'd have to let him do whatever was necessary to get it out even if that meant wheeling me into the ER.

I was worried about going to the hospital. I had heard of hospital staff treating women very cruelly after homebirths that went awry. I had also heard of people reporting parents to CPS for having unassisted homebirths. I didn't know what to expect. We even considered not bringing the baby along, but ultimately decided it would be best to let them see for themselves how healthy he was. I was hoping for the best but still terrified of the worse. Our experience was somewhere in between that. Had I told the whole truth, I fear it would have been even less pleasant.

On the phone, I reported that a midwife had attended, but I had sent her away even though the placenta had not yet come. When the words "criminal negligence" came up, I responded that I refused to name her and that they would never uncover her identity, so they could forget that. I told them that we'd wanted to be alone as a family and had informed the midwife that we would go to the hospital if the placenta did not come. We didn't want to be treated as high risk because of intentionally birthing our son by ourselves.

I carried my perfect newborn into the hospital in my pajamas with my husband Corey and stepmother Malinda, an LPN, beside me. We were greeted by kind nurses and put into a room to wait for the doctor. The nurse offered me an IV before the doctor had even looked at me. I didn't want to be tethered down by an IV, which aren't necessary even for D&Cs especially when the mother is perfectly capable of orally ingesting fluids. She wanted us to place Orin in the incubator, but I told her that he was happier in his father's arms.

While we waited, I called my mother-in-law to describe the birth and her new grandson to her. When the doctor came in, he snapped at me to get off of the phone. I would have said goodbye without prompting if he'd have been polite enough to give me a moment. The doctor called me atypical and stated he didn't think I would let him do what was necessary to remove the placenta. I told him that I just wanted to know my options first so that I could make an informed decision. He replied that he didn't know, because I had not let him examine me. I said "Then examine me; that's why I'm here," wondering why I hadn't even been offered a gown yet.

I changed into the gown and laid down to wait. While they set up, the doctor stood with his arms crossed regarding me. He asked my blood type and Rubella status. I told him that I was O+ and immune to Rubella. He asked how I know that, and I explained that they'd notified me when I gave birth to my son two years before. He told me that if I was immune then, I'm immune now. I wanted to point out that it's hard to live 22 years without knowing your blood type, but I refrained. Instead, I was conversational, polite, and upbeat throughout it at all without saying a single rude word to the doctor.

He sat down to examine me, and around then Malinda shut off the camera. He shoved his fingers in me fast and hard. I gritted my teeth, squinted my eyes, and clenched my fist. After feeling around for a moment he told me that the placenta should just come out. He then shoved as much of his hand up me as quickly and roughly as humanly possibly and pushed vigorously on my stomach until the placenta was removed. Teeth gritted, eyes squinted, fists clenched, I coped with pain that was nearly as bad as giving birth. He made several sweeps with his finger to ensure my uterus was empty, and I could feel blood pouring out of me. I was left much more sore than before down below.

As he was "fixing" me, we allowed them to examine our son. They clamped his cord closer to his belly button and got a more accurate weight and length on him. He seemed perfectly healthy to the nurse who examined him. The doctor again asked to do blood work on me, as he apparently didn't believe I knew my blood type and Rubella status. I consented to letting him draw my blood for the sake of seeming cooperative, but not Orin's. I wasn't going to let my baby be pricked for that, especially when blood typing him was pointless as confirmed days later by a pediatrician. He said "So you consent for yourself but decline for your son?" in a voice that implied parental neglect.

Before he left he gave me the usual speal about homebirth. "I don't support homebirth, because while 95% are safe there's always that 5% that aren't..." I just nodded and smiled and told him he was entitled to his opinion. He asked about my arrangements for a birth certificate, and I asked "Doesn't the midwife take care of that?" He notified me that he would be putting in a consult to a community health service about my baby's well-being.

At one point the heart monitor alarm went off, and Malinda offered to disable it. He ignored her. Another time she gently brushed one of the things on the table, and he snapped at her not to touch anything. He was overly rude and indirectly accusatory.

The doctor patted my bare foot before he left the room and almost smiled, as though he pitied me, the nicest thing he'd done. He was even nice enough, when he returned while I was on the phone with my brother-in-law Johnathan checking on our son Corbin, to give me 20 seconds to end the call on my own. I thanked him, and we left. We were in and out in about an hour and a half. It was not as bad as it could have been.

Malinda has seen that procedure done and knows he was unnecessarily rough. My mother had it done and said they were very gentle. I've had pelvic exams before, and I know they are done gently. This doctor was deliberately rough with me. I'm thankful he wasn't there when Orin was born and never laid his hands on my sweet angel.

Did this doctor want to punish me for choosing homebirth? Or maybe because I was "difficult" and wanted to make my own informed choices, instead of blindly trusting him? Was he hoping that by making my experience miserable, he would dissuade me from choosing it again? Does he assume all of his patients are ignorant--or just me for trusting in birth? I don't know, but whatever the answers are, this experience made me that much more grateful for my homebirth experience.

We know now that the retained placenta was caused by my taking Shepherd's purse. I could have just had someone else gently put their finger through my cervix and apply pressure to my stomach. I will chose unassisted homebirth again and again, and next time I will just be that much more hesitant to go to the hospital. Because of this experience, I trust doctors less, trust myself more, and will just be even more careful and prepared in the future.

I share my experience to remind everyone out there that doctors are only human, as a warning to others planning to homebirth, and in hopes of creating change. Doctors have personalities just like you and me. They can be kind and caring or angry and vindictive, and they don't always treat every patient the same. Mine is only one of many stories of women being treated unkindly after homebirths, and the other stories out there are much more sad. Hopefully in the future homebirth will not be met with such hostility, and new mothers will always be treated by gentle, loving hands.