Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Our Daughter's Birth 27 Years Ago

Today here on my blog I thought I would finally share my 27 year old daughter's birth story with all of my readers since I rarely talk about it.

I got pregnant at the age of 17 and yes, it was a planned pregnancy with my mother's consent. You see, I have been chronically ill since I was a child and in my teen years was told I would need a hysterectomy by age 20. I had been dating my then boyfriend for a few years and he was older than me and obviously he consented to me getting pregnant too.

Due to my health problems, I had a very difficult pregnancy and was on total bed rest for 8 out of 9 months. I threw up every day (all-day sickness) for 8 months and barely gained any weight, matter of fact, I gained a total of 16 lbs. my entire pregnancy! I had cramping, bleeding, spotting and pain almost the entire time. We knew ahead of time that I would need a c-section and we planned for it in early July of 1985.

However, my daughter had other plans and I went into early labor on June 18th. The doctor changed his mind and told me that she was no longer breach and he wanted me to try a vaginal delivery. At the time I opted for a natural birth in a hospital setting since the doctor told me that she had changed position and it would only take a few hours to deliver.

Well, he was wrong! It took almost 42 hours to deliver her vaginally and she ripped me from front to back. She came out butt first and was in cardiac arrest. That's right folks, I gave birth to a baby who wasn't breathing and they pronounced her dead upon birth. I started screaming at them to try to get her to breathe and after a few minutes they did do CPR and got a heartbeat back. She was wheeled off to NICU and I didn't see her for 3 days as they had hauled me down to the OR for surgery to repair the damage.

When I saw my baby for the first time, I knew we needed to immediately contact a medical malpractice attorney because this doctor and that hospital made some serious mistakes and misjudgements regarding the birth of our child. They were ready to write her off and bury her instead of trying to revive her! After all, she had quit breathing due to their mistake on her position, how long they left me labor and other judgement calls that they made. Their mistakes could of cost both of us our lives.

With the help of both of our families we found a great law firm to handle our case and instead of going to court, the hospital settled with us and covered ALL of her birthing medical bills. They also covered all medical care for her and myself for the following 5 years. Back then, they got off easy because now in modern times, I could of stuck those idiots for millions!

Our daughter is now 27 years old and is pretty healthy and normal. She only has one problem related to her birth and that is she has a bad hip and will need her hip joint replaced in a few years. She is doing fabulous otherwise and is the beautiful mother to an adorable 3 year old baby girl.

Well there you have it, my daughter J's birth story!

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