my mother, my midwife

i've been thinking, WHY THE FUCK did i allow my midwife to neglect my care like she did?

i'm not stupid. i know some stuff about nutrition, health...even pregnancy, labor, and delivery. i observed things about my pregnancy (important things) and let her convince me i was wrong. i let her convince me i was only following the antiquated protocol of evil obstetrics. i let myself emotionally and physically fall to shit...i mean, i had prenatal care; everything was going to be fine in the end. she was checking all the important stuff, right? my only concern was not getting another c-section.

when i look back on it now, i can't believe how many ways i was neglected by my caregiver. i understand that her belief is that no intervention is best, the body knows what it's doing, everything will be fine...(like i think coggy said,) IN A PERFECTLY HEALTHY WOMAN. the signs were there. she never ever should have taken me on as a client. in trying to prove (i guess) that no matter what, you always get a baby when you let nature take it's course, she let my baby die. to quote my ob, she also put my life in danger. and you know what??? KNOWING I WASN'T A CANDIDATE WAS NOT MY JOB. IT WAS HERS.

so, was it just blindness? was it blindness to the fact that i wasn't a candidate because i wanted a homebirth so badly? i read all the studies on uterine rupture and felt my risk was minimal. i felt confident about having a vbac, even at home (i have a master's degree in public health, for the love of god; i know how to read medical literature). but the real problems were lurking underneath all of that; the real problem was that she treated everything else about my case the same exact way she would have any other run-of-the-mill perfectly healthy pregnant woman. AND IT WASN'T MY JOB TO KNOW I WASN'T.

it also scared the shit out of me to learn (after my baby was dead) that her back-up plan SUCKS. there was absolutely NOTHING in place...she has no doctor liaisons at the hospitals, and her "medical advisor" is such in name only. once i was in the ER with a dead baby in my belly, she had nothing else to offer...no referrals, no NOTHING. i fell into the lap of the ob on call, and i was fortunate enough to get a really, really caring one. if not? fuck me, i guess.

it's not like i would have expected her to continue my care. i know, with a full-term dead baby inside me, i was out of the scope of her practice. but HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT, what if i was in labor at home, and had a real, time-sensitive emergency??? i know that there are risks in homebirth, especially a vbac at home. the general rule is, no farther than 15 minutes from a hospital. no problem, i'm 10. but...and this is a huge BUT...once you get there, then what? the ultrasound tech on call lived an HOUR away. the ob on call was also sleeping in his bed. if anything went wrong during labor or delivery, we BOTH would have been dead.

i asked her about her backup plan a couple of weeks after i was no longer with child. she told me that what happens is she calls hospitals in the area to assess which is better staffed and then we transfer to the chosen hospital. is it me, or does that not seem good enough? and why in FUCK didn't i know about that while i was still pregnant?

so many questions. so many questions. the first answer, to me, is I MUST BE STUPID. i must be an ignorant, naive, daisies growing out of my head IDIOT. how could i risk so much, through blind ignorance, just because i wanted something a certain way? how could i trust my midwife, not ever having had the important conversations?

my genius of a therapist said a week ago, "doesn't the midwife remind you of your mother?"

it wasn't a pitch darkness to light brightness kind of lightbulb, but a slower, dimmer-switch kind of one that is increasing in brightness day by day. i felt comfortable being left to my own devices, felt comfortable being neglected, felt comfortable trusting someone so narcissistic, because that's what i'm accustomed to in a caregiver.

this whole thing is getting bigger and bigger, like a wet stain on a california king sized bedsheet. my baby died, and now i'm finding out i have no fucking idea who i was. my baby died, and now i'm finding out i had no idea who everyone else is either. having a dead baby is becoming the easiest part of this whole mess to figure out...she was here, she died, i love her and wish so fucking bad she was here, but she's not. but the rest? HOLY SHIT. i'm just gonna keep going, day by day, until the wet circle stops growing (maybe never).

someone said (maybe kalakly) that even her name means "messenger." still not buying anything remotely resembling *this happened for a reason* but i do know that having her is changing my life. my job, at this point, is to rise up and live it.

what's been up

besides my computer crashing and dealing with a stressed-out husband (yes, it WAS the end of the world), the past week has been really, certifiably crazy.

first off, my mother. my therapist actually came out and told me that what i describe is a pers0nality dis0rder, and that CAN'T be fixed. i came to the conclusion that it's narc1ss1st1c pers0nality dis0rder after reading the criteria. HOLY SHIT, i can finally put a finger (or several) on the fucking shit i've been dealing with all these years. I AM NOT THE ASSHOLE!! this is a breakthrough.

i have stopped responding her emails at all, and restricted her visits to holidays and birthdays. she is FREAKING OUT. she's desperately trying to get my sister to feel guilty/sorry for her, which isn't working. her desperate mission to find a husband is in crash and burn phase. she has no friends. she is getting NO satisfaction with her old tricks. the last thing i sent her was a link to the disorder listed above, but not in hopes she would actually take it seriously...i think i just had to put it out there as my official "position."

my therapist told me what will be hard is coming to terms with the fact that i don't have a mother. in my head, i'd already done without one. but realizing that she will never GET IT, she will never understand me, until i DIE, has been hard. somehow, i've always thought that if the right situation came up, or i found the right words, if the cosmos aligned in just the perfect way, she would GET IT and actually realize that she's been a selfish self-righteous pompous ass. it seems so obvious NOW, but i think that because she's a therapist/social worker, she knows the right things to say. she's always made me think that the changes were possible. now i just know they're not. EVER. NEVER EVER. that's kinda scary yet good. thinking about past experiences and encounters with her with this newfound information has been, um, quite interesting.

next, the lawsu1t situation. i spoke to a lawyer last week, and also saw the 0b who did the c-sec (for my annual exam). i mentioned to him that i spoke to someone, to kinda gauge his reaction. OH MY GOD. he basically told me that he was already in pursuit of the licenses of both the m1dw1fe and her med advisor because of my case...and that he will do everything possible to help me, and that i am the first in his career he's ever said that to. i was in complete shock. i still am. i guess this thing is really going to happen. holy fucking shit.

because of the sensitivity of the information, i think i'm going to go private. there's no way in hell i can talk about a lawsu1t on a public blog.

so..........let me know if you want to keep reading, and comment or email me your email address. ok?