2019 - I have a beautiful, healthy and thriving boy but when I reflect on my personal care experience at Mount Sinai, I can’t help but be beyond disappointed in the system and myself for trusting it.
Before this successful pregnancy I had experience two back-to-back silent miscarriages and d&cs. I was scared and went to Mount Sinai because they were a ‘leading’ obstetrics hospital and practice. I would never return.
While I had shared with my ob (Dr Selk) my desire for an unmediated birth experience (as long as possible/safe), she pushed an induction on me at 38 weeks because my baby was tracking large (otherwise all looked healthy and lots of space). I agreed as trusted her/the system. She hadn’t seen me in almost a week when I went in to be induced which should have been my first red flag - I should have been checked for progress before going in. My body reacted intensely to the foley and 4 hours after it being inserted, I felt liquid down my legs...I thought my water had broken but went to the bathroom to discover I was bleeding heavily. We ran out the door and to triage - this was not something I was warned could happen though rare and especially after experiencing loses, we were absolutely terrified. In the haze of arrival, we were told we should continue the induction at that point. I was too scared to question anything. They broke my water and started pitocin. We were told nothing would happen for hours and they told my husband he could go home to grab a few items we had left behind but with the first dosage of pitocin my body was intensely contracting and instead of treating me like an individual human they upped to dosage at 30 minutes which is standard practice but I didn’t need it. I was alone - contracting with less than 30 second breaks...with contractions would thrust my body with overwhelming pain. I asked them repeatedly to return to the initial dosage and while they agreed to stop going up, they would not get the doctor and would not go down. This went on for hours as I was still delusional hopeful so could manage without an epidural.
When I decided I needed an epidural it was over an hour for the anesthesiologist to come - at this point my body was uncontrollably convulsing in pain at each contraction. Getting the epidural took over 20 minutes as they needed to stop for each convulsion.
When I was dilated to 10 the ob told the nurse to wait at least 2 hours or till I got the urge to push. At one hour, the nurse returned and told me it was time to start, when I questioned her about the time, she said ‘we’d just do a few practice pushes’. I can only imagine she knew what she was doing as once I started, there was no stoping and my body didn’t get that extra time that would have been helpful in preparing to birth what we knew was going to be a big baby. She also refused when I asked to try not to purple push and instead to breathe through my pushes.
Then the baby crowned - amazing you’d think. But no. She called the resident on speaker and he told her he wasn’t available and she’s need to find someone else. She couldn’t find the ob on call. At that point she turned to me and said ‘I’ve never delivered a baby before, and I don’t want yours to be my first. I’m going to go try and find someone’. Horribly uncomforting but there we sat, just us and a crowned baby waiting for someone to return. The nurse ended up taking the ob from another delivery as I was further along. The ob was clearly flustered, sharing with me that we could hear the screams from the labor she just left so we’d have to be quick. I went from being told how well my body was stretching to grade 2 tears - which I believe are at least partly contributed to the rush the doctor was in. She stitched my major tears and told me she’d return to finish stitching me once she delivered the other baby...
After all of it, and having been at mount sinai for 24 hours, there was an error at registration through triage as when I came in they didn’t expect me to stay so I was never registered for a room. I eventually ended up in a double room and my area was about 5 by 8 curtained with no window. I was a horrible way to try and be. The overwhelming nature of navigating a whole new world and then being completely crammed into a space you couldn’t even walk around the bed in. Never what I imagined in any way.
Last, I was released with my baby not properly latching. I didn’t realize and I thought we were doing fine based on the couple observational checks - we weren’t and we ended up in and out of the hospital for a week with jaundice in part because of the delay in my milk coming in because of poor latch.
I thought delivering at Mount Sinai was the best decision for my family. There was no part of my experience that made me feel heard, seen, or cared for beyond the most very basic. Getting a healthy baby is of course the absolute most important but it felt like there was zero consideration to the care and consequence (mental and physical health) of the one giving birth...and the one that would be caring for this new baby.
It’s so sad that the most important day of my life is overshadowed by the realities of this experience.
Submitted by MOF
