'I Was 16 Years Old when I Gave Birth to My First Child'

I am a parent of four children, but one of my experiences of giving birth is one that I hope no one ever has to experience. I was only 16 years old when I gave birth to my first child. The hospital experience was dreadful, as it was in 1975. I was unmarried and scared.. I was in labour 31 and 1/2 hours and they treated me like I had no rights. They would not explain anything to me and so I was unsure what was happening. I did attend pre-natal classes for unmarried girls, so I had some ideas of what was going to happen but it sure did not prepare me for the experience I had.

My labour started on a Saturday morning at about 11:00 am, and buy Sunday afternoon at 12:00 noon I was told that I was 8cm dilated and that I could start pushing. But I told them that I did not have the urge to push and that I did not think that my water had broke because I did not feel any gush of water. The nurse and doctor told me that my water was broke and to start pushing. So I did what they said, and after about one hour of pushing, the doctor did an examination and said to stop pushing because my water was not broken. So I stopped pushing and after awhile the doctor put a hook inside of me and it broke my water. After that happened things started to happen very quickly. At 3:59 pm my daughter was born..

She was very blue when she was born and she had white stuff on her eye. But the nurse said it was just mucus, and that it was nothing. They told me that I had a beautiful healthy baby girl. And she was beautiful.

But I was still not treated like a person that just had a baby. I was treated like someone who was not told what was going on. After a few hours, the doctors informed me that the spot on my daughters eye was cataract and that it had to be removed and she is probably going to be blind in that eye. They also continued to tell me that she had a whole in her heart and that she will have to have dye injected into her heart so that they can see how much damage there is. They also said that her one ear was deformed and that she will be deaf in that ear. And also that she is severally mentally retarded, and that her life would never amount to anything and that I should just put her in an institution now because I was too young to handle such a situation.

I was shocked, as they had no compassion in their hearts when they told me this information. They just told me one thing after another. I was not even allowed to put my child's birth announcement in the newspaper because I was not married.The care that I received was not the kind of care I would wish on anyone.

My daughter I must say is doing great, if I had listened to these so-called professionals I do not know where she would be today. There is nothing more wonderful than the birth of your first child. And it is a scary experience for anyone, but especially a young girl of 16 years old. But when a group of people can take a wonderful experience and have someone feel like their heart was cut in half, that is too much power for them to have. The medical community should learn to offer counseling to people who have to go through this type of experience, not just give the information and good luck to you.

Anyway, this is my experience. Thank you