Jenn Murphy's Story

I was 17 when I became pregnant. My boyfriend left me the minute I started to get large. But that wasn't the hard part. I was told when I was 13 that I had problems with my uterus and would never be able to have children and if I did manage to conceive I would miscarry at three to five months. So when I went to the doctor at four and a half months she was just as shocked as I was. I was put on bed rest and watched carefully for the remainder of my pregnancy. The only doctor that was familiar with my situation was an hour away in the city of Halifax. Every week my mother and I would drive to the city for my appointment. Toward the end on my pregnancy we made the trip to Halifax twice a week.

The doctor prepared me for premature delivery. They said that the way my uterus was shaped it was like caring twins. So I managed to stay on the couch until the last month. I went into labour at the beginning of the month. We drove the hour trip to the hospital. (our local hospital didn't deliver babies) When we got there I was told that my labour wasn't bad enough for it to be the real thing. My cervix had opened to 3 cm but no more. So they let me stay the night to see if my cervix would open any more. My cervix didn't dilate any more so I was sent home the next day a little depressed.

Two weeks later I was back again. That's when an intern decided that they should break my water. I had to fight them off. My birth plan said that I wanted the most natural labour. That meant if it wasn't broken than it wasn't going to be. I stayed the night and went home in the morning even more depressed. One nurse told me that I wasn't in enough pain to really be in labour which didn't help the situation. I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get this baby out.

Finally the day before my due date, the pains got a whole lot worse. I went back to the hospital and laboured on my own for 12 hours with no use of drugs. That's when they decided to induce me seeing I was so close to my due date. The labour pains continued another 24 more hours. Near the end for the last 12 hours the pains were really bad. Thank God for the bath tub. My mother had to tell one of the nurses to get a doctor in to check me because of my uterus problems. NO ONE had even bothered reading my file! We had to remind them.

My temperature started to rise and the baby wasn't doing very well. I hadn't eaten in a week, nor slept since it all had started. My water finally broke. I had to ask for some Demerol because I needed to sleep. While I was asleep my doctor decided that I needed a C- section. I was given an epidural then wheeled me off to the operating room. I'm not sure how long a section is supposed to take but I felt two hours seemed a bit long. I was losing consciousness due to the loss of blood.

Catriona was born at 4:00 p.m.. weighing in at 7 pound 15 ounces. She had to be helped to breath but after a few breaths she was, and still is, a healthy baby. We spent a week in the hospital then were allowed to go home. It is hard to believe she will be a year old tomorrow!

You know what really bothers me about the whole experience wasn't the fact that I taught a whole class of student doctors, nor was it the fact that no one trusted me enough because of my age. It wasn't the nurses coming in every five minutes and asking me if I now want the drugs, nor was it the "vegetarian diet" with chicken, turkey, milk and cheese. It wasn't even the unnecessary 36 hours of labour either. It was the fact that NO ONE in this hospital had even bothered to look over my file to see why I was not doing so well.

The moral of this story is that white coats don't always make you smarter.