Andrea’s Story: Just Listen

I’ve struggled with how to preface this story. I wrote something about ‘what if you had a cesarean section without a healthy baby,’ and that is part of this story, but I realized it’s not what it’s really about. Andrea’s story, if it’s about anything other than the fact that it’s her story, is about listening.

Listening to ourselves, as mothers, and learning to trust our intuitive sense of when things are right and when things are wrong during pregnancy, birth, and beyond is so important. For most of us this means trusting that when we feel our baby is healthy that means our baby is healthy, and trusting our bodies and our babies in the physiological process of birth. For a few of us it means we have to trust that sense that something is wrong, and listen to what our bodies and our babies are trying to tell us so we can get help.

This kind of inner knowing is often dismissed by health care professionals, since it is ‘soft’ and unmeasurable, but many amazing midwives know the importance of asking a woman how she is feeling and listening to her and taking her seriously when she says something is wrong.

Health care professionals listening to the mother is so important. Doctors and nurses and midwives need to listen to a mother when she feels something isn’t right. They also need to listen to a mother when she is convinced that she doesn’t need interventions, that she doesn’t need any outside assistance to give birth.

And when the birth is over, whatever the outcomes, whatever the joy or the pain of it, we need someone to listen to our stories, to sit with us in the grief and the triumph. To enable our voices.

Andrea is a very good friend of mine, and this is what she has taught me: Just listen.

My stories are difficult to share as I fear upsetting others. They are long and very sad. I am a healthy young woman who has experienced some of the worst downfalls of our medical system. I really wish I had had my pregnancies in Europe, where in most countries midwives and/or doulas provide care to all expectant mothers with a term approach to maternity care, and that I had been able to make informed choices. I think that a midwife would have listened more to what my body and my baby were telling me, and that I would at least have had greater emotional support and more information about all my options.

My first pregnancy in 1995 was a surprise, tough, late teen pregnancy with bad hyperemesis (severe morning sickness). I had heavy early bleeding but it stopped and an ultrasound revealed a strong heartbeat. I was somewhat prepared for birth. I trusted my doctor, Dr. Moreau, as I would a god. He was nice and listened well to me. My pregnancy ended in an induced pitocin drip labour because of an artificial rupture of membranes (the doctor breaking the water) that failed to produce natural contractions. After fifty hours of labour and an epidural, my daughter Ashley was born vaginally. She was healthy, although she had a hip dislocation and a port-wine stain birthmark on her face. She weighed 8lbs 4 1/2 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. After I got home from the hospital I felt very unwell, but because I was a new mom I thought this was normal. Days after birth I delivered a second full placenta at home. I had a high fever and was started on IV antibiotics. I had a D & C (dilation and curettage to sweep the uterus for any leftover pieces of tissue) months later for continued bleeding and a spongy spot in my uterus. My second pregnancy in early 1997 ended in a miscarriage at nine weeks. It was tough, as we went to the hospital to be told I was dilating and nothing could be done to save the pregnancy. I miscarried at home and went back to the hospital with heavy bleeding hours later.

My third pregnancy started with lots of bleeding from a placental complication. After a tough pregnancy ending with days of no movement and recorded fetal distress, my son Grayson was born by ER c-section at thirty-five weeks and died shortly after birth. He bled to death as a result of proven medical malpractice by Dr. Moreau, a Barrie obstetrician, the same OB I had in my first pregnancy. Dr. Moreau did an X-ray because of fetal distress and the baby’s breech position. When Dr. Moreau told me he would do the c-section the following morning, as it was about 10 pm and the ORs were supposedly busy, I asked why he wanted to wait and he assured me the more time a preterm baby had in utero the better. I had begun to have mild but regular contractions at this time similar to what I had been experiencing in the hospital for weeks while on bed rest. When Dr. Moreau left the hospital the nurse caring for me called Dr. Browning. At that time he ordered a STAT c-section over the phone, which I did not find out until after I read my chart months later. I was transferred to the birthing unit and my son’s heart rate was 90 when I got to the birthing unit from my room. He had a seizure and his heartbeat went up for a short time and then quickly dropped until I heard the final beat just as I went under general anesthesia. I believe his death was a result of a system failure. Nurses were afraid to stand up to the doctor etc. Grayson was 6lbs 7oz, twenty-one and a half inches long, and mature in every way but just missing half his blood volume from a marginal cord tear. I woke up from a general anesthesia to this nightmare. With the help of my doula, Martha Stroggie, therapy, and a support group I started my grief journey and healing.

My fourth pregnancy in 1999 with my daughter Julia was a tough emotional pregnancy but with the help of Martha, my doula, she was birthed by a planned c-section in Newmarket by Dr. Watt. She had medical problems from a genetic allergic condition, which took three years to diagnose at Sick Kids Hospital. My fifth pregnancy was a huge surprise as I got pregnant just months after Julia was born. I went into preterm labour at twenty-two weeks, but it was stopped and I was placed on bed rest. Victoria was born at 29 weeks and 6 days by emergency c-section. She weighed 3lbs 1oz and was fourteen inches long. Dr. Barrett at Women’s College Hospital had hoped to get me to thirty-four weeks and do an elective section but I was diagnosed with a very thin lower uterine scar that they said would not stand up to ANY contractions. I believed them, and after a short time of preterm irregular contractions and one late recovery fetal heart decal, I agreed to a c-section of my very preterm daughter. Victoria’s birth was painful because the spinal partially failed and I was placed under general anesthesia. I had my tubes tied at this point and Victoria fought for her life for three years. It was tough, but she was alive and Sick Kids Hospital was awesome. Four years after the birth of Victoria I decided to let the malpractice death of my son just play out in the courts independently, as it had grown bigger than I could have imagined. A few letters to the College of Physicians had magnified over the years to a public interest case, as other babies had died under Dr. Moreau’s care and several investigations were underway. We moved to the Yukon to continue our healing. I convinced my husband to try for a sixth pregnancy. I had my tubes reversed by a well researched U.S. doctor in Mexico, as the Canadian doctors refused to do the surgery with my obstetric history. I got pregnant months after the reversal.

After months of medication and self induced bed rest, I went into labour at 33 weeks with my son Kyle in early 2006. After days of pain, a panicked hospital staff believed me that I was in labour. I was contracting for days and then suddenly 5 cm dilated after a thirty minute non-stop contraction. But by this time it was too late to fly me out to a level three hospital. They refused to let me birth naturally and rushed me into a c-section after giving me three boluses of IV fluid. Why, I do not know. They gave me a spinal at 8 1/2 cm. The contraction just continued and after a very difficult extraction with a vacuum from the c-section opening, my son was born.
Kyle was very ill with an APGAR score of 3. One good thing about the birth experience was that I got to see him and touch him. He weighed 6lbs 1oz and was twenty-one inches long. I was very, very high from a drug called Ketamine, which was a great option for a failed spinal and the trauma I was experiencing. The Ketamine kept me partially aware but quite comfortable physically and psychologically… so the PTSD was left for my husband.

After five hours of surgery to clean up all the scar tissue and give me an outside skin tummy tuck, I was wheeled out of the surgical room. Minutes later I got up and walked down to the Special Care Unit to see my son as they prepared him for transport to Edmonton. He could not breathe without a vent and had fluid overload on his lungs and heart. He was flown out and I went to Edmonton two days later. He was off the vent in six days, as the fluid resolved, and he was home at nine days as he was breastfeeding like a champ. He just had a tough time regulating his temperature.

Just this year I followed up on the malpractice case with the health professional appeal board and college. Dr. Moreau was referred to the quality assurance committee and his appeals were denied. He had fallen below the standard of care. His saying ‘I’m sorry’ and the proven malpractice bring me some relief. But have they impacted the care women receive at the Royal Victoria Hospital? This I do not know. Does its erase the pain and memories of my first c-section or burying my child? Of course not. But I am glad I spoke up, and I encourage others to speak up too. Your health care matters, and if you feel you have not been treated well your care providers deserve to know and be accountable. I believe if more women spoke up then our health care would be very different.

My four children are now healthy and happy My marriage sadly became and remained very unhealthy and we are now going through a sad but much needed divorce. I am unsure how I have survived and excelled though all this. I have good and bad days. I guess you just do what you have to.

I try to welcome the grief and the joy as it comes. I have learned so much and decided to become empowered, to become a certified doula and educator in hopes of supporting families in the childbearing years. I do full circle work: birth and death support for families. Everything in balance. Life is full of surprises, and sometimes you just have to let go and go with the flow, and sometimes you have to stand up, find your voice, and fight.

I have become a board member for a new group, Mothers of Change. Support it and share your voice. It matters!

Andrea Meilun, mother of six, Certified Doula (DONA), LCCE (Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator), Perinatal Grief Support.