At that point, they moved me onto a wheeled bed and took me into the delivery room with the pediatrician and several nurses. They seemed to be in a huge hurry about this but did not say why. I don’t know if it was because the doctor was late for his c-section or because there was possibly something wrong and they needed to get the baby out quick, but they did not want me to know this because they wouldn’t turn on the fetal monitor. The doctor did not communicate with me about any of this. They still did not bring or hook me up to a fetal monitor and I had not been hooked up to a fetal monitor since 1:00 when they removed it from the pre-delivery room. Dr. Reyes said he was going to give me an episiotomy and held up something that looked you would use for gardening or cutting grass. I said I preferred not to have one, as I had stated in my birth plan. He did the episiotomy anyways, and later imitated me in a high-pitched voice saying “I don’t want an episiotomy, I don’t want one” and laughing. Then they told me to push when I felt a contraction coming. But by this time, the epidural had fully kicked in and I didn’t feel any contractions at all and was totally numb. I was laying flat on my back and the doctors didn’t give me any help or strategies on what to do, just said to push. I tried to push but afterward the doctor shook his head and sighed. He told me again more firmly to push when I felt a contraction but I didn’t feel any contractions, so I just pushed really hard for as long as I could but he got irritated when the baby didn’t crown again. He had given me 2-3 minutes to try pushing (just 2 times) when a large nurse said to him “this girl doesn’t know how, she doesn’t know how” rolling her eyes and laughing (the staff talked to each other about me in front of me as if I didn’t know Spanish or understand them). Another nurse was playing on his blackberry during this time. I don’t know why they didn’t hook up the fetal monitor so I could try to watch my contractions and push (if this could have been a possibility?) I don’t remember hearing an order from Dr. Reyes but the large nurse and another huge man working as an orderly then both came and pushed and laid as hard as they could on my stomach, shoving it down with full force. There was no technique to this, they just pushed as hard as they could until the baby came shooting out fast at 6:25p.m. They never communicated with me that they were going to do this or why they were doing this. I didn’t realize at the time, but later was told by other doctors and read in a midwifery medical journal that doing this (fundal pressure) is a malpractice that is very dangerous and causes placental abruption and can kill both the mother and baby, andcan also cause other complications such as uterine rupture, anal sphincter damage, and perineal trauma to the mother, and fractures, nerve damage, and brain damage to the baby. It can also break up the placenta into pieces leaving part of it inside, which can cause infections and other problems. It also highly increases chances of 3rd and 4th degree tears. In cases of women having both episiotomy and fundal pressure, it increases likelihood of anal sphincter tear (4th degree) from less than 1% to 65%.
I had only been in the delivery room for about 15 minutes totalbefore the baby was born. I didn’t hear her crying at first and I asked why isn’t she crying a few times in a panic and they all laughed and then she started crying about 10 seconds later. I felt like the whole time they were talking about me but not to me. They cleaned Kenya up and put her on my chest as I requested, and then put her in the incubator and wheeled her out of the room. During that time, some of the nurses and orderlies went to the end of the table and made faces looking at my vagina as if they were horrified by it. I asked how many stitches I would need, and the larger nurse who had pushed on my stomach laughed and said “50”. When I got upset about this, the doctor said she was just kidding and it wouldn’t be that many. They proceeded to stitch me up for the next 50 minutes approximately. Many times the doctor looked confused moving things around and looked like he didn’t know how to proceed. He did this alone and never consulted anyone to help him with this, other than the nurse who handed him instruments. One of my friends who was in the delivery room and saw the tear came to tell me that it was very severe, unlike one she had ever seen before with other births she had helped with. I didn’t really let it affect me because I was very excited about my baby. When the afterbirth came out, two male nurses laughed while looking at it and made jokes calling it “cerdo” and “chuleta” (different cuts of meat) and joking about who would eat it. They dropped it down on top of my gown, and I didn’t see anyone evaluate, measure, or do anything to assess the placenta.
After sewing me up, they wheeled my bed to a waiting room with several other women where I waited by myself for a while (I don’t remember how long). Then the pediatrician, Dr. Maria Pacheco, brought Kenya to me so I could breastfeed her. Luckily she latched right on and ate well for the next hour and a half non-stop. (I had begun producing milk in April, 2 months before the birth so this was great). We were taken to our hospital room for the night, and they wanted to take Kenya to the nursery but I requested that she stay with us so they brought her in to stay with us. Around midnight, she ate again for another 45 minutes straight then slept through most of the night. Around 2 a.m. my epidural was starting to wear off and I started feeling intense pain. Around 3a.m., my husband went out into the hallway to ask a nurse if I could have something for the pain. All of the nurses were asleep behind the reception desk and seemed irritated to be woken up. They said that I was not allowed to take anything (not even a Tylenol) without a prescription from the doctor. By 4 a.m. the pain was totally unbearable and my husband went again and asked for a pain reliever and was told no. I never went to sleep because I was in so much pain, mostly inside my rectal area which I was not expecting. I called Dr. Reyes in the morning and he came in to check things out. He examined me sticking his fingers up inside both areas which was extremely painful, and finally said “this is nothing, just a couple of hemorrhoids”. He said there was one that was internal and one that was external and they were about the size of peas. I asked him if there was tearing or stitches in my anus or rectal area, and he said no that they were only in my vagina (which I later found out was a lie). He said he would give me a hemorrhoid cream and also something for the pain, but I found out later this was just a mild over the counter anti-inflammatory (I don’t remember the name). He asked me if I would like to have the hemmorhoids surgically removed but I had no idea how to answer because I’d never had them before and didn’t know. He said we’d try the cream and if it didn’t work, he’d send me to the surgeon to have them removed.