Today I went for a simple consultation for a high-end makeup
product. When the nurse called my name I recognized her face, but from where?
And then it hit me: this was my labor and delivery and maternity nurse from
when Ivy was born. She is the nurse that took Ivy for “just a quick weight
check” and never brought her back. This is the nurse who came an hour later and
said she wanted to do some “tests” on Ivy and I couldn’t come now, but she’d
let me know when. This was the nurse that never returned. Ever. It wasn’t for 5
hours more until I was able to find an LNA to locate my newborn baby at 5 am.
Ivy had been born at 4pm the day before and I had held my precious, perfect
baby all night until this nurse took her at 11pm.
When my husband and I arrived in the NICU, to which Ivy had
been admitted without warning to us, she was in dire shape. The NICU team
didn’t have a diagnosis, but supposed she had a fatal circulatory issue. They
had supposed that she would not survive, yet she was not being held or was I
even aware she was struggling. In her medical records that we obtained through
great struggle, we saw that they gave her pain medication and that she was in
stable condition. In meeting with the Hospital Medical Director of Pediatrics
last year, we learned that we could have held our precious newborn throughout
all of her tests that she had done during that time. I asked him, what would
have happened if she had passed away without me ever holding her again? He said
it was a grave mistake. But the nurse just never came to get us. In Ivy’s
medical record they had signed falsely that we, her parents, had given
permission for medical procedures and medications three times. An hour after
locating Ivy, she was diagnosed with severe Ebstein’s Anomaly and was
transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital by ambulance.
I never have stopped hating that nurse, and myself for not
insisting on seeing Ivy immediately.
This is PTSD. Knowing that a grave mistake could be made again and
fearing that I will not do the right thing next time. Reliving my horror at
literally losing my newborn in the hospital has made me the untrusting mom I am
today. Never do I let a nurse or doctor take her out of my sight. I have had 3
doctors and 2 nurses come to my house instead of going to the hospital for Ivy,
because I fear it so badly.
When I saw this nurse today, I was instantly in the hospital
maternity room, smelling the sterile smells, her holding my baby and saying,
“I’ll be right back with her”. And it brought a physical reaction of sweat, shaking,
hyperventilation and fear for me. I was able to bring myself back to the
present, but I had spent Ivy’s first year hating this woman who I only met
briefly. I had always wanted to have a confrontation with her and tell her how
powerfully awful her actions had been. And here she was, right in front of me.
It’s been almost 2 years since that fateful night, and I decided I did not want
to go back to that anger that I’ve fought so hard to let go, and I quietly left
the appointment with that nurse who has tormented my dreams. But when I told my
husband later I had seen her, the best compliment he gave me was “wow, I’m so
proud of you that you didn’t kill her”! I really feel I have accomplished
something.
