Among the thousands of experiences we can go through during pregnancy and childbirth, one that we never want or expect to face is neglect. At 19 years old, pregnant with my first daughter, without health insurance and totally unprepared, with no knowledge at all about pregnancy, childbirth, or even my rights, I went into labor and was sent to the public hospital and maternity ward in my area.
It was already the third time I had gone to that place, because I had been feeling contractions for two weeks and since I didn’t know what was happening to me, and had no one to explain and calm me down, I ended up panicking because I was sent back home each time without any real explanation. They would just say it wasn’t time yet. My pregnancy card already said 42 weeks! The mucus plug had come out completely during these last two weeks, and I arrived at the maternity ward very scared and in a lot of pain. Accompanied by my mother, my sister, and brother-in-law, they filled out my file so I could be examined. I waited around 40 minutes in the waiting room and when they called me in, I was faced with a bed totally dirty with blood and all sorts of filth that, to this day, I can’t even identify what it was. I was scared and said I would not lie on that bed, and promptly received a sharp response:
So you’re not in that much pain then, go back to the waiting room!
So I did, and I spent another 40 minutes sitting in the waiting room, in pain, crying, and scared about what would happen to me. My sister knocked on the door to complain about the delay, since no one else had come in after me and I was still waiting for a consult that wasn’t happening. Plus, there were more and more women arriving in pain, waiting to be seen just like I was.
They gave up on examining me and didn’t do the cervical check; they sent me for a cardiotocography, and from that room, I left with an order for admission. There it was, another obstacle! There were no beds available! After a long conversation between my sister and a nurse (I have no idea what was said), they found an ambulance to transfer me. By now I was in so much pain I couldn’t sit any longer, and even so, they made me be transferred sitting in an ambulance, sharing space with two other pregnant women.
Each pregnant woman was going to be taken to a nearby maternity ward, wherever there was a bed available. I was the first to be dropped off. Luckily, they left me at an old maternity hospital that usually worked privately, but opened beds for SUS patients when needed. For a moment I was happy, I thought things were finally going to work out quickly, but I was wrong! Because I was a SUS patient, I was treated differently and taken to a separate room, where there was another pregnant woman screaming in pain. Watching that woman, I realized what I was feeling was nothing, and I actually calmed down!
They made me undress, put on that horrible white gown, and lie down so they could check my cervix. They found I was 4 centimeters dilated, so they decided to “speed up” the labor so the process would be quicker. At that moment, I looked at the clock on the wall and the hand pointed to 6:15 in the morning. The IV that the “sweet nurse” said she would give me made me go to the moon and back from so much pain in just about 20 minutes! After an hour, I was screaming as much as that other woman I saw when I arrived, and all I wanted was my mother by my side. But I couldn’t have her, because according to the nurse, I wasn’t entitled to a companion (the companion law came into effect a few years later).
I cried, howled, screamed, tore my clothes, begged and pleaded for help!! I couldn’t take the pain anymore and I didn’t know what to do or how to ease what I was feeling!! I had bowel movements several times from the pain and no one gave me a single explanation! They just told me to get up and go to the shower to wash myself. During a very strong contraction, on impulse, I grabbed onto the nurse, who automatically slapped me, warning me not to do that again. I tried to control myself, cried quietly, and prayed to God to help me…
It was already 3:00 pm when I begged the obstetrician, who had come in to give me yet another of the 54,814,584 internal checks they had done, to help me, I couldn’t take it anymore!! He didn’t answer me, but at the door he told the nurse to take me to the delivery room. The walk to the delivery room felt very long and they made me walk the whole way. Fearing my daughter would fall from between my legs, I walked holding on tight!!
Arriving in the delivery room, I was settled in and there was a large mirror pointed at me so I could watch everything. There were two nurses, one on each side, one kept pressing down on my belly with all the force he could muster, believing he could push the baby down by himself, and the other—only God knows what she did, because the pain from the first nurse was so bad I couldn’t focus on anything else. The first push hurt a lot, the second burned terribly, and before the third push, they stopped everything and decided they would have to do an episiotomy.
I was already in so much pain and so exhausted that I didn’t even think about or care what an episiotomy was. I didn’t feel a thing and just heard, push one more time. Done, my daughter was born and I passed out!! I was woken up by the nurse calling my name, a few minutes had gone by and Mel had already been cleaned and placed by my side. They took me into the delivery room with 8 centimeters of dilation and pushed so much that Mel’s head looked like a cone, totally deformed!! By God’s grace my daughter was born healthy, weighing 3.650 kg and 48 cm, through a traumatizing birth that ended with the doctor’s “joke” while stitching up the episiotomy, saying he’d make me a virgin again!!
Because of the trauma, I decided I wouldn’t have any more children and would never go through that experience again!! I felt violated, broken, hurt inside and out, and I was denied the right to experience a moment that should have been amazing for me!! With total disrespect for my body and my feelings, I gave birth. Seven years later, the longing to be a mother came back, but this time I was psychologically prepared and had the right support to have a respectful birth! I couldn’t have another natural birth, maybe because of fear or trauma, but I had the chance to have a wonderful, respectful cesarean—full of emotional tears!! I survived a birth through SUS, but I also had the chance to experience a respectful birth!!
My birth happened 13 years ago, and since then I’ve recognized changes in SUS, including laws and satisfactory care as reported by friends who were happy to have their births treated with total respect through SUS.
Birth Story by Rosane Gonzalez
See also: Birth Story by Elaine from the Blog Mãe de Moleque
Photo: TF Personal Collection
