Racial discrimination of black parents at hospitals
So I've been wanting to tell the story of what happened to my family during and after my daughters birth for a while. A few months ago I posted about my labor and delivery but I'm just now finding the courage to speak about the whole story. This will be looong read so I apologize ladies but I really need to tell this story..so hear goes
I gave birth to our daughter in August of this year in Georgia. The hospital I have birth at and went to throughout my pregnancy was a medical college. All of my prenatal visits were smooth and nothing out of the ordinary. It was an uneventful pregnancy lol. The only thing though is that my instinct was telling me to go to a different hospital and I almost did a few times. A lot of people told me not to have my baby at this hospital also because of their reputation. Even though my I felt something off my appointments were good and I was comfortable with a lot of the staff so I didn't switch.
Fast forward to August of 2018. I'm sitting on the couch with my fiance when my water broke. I didn't have any contractions yet but we got everything ready and went to the hospital about 20 mins after it first broke. I got there, went to the ER and got checked in. They made sure it was actually my water that broke and told me I was staying. I was about 1cm dilated at this point and it stayed that way for a while so they started me on pitocin. The whole day passed and i still wouldn't dilate and the pain was so bad I had to go ahead and get the epidural. Now this is where it all starts getting fucked up. A student did my epidural and she kept fucking up. She stuck me so many times and even asked if she should go get another doctor and was told not to. She finally got the damn thing right after what seemed like an hour. Things settled a little after because the pain was so much less I was just relieved. Relief was short lived though because the pain came back so bad I thought i was dying. I paged the nurse and she asked why I didn't push the button for the pain medication and I told her I WAS punching it. Hell I was pushing it constantly at this point but the pain was still way too much. She went and got the anesthesiologist and he said the damn IV for the medicine wasn't even connected! So they reconnected it of course and i felt better for a little while. But once again the pain came back because it was disconnected again! So the same anesthesiologist came in and reconnected. He was looking at the damn nurses like they were crazy and they were just nonchalant about it all. The pain finally settled, it didn't go away completely but I didn't feel like I was dying anymore.
I thought the worse was over but that night I was still only about 3cm dilated so they sent a few obgyns in the room a throughout the night to keep checking. Mind you the entire time my water was already broken so all the fluid was pretty much gone. So a new nurse comes in for her shift and after she was there for a while she told me she thought i may getting a fever because my temperature was at 99.0. It went up to 102 and she started giving me tylenol. Of course I knew if I have a fever i most likely have an infection at this point and i was right unfortunately. The nurse advised me against a c section and said it was the worst thing I can do since it's my first child.
I still don't know why the obgyn from my prenatal appointments never came in but she didn't. I saw about 3 different ones during my labor. By now I had probably been there about 30 hours. They never told me what infection i had they just said i had one. Now during my pregnancy i tested negative for all infections so clearly they gave it to me at the hospital. I had a new nurse at this point and I was started in antibiotics. Another few hours goes by and the pain started to become unbearable again. They did an ultrasound and saw that my baby was pushing on my pelvis and her head was turned the wrong way so they had me do all sorts of things like get on my hands and knees and even told me to twerk to get her to turn the right way.
That didn't work and by now my cervix was about 8cm dilated. My babies heart rate dropped a few times and almost stopped completely. I was terrified but they just seemed so unbothered and were trying to convince me it was normal for some babies. I told them I needed to have my baby because she obviously was in danger due to my infection and no fluid being left. Instead of an emergency c section yet another obgyn came in and proceeded to go inside of me and stretch my cervix on her own. That worked and even though it felt horrible and crazy I just wanted to have my baby at this point because I was worried about her
She was born at 8:01 on August 20th. She wasn't breathing when she was born and we were terrified! They got her breathing after a few seconds and she was given 2 shots. Once I was moved to my next room a few doctors came in and said that my baby did NOT get the infection I had it her numbers were a bit high. Even though she didn't have the infection(which only would have been passed through the birth canal) they wanted to give her antibiotics for the next 2 days that we would be there. I asked these doctors for exact explanations on what the antibiotics were for if she didnt get the infection and I was told it was for precautionary measures since she was a newborn.
The second day of our stay she had gotten the antibiotics and every time blood was taken her numbers were showing normal now and her vitals were normal every.single.time. So by the third day me and my baby were about to be discharged. The paperwork was brought in and my fiance and I were so freaking excited to take baby girl home. The doctor who came and told us we were leaving and she would bring the paperwork never came back. We waited and waited for the discharge papers but she just disappeared. Instead of her coming back in SEVEN students and one doctor came in the room and said there was a "miscommunication" and that the antibiotics are a 5 day dosage so my baby needs to stay another 2 days and finish it. Yall I was so scared and worried at this point I just broke down crying. We were just on our way home with her and now she has to stay another 2 days?
So she was transferred to the children's ward. It wasn't a NICU room or anything just a regular room in the children's wing. As soon as my fiance and I went down there shit just felt bad. I don't know how else to describe it other than just a dark gloomy feeling being there. A resident came in and checked our daughters vitals again and they were normal. She was so nasty to us though. Anytime my fiance asked questions they were upset and rude about it and I started feeling like I was being treated like I was in the way. One of the nurses even told him she heard he was one of the angry fathers they get sometimes..yea okay lady. They gave her the antibiotics that night and that was that, we just hung out with our baby waiting for the two days to be over with.
The second day actually started out good because the doctor who was doing my daughters lab work and checking in on her came to help me with breast feeding. I broke down to her and said I just want my baby girl to be okay and this is what she said to me "Don't be upset your baby is fine this is just precautionary and to finish the medication, her labs are normal so she will be going home Friday evening after the last dose". Yall for the first time I felt reassured that all was fine and we were going home the next evening.
Well, that night shit hit the fan BIG TIME. My fiance left to go to work and a nurse came in with a student and was about to give her the last dose of antibiotics. She looked at the IV and said it was in wrong and it was leaking. I'm like wtf!!!??? Leaking?? She had to cut all this tape that was digging into my babies skin off and remove the IV to put it in a different spot. She stuck her once and blew a vein. She went to get her supervisor who brought students and the supervisor blew ANOTHER vein. My baby was in agony! She was being restrained and was screaming so bad all I could do was cry and shake.
These damn students and nurses stood around LAUGHING like this was joke. I fucking snapped! I told them to back the fuck away from baby and don't you dare try and stick her again and I meant that shit. I told them to go and get whoever I needed to see to discharge her. Hell by now it was midnight and she was being discharged that same day so just let me take her now! So some charge nurse came to try and convince me that I shouldn't take my baby. This cunt looked me in my face and asked me if I take her today can I afford the bill since my insurance won't cover that time if she's taken early. I told this lady the last thing I'm worried about is a bill I'm worried about my damn baby being mistreated and how my family has been treated as a whole.
I told her I would take her to her a doctor's appointment the next day and this damn nurse told me that wherever I take my baby they would only bring her back here. Ha! Okay lady nice try I'm still leaving with my child. She said she was going to have an on call physician call my phone and speak to me about staying. So this man Dr. Eichenburg(I will never forget that name) called my phone and I explained my ENTIRE situation to him from labor up to that night. I told him about how my daughter was being treated by nursing staff and the different incidents of neglect with myself and baby girl. He agreed that it was all wrong but had the nerve to tell me that my child was deathly I'll and it was dangerous to take her. Now yall I knew that was bullshit because A he wasn't the doctor who treated, he never even met us so where tf are you getting your info? B the doctor who actually DID treat my baby has confirmed that she was fine. He said he was looking at her blood work and her numbers we too high to leave. I asked him for the date for that lab work and he said August 20th. Now, she was born on the 20th and had several labs done since that were normal but he wasn't hearing that. He threatened me with legal action if I took my own baby from the hospital.
My fiance got there and I called him back and let them speak. He gave this man the business about their shitty ass staff and treatment of people. Also explained that we knew the law and knew we could take her. We knew our baby was not sick because that was never the issue. He asked him to explain why we couldn't take her if she was being discharged later that day anyways and he didnt have an answer, he just kept saying that she was gravely ill. So they argued back n forth for a minute about the law and our rights. Eventually a nurse brought us the papers to sign so we signed them and left with our baby.
I swear that night was everything! Regardless of what happened up to then we were home and in love with our baby. We were ready to start our new lives but that shit got snatched away real quick. It was like 4am when my phone and his phone kept ringing. I didn't answer but he did and it was a social worker from the hospital. She said that she was told by that same doctor that we took a gravely ill child without any consent. He explained everything from beginning to end to this lady and she didn't give a damn of course. She said that we needed to take her back to the hospital or defacs would be called. We were NOT taking her back there and we already had a doctor picked out to follow up with. We paid them dust because we knew our rights and knew the truth. About 10 am I called and made her an appointment for the next at a different hospital and just assumed all this mess was over.
DFACS ended up calling and we told them that they were given false information and that our child is fine and that she has her first doctors appointment the next day. We even had that doctor call them and confirm this. These bastards still decided to stalk us and threaten us to take her back to that exact hospital immediately. They showed up at my moms house, my grandmas house and even called my sister in law in NC. We made it back home that evening and about 6pm 3 officers showed up. They had no warrant and we live on private land and property so we didn't even go to the door. They left but at 11 that night EIGHT of them showed up. Some of them had on vests smh. We went to the door and started recording. We told them they were not coming in without a warrant. They said DFACS was on the way and we told them they would all be hanging out outside together because yall don't have a warrant.
We had them! They were backing off the porch but do yall know his grandma who lives across the street marched her happy ass over to see what was going on and she LET THEM IN! We begged her not to and even explained how serious it was that they do not come in but for reason she couldn't grasp that. I still can't wrap my head around it. They coerced her into opening the door though because they said it would be worse and they would get in regardless. So, all these officers in our house, I'm breast feeding my baby and my fiance is going off on his grandma and the officers! So, the DFACS bitch gets there and she TOOK our breastfeeding four day old baby. She looked me in my face and said if this baby doesnt go back to the hospital she won't make it.I said well I'm going back with her and she said no this baby is going in foster care and I damn near passed out yall. At his point I went deaf numb, you name it I felt it. They took her and she was screaming so loud it was the worst thing I ever felt in my whole fucking life. I was shaking and to hear my fiance scream at the top of his lungs out of pure agony is something I still cant shake.
I can't tell yall what we did that night because it's a blur. I just remember wanting to die and not understand how my whole pregnancy, the planning of our child came to this.
We had a 72 hour emergency hearing.This happened on a Friday so of course we couldn't find a lawyer in time. Saturday my our whole damn family showed up at the hospital and they told us she wasn't there!
He was about to run into the children's ward and fuck these people up but I chased after him. Me and my big ass swole feet lol. After that we called the social worker to get an answer on where she was at. She said that our baby was at that hospital but there was a protective order in place. Like we abused her or something! She also said getting her back would be easy but we would need to take a drug test. No problem. That excited me and gave us hope. So Monday we go the hearing and an entirely different person than the social worker showed up. The first woman was black but this was her white supervisor.
So, me my future mother in law and my mom are sitting outside the court room waiting and we see this one armed white pepper mint patty looking lady. She overheard us and asked if I was the mother of the baby in custody. I asked her if they bothered to get any medical records and she said no. So they were going completely on hearsay. She said all they wanted was to talk to us after court and that if we could agree to that she would tell the judge that our daughter should come home.
I only had 5 minutes to talk with a public defender so she was 0 help. This one armed social worker got on the stand and LIED. She said that my fiance was aggressive and threatening and that they didn't believe my baby was safe at home. The damn public defender didn't object to anything! I still felt hopeful because the judge was young black woman. Boy was I wrong. She didn't give a fuck yall! She didn't even look me and my eye and she told me my breastfeeding 7 day old baby would stay in FOSTER CARE WITH A STRANGER for 3 weeks until the next hearing.
I broke tf down so hard. I still don't know how I was able to walk out of there coherent. We just lost our BABY who we planned. We needed her back with us so desperately. How tf did this happen? we didn't do anything! All we did was have a baby. The next three weeks were like a constant nightmare. Waking up everyday realizing she wasn't here. We had to put all of her stuff away because it was so hard to see. Idk how but we started getting stronger each day andd found ways to laugh and hold eachother up at a time when we were both at our darkest and lowest. We hired a lawyer. A damn good one too. She was young and had experience fighting DFACS. She was so amazing. She got these people together and figured out their bullshit from jump. She knew that they were trying to use the "angry black man card" to keep our baby in foster care.
They failed to show up to do a walk through of our home smh and we went and paid to take our own drug tests and passed with ease. We stopped talking to them completely and told them they had to speak with our lawyer from now on. Three days before the last hearing I get a call from a visitation center to come and see our baby. They were so dirty they left my finances name off the visitation list and said they didn't think he would want to visit her. So i went alone and saw the woman my baby was with. She was some white woman who looked like she came from under the trailer park. Found out this lady had 2 babies and 3 teenagers in her home. I was so upset after the visit. I was watched by two women the entire time as if i was a danger to my baby.
We finally went to court on September 17th and my lawyer embarrassed these people. I mean it was so crazy to watch her read these social workers for filth on the stand. She had them sweating. She made them explain why a breastfeeding baby was not with a family member and with a white stranger instead. She even subpoenaed the doctor who called DFACS AND the doctor who treated my baby. And guess what ya'll...These doctors got on that stand and said not only was our baby FINE but that there was nothing medically neglectful about taking her when we did.
So we got her back immediately after court and the judge basically tried to cover her ass and justify why she did what she did the first time. We took our baby so fast out of the courthouse lol. We stood around in the parking lot with our family and lawyer for a minute and y'all the foster mom came up and said "I got so attached to her" my lawyer said "yea the parents got attached too" as serious as it was i bout died right there lol.
We still struggle with this and the ptsd from it is real. I look at my baby sometimes and just think about what she and all of us went through. But life is still beautiful and im thankful everyday.
But please understand this can happen to anyone especially black parents. These hospitals are shady.
Likes: 
meter went off right away. Sounds either fake or someone trying to set up a scenario for nigger lotto.
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Originally Posted by Midder Peenud Hayed
