I orginally got a copy of my medical records from my daughter's birth just a few months after she was born. At that time, I read them, discussed them with my family practice doctor, and decided to enter counseling to learn to cope with my experience. I put the records away, and completely forgot about where they were.
Last summer, things were really getting to me again, and since I couldn't remember where my records were in addition to them being somewhat incomplete, I requested a new more complete copy of them. By the time I received them, I was back in counseling, and I'd relaxed enough that I didn't really feel the need to read them.
When I was sick over Thanksgiving, I found the new set of records. I paged through them, re-read the narratives, and threw them out. I noticed that they specifically mentioned me "consenting" to procedures. However, I didn't remember that being in the original set of documents. However, the other day, I noticed the original set of the records was buried at the bottom of a drawer in my daughter's changing table. I made a note of their location in the back of my mind, and went about my business.
Yesterday morning, I woke up a little bit before the alarm went off. As I was laying in bed, it suddenly hit me. They'd changed the original records. It bothered me a bit, but I had work to do, so I put the thought aside.
This morning, I grabbed my original copy of the records, and re-read the notes on my daughter's delivery. In the original narrative, there's no mention of the doctor obtaining consent for the D & C, manual removal of the placenta, or fixing the uterine inversion. However, I'm positive that the current records have been altered to include "consent" issues.
What do I do? I don't know if I should request another copy of the records. I'm not sure if I should file a complaint with the hospital, state medical department, or find an attorney. I had registered a complaint with the state medical department a couple of years ago, and I'm sure my records were altered to avoid punishment at that time.
I don't know. I'm perplexed, frustrated, and angry right now. I feel like I've been re-violated because they're unwilling to face up to their own actions.
Showing posts with label birth rape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth rape. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Is birth women's war?
I’ve been thinking on this post for a while. I’ve started writing it, and put it away because I couldn’t find the words. However, after reading this blog post, I decided to pick it up and try again.
Is childbirth women’s war?
When I was pregnant, I asked my grandmother about my mom’s birth. At 85 years old, she could still vividly remember that day and her experience. My mom can still relate the stories of my and my sister’s births. My best friend can pull her memories of each of her children’s births at a moments notice. When you get together with a group of women at a baby shower or a wedding shower, it seems like birth stories come out of the closet.
I believe that we’re genetically programmed to remember the experience of giving birth. The combination of the hormones, the pain, the fear, the anxiety, the joy, and the love imprint those memories deeply into our brains. It’s not that big a stretch to believe that those memories can sometimes be improperly stored causing PTSD.
All over the internet, on discussions of PTSD after childbirth, you’ll see an argument stating that this cannot be a mental health disorder because it’s a natural occurrence in a woman’s life. However, no one debates the validity of PTSD in soldiers returning from war. Men have been going to war for thousands of years. Why is their experience considered to be out of the norm, but a woman’s childbirth experience is dismissed or trivialized?
Men have found some interesting ways to cope with the fallout of the experiences long before the PTSD diagnosis was made during the Vietnam War. They formed and joined groups like the VFW or the American Legion. They go, and hang out with others who have had similar experiences. It’s a safe place to discuss the horrors of what they saw, the feelings they had, and they can process the events.
Yet, women don’t have these types of places to go. In today’s society, new moms are often isolated from society. We’re left to navigate this new terrain by ourselves. Our parents are working, so we frequently don’t have our moms or dads to rely on in those first few days. Our husbands go back to work typically a few days or a week after the baby is born. We struggle to establish breastfeeding, caring for the other family members, and try to get enough sleep to function. There are days when just getting a shower seems like an insurmountable task. Is it any wonder that those memories can get hung up under those conditions?
I’ve heard some people wonder if PTSD after childbirth is a rich nation’s problem, but I don’t think it is. I think no matter where women give birth, that they’re at risk of developing this condition. Women in third world countries know that childbirth isn’t safe. Their entire pregnancy is spent in an atmosphere of anxiety. Will I survive? Will my child survive? If something goes wrong can they get me to a doctor or a midwife? They live with those fears for months. Those months of anxiety set them up for developing this condition when their childbirth experiences go awry. Just because they don’t have the resources for diagnosis and treatment doesn’t mean that they don’t develop the condition.
Others have blamed the medicalization of childbirth on the development of PTSD. However, I know that medical procedures don’t cause PTSD. It took months of counseling to admit this, but my PTSD had nothing to do with the medical procedures that were performed. They were entirely the result of the way that I was treated while I was in the care of the doctors and nurses at my daughter’s birth. The PTSD was a result of a lack of communication, a lack of understanding, a lack of consent, and a hostile birth environment.
Yep, I did call it a hostile birth environment. This is something that doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, and support people can change. Medical professionals can choose to treat a birthing mom respectfully. They can choose to speak to her with honesty. They can accurately, and without coercion, discuss her options. They can choose to allow her to make a choice, so that she can own that decision. They can choose to make sure she understands the positive and negative consequences of her choice.
Is childbirth women’s war?
When I was pregnant, I asked my grandmother about my mom’s birth. At 85 years old, she could still vividly remember that day and her experience. My mom can still relate the stories of my and my sister’s births. My best friend can pull her memories of each of her children’s births at a moments notice. When you get together with a group of women at a baby shower or a wedding shower, it seems like birth stories come out of the closet.
I believe that we’re genetically programmed to remember the experience of giving birth. The combination of the hormones, the pain, the fear, the anxiety, the joy, and the love imprint those memories deeply into our brains. It’s not that big a stretch to believe that those memories can sometimes be improperly stored causing PTSD.
All over the internet, on discussions of PTSD after childbirth, you’ll see an argument stating that this cannot be a mental health disorder because it’s a natural occurrence in a woman’s life. However, no one debates the validity of PTSD in soldiers returning from war. Men have been going to war for thousands of years. Why is their experience considered to be out of the norm, but a woman’s childbirth experience is dismissed or trivialized?
Men have found some interesting ways to cope with the fallout of the experiences long before the PTSD diagnosis was made during the Vietnam War. They formed and joined groups like the VFW or the American Legion. They go, and hang out with others who have had similar experiences. It’s a safe place to discuss the horrors of what they saw, the feelings they had, and they can process the events.
Yet, women don’t have these types of places to go. In today’s society, new moms are often isolated from society. We’re left to navigate this new terrain by ourselves. Our parents are working, so we frequently don’t have our moms or dads to rely on in those first few days. Our husbands go back to work typically a few days or a week after the baby is born. We struggle to establish breastfeeding, caring for the other family members, and try to get enough sleep to function. There are days when just getting a shower seems like an insurmountable task. Is it any wonder that those memories can get hung up under those conditions?
I’ve heard some people wonder if PTSD after childbirth is a rich nation’s problem, but I don’t think it is. I think no matter where women give birth, that they’re at risk of developing this condition. Women in third world countries know that childbirth isn’t safe. Their entire pregnancy is spent in an atmosphere of anxiety. Will I survive? Will my child survive? If something goes wrong can they get me to a doctor or a midwife? They live with those fears for months. Those months of anxiety set them up for developing this condition when their childbirth experiences go awry. Just because they don’t have the resources for diagnosis and treatment doesn’t mean that they don’t develop the condition.
Others have blamed the medicalization of childbirth on the development of PTSD. However, I know that medical procedures don’t cause PTSD. It took months of counseling to admit this, but my PTSD had nothing to do with the medical procedures that were performed. They were entirely the result of the way that I was treated while I was in the care of the doctors and nurses at my daughter’s birth. The PTSD was a result of a lack of communication, a lack of understanding, a lack of consent, and a hostile birth environment.
Yep, I did call it a hostile birth environment. This is something that doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, and support people can change. Medical professionals can choose to treat a birthing mom respectfully. They can choose to speak to her with honesty. They can accurately, and without coercion, discuss her options. They can choose to allow her to make a choice, so that she can own that decision. They can choose to make sure she understands the positive and negative consequences of her choice.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Birth Rape Rears its Ugly Head Again
After two years of living with the consequences of my OB’s actions I really should know better than to Google Birth Rape. It seems like every 9 – 12 months something stirs up the discussion fires on this topic. This time, Café Mom seems to be the instigator. There’s poll, a forum, and a journal / blog post on the topic. Now, at least one L & D nurse is weighing in on the subject as well.
There seems to be some misconceptions about what women are referring to when they define their birth experience as a birth rape.
1. Just because someone, a nurse, midwife, or doctor, breaks your water doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because birth is painful doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because you have a cervical check doesn’t make it a birth rape. Most of the time, healthcare providers ask permission to do these things. If you consent, it’s NOT rape.
I had my water broken, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had an IV, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had several cervical / vaginal exams, but I consented. Those procedures were not birth rape. I was asked to lie on my side during the majority of my labor, but I consented. That was not birth rape. I had continuous fetal monitoring and EFM, but I consented. Neither of those were birth rape. I had a vacuum assisted delivery, but I consented. That was not birth rape. As long as you consent to the procedure whether it’s verbal or written it’s not rape. Just like when I consent to having sex with my husband it’s not rape.
2. Women who call it birth rape deserved what they got. After all if the baby has to come out, so whatever is done in that process is acceptable. If you go to the hospital as long as someone with an ID badge does it to you it’s okay.
Where I live, we have a Patient’s Bill of Rights. Competent patients have the right to decline any and all medical procedures. Competent patients have the right to be told what their diagnosis is, what the treatment options are, what are the risks associated with those options, and allowed to make their OWN decision. Therefore, the doctor, midwife, or nurse is not always right. They don’t have the power to force a woman to submit to procedures that she doesn’t want. They don’t have the right to coerce a woman into submitting to any procedures, and they don’t have the right to abuse their patients.
3. Women are just whining because they didn’t get the experience that they wanted to have.
What? There are a lot of things about my daughter’s birth that didn’t go the way that I wanted. I didn’t want to be induced. I wanted to go into labor on my own. However, complications prevented this from being possible. Did that traumatize me? NO! Did that result in a need for counseling? NO! It was simply a disappointment. Do I label any of those procedures that I didn’t want, but consented to, as birth rape? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
4. If it’s a rape, why don’t you report it, and have the perpetrators prosecuted?
I did report the actions of my doctor. I reported them to the State Medical Board, the hospital where he practices, and I sent him letter. However, the State Medical Board has the same attitude that a lot of women on this forum have- he’s the doctor, so he’s right. My report was denied because I didn’t have enough evidence to prove it. Doesn’t that sound like a typical rape case? It’s my word against yours. It doesn’t make what happened to be less truthful or less traumatizing. As to why I didn’t sue him, well like a lot of rape victims, I didn’t want to re-live it. I didn’t want to sit in the same room with him. I didn’t want to bare my emotions, and mental issues in front of a jury that doesn’t believe that birth rape happens.
5. You don’t develop mental issues from a bad birthing experience.
Actually, I did develop mental health issues as a result of his decision. I spent 18 months in counseling for PTSD. PTSD doesn’t go away. You learn to live with it, you learn to cope with it, but it doesn’t go away. I’ll have these scars for the rest of my life. They’ll gradually fade with time, but they will never go away. I live with nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation, and anxiety. I have panic attacks when I go to the doctor. I have had flashbacks during sex – what a mood killer. I’ve denied my husband sex because I’ve been terrified of having another child. My marriage was nearly destroyed because of the severity of my symptoms.
6. So what do I call my birth rape?
For me, birth rape refers to a specific procedure at a specific time that was performed without my consent.
My daughter was born at 11:32 pm. Approximately 15 minutes later my doctor asked the nurse to tell him when ½ hour had passed after the baby’s delivery. At that point in time, he knew that the placenta wasn’t detaching properly. Did he discuss this with me? No. He just kept biding his time waiting to see if it would change. Shortly thereafter, I notified the doctor that his ½ hour was up. Did he tell me then, that there was a problem with the placenta? No. He attempted cord traction to get the placenta to release. The umbilical cord tore off the placenta leaving the placenta attached to my uterus. Did he notify me then that there was a problem with the placenta, and offer me the opportunity to choose between treatment options of having him try to manually remove it or have it surgically removed? No. He just shoved his hand inside me, and tried to pull it out himself. Why wouldn’t I have seen this as a rape? He wasn’t saving my child. She was already born. He wasn’t saving me since at this point he didn’t see this situation being emergent. I was competent, and capable of consenting. He chose not to allow me to consent.
The pain of this procedure was extraordinary. It’s beyond the realm of anything I had ever experienced. It sent me into a place where I was incapable of providing consent for any additional procedures. Even though I didn’t consent to the D & C, even though I didn’t consent to the re-installation of my uterus, even though he spent almost an hour with his hand elbow deep in my hoo-ha trying to shove my uterus back into place, I’ve never considered those procedures to be birth rape. The situation had become emergent, I was mentally incapable of providing informed consent, and I was at the mercy of his skill, knowledge, and competency.
You see, Birth Rape is about power and consent. It’s not about sex. It has nothing to do with sex. In some ways, birth rape is worse. You’re in a place and surrounded by people who are supposed to keep you safe, but you’re not. You can’t advocate for yourself if they don’t tell you first what they’re going to do. You can’t fight for your rights when they deny them. My doctor wasn’t evil. He wasn’t trying to harm me. He got caught up in the complications, and all he saw was a problem. He forgot that I was a person, and only saw the complications.
Birth rape is real. Birth rape is evil, and eventually it will become prosecutable. Right now it’s impossible to get anyone to believe you.
There seems to be some misconceptions about what women are referring to when they define their birth experience as a birth rape.
1. Just because someone, a nurse, midwife, or doctor, breaks your water doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because birth is painful doesn’t make it a birth rape. Just because you have a cervical check doesn’t make it a birth rape. Most of the time, healthcare providers ask permission to do these things. If you consent, it’s NOT rape.
I had my water broken, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had an IV, but I consented. That procedure was not birth rape. I had several cervical / vaginal exams, but I consented. Those procedures were not birth rape. I was asked to lie on my side during the majority of my labor, but I consented. That was not birth rape. I had continuous fetal monitoring and EFM, but I consented. Neither of those were birth rape. I had a vacuum assisted delivery, but I consented. That was not birth rape. As long as you consent to the procedure whether it’s verbal or written it’s not rape. Just like when I consent to having sex with my husband it’s not rape.
2. Women who call it birth rape deserved what they got. After all if the baby has to come out, so whatever is done in that process is acceptable. If you go to the hospital as long as someone with an ID badge does it to you it’s okay.
Where I live, we have a Patient’s Bill of Rights. Competent patients have the right to decline any and all medical procedures. Competent patients have the right to be told what their diagnosis is, what the treatment options are, what are the risks associated with those options, and allowed to make their OWN decision. Therefore, the doctor, midwife, or nurse is not always right. They don’t have the power to force a woman to submit to procedures that she doesn’t want. They don’t have the right to coerce a woman into submitting to any procedures, and they don’t have the right to abuse their patients.
3. Women are just whining because they didn’t get the experience that they wanted to have.
What? There are a lot of things about my daughter’s birth that didn’t go the way that I wanted. I didn’t want to be induced. I wanted to go into labor on my own. However, complications prevented this from being possible. Did that traumatize me? NO! Did that result in a need for counseling? NO! It was simply a disappointment. Do I label any of those procedures that I didn’t want, but consented to, as birth rape? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
4. If it’s a rape, why don’t you report it, and have the perpetrators prosecuted?
I did report the actions of my doctor. I reported them to the State Medical Board, the hospital where he practices, and I sent him letter. However, the State Medical Board has the same attitude that a lot of women on this forum have- he’s the doctor, so he’s right. My report was denied because I didn’t have enough evidence to prove it. Doesn’t that sound like a typical rape case? It’s my word against yours. It doesn’t make what happened to be less truthful or less traumatizing. As to why I didn’t sue him, well like a lot of rape victims, I didn’t want to re-live it. I didn’t want to sit in the same room with him. I didn’t want to bare my emotions, and mental issues in front of a jury that doesn’t believe that birth rape happens.
5. You don’t develop mental issues from a bad birthing experience.
Actually, I did develop mental health issues as a result of his decision. I spent 18 months in counseling for PTSD. PTSD doesn’t go away. You learn to live with it, you learn to cope with it, but it doesn’t go away. I’ll have these scars for the rest of my life. They’ll gradually fade with time, but they will never go away. I live with nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation, and anxiety. I have panic attacks when I go to the doctor. I have had flashbacks during sex – what a mood killer. I’ve denied my husband sex because I’ve been terrified of having another child. My marriage was nearly destroyed because of the severity of my symptoms.
6. So what do I call my birth rape?
For me, birth rape refers to a specific procedure at a specific time that was performed without my consent.
My daughter was born at 11:32 pm. Approximately 15 minutes later my doctor asked the nurse to tell him when ½ hour had passed after the baby’s delivery. At that point in time, he knew that the placenta wasn’t detaching properly. Did he discuss this with me? No. He just kept biding his time waiting to see if it would change. Shortly thereafter, I notified the doctor that his ½ hour was up. Did he tell me then, that there was a problem with the placenta? No. He attempted cord traction to get the placenta to release. The umbilical cord tore off the placenta leaving the placenta attached to my uterus. Did he notify me then that there was a problem with the placenta, and offer me the opportunity to choose between treatment options of having him try to manually remove it or have it surgically removed? No. He just shoved his hand inside me, and tried to pull it out himself. Why wouldn’t I have seen this as a rape? He wasn’t saving my child. She was already born. He wasn’t saving me since at this point he didn’t see this situation being emergent. I was competent, and capable of consenting. He chose not to allow me to consent.
The pain of this procedure was extraordinary. It’s beyond the realm of anything I had ever experienced. It sent me into a place where I was incapable of providing consent for any additional procedures. Even though I didn’t consent to the D & C, even though I didn’t consent to the re-installation of my uterus, even though he spent almost an hour with his hand elbow deep in my hoo-ha trying to shove my uterus back into place, I’ve never considered those procedures to be birth rape. The situation had become emergent, I was mentally incapable of providing informed consent, and I was at the mercy of his skill, knowledge, and competency.
You see, Birth Rape is about power and consent. It’s not about sex. It has nothing to do with sex. In some ways, birth rape is worse. You’re in a place and surrounded by people who are supposed to keep you safe, but you’re not. You can’t advocate for yourself if they don’t tell you first what they’re going to do. You can’t fight for your rights when they deny them. My doctor wasn’t evil. He wasn’t trying to harm me. He got caught up in the complications, and all he saw was a problem. He forgot that I was a person, and only saw the complications.
Birth rape is real. Birth rape is evil, and eventually it will become prosecutable. Right now it’s impossible to get anyone to believe you.
Monday, November 10, 2008
“It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” Grace Murray Hopper
That quote makes me crazy. It’s what happened the night my daughter was born. People, well doctors really, seem to think that they don’t need to ask for permission. They seem to think that once you’re in their place / hospital / care / etc. that they can take charge and do what ever they wish. Once you’re on their turf, the game is over, the power is stolen. A birthing woman is less than nothing. She’s an incubator. Her wishes can be ignored or over-ruled if she’s even given the opportunity to participate in her own care.
I need to add a comment about this quote to my birth plan. It’s fundamental to why I was so traumatized. There was so much rationalization on the doctor’s hand that night. “She had an epidural, she’ll never feel it”, “I’m the doctor, and I know what’s best”, or my favorite, “it’s just a medical procedure” to having a hand shoved elbow deep in your uterus with no communication. It sure didn’t feel like a medical procedure to me. I didn’t grant permission. I didn’t say, “yes. Go ahead”. I didn’t say, “I understand the placenta is stuck, and you need to try to get it out”. I wasn’t given the option to say yes or no. Permission? What’s that? Those consent forms cover it, right? Yep, just like a marriage certificate guarantees that my husband can have sex anytime he wants. I wonder what my doctor will think about the addition?
Here’s my revised birth plan:
This isn’t the typical birth plan. I know that things can go wrong very quickly. I don’t care about IVs, pitocin, dim lights, or vaginal exams. I expect that I’ll be trapped in the bed by a multitude of cords coming out of nearly every orifice. I expect that things will go wrong, all hell will break loose, locusts will descend upon the earth, and the plague will rage throughout the land.
However, I would like this experience to be better than my last birth.
Communication
Please talk to me constantly, especially when I can’t see what you are doing.
Please follow this protocol when explaining interventions to me because I may not ask the appropriate questions.
I need to add a comment about this quote to my birth plan. It’s fundamental to why I was so traumatized. There was so much rationalization on the doctor’s hand that night. “She had an epidural, she’ll never feel it”, “I’m the doctor, and I know what’s best”, or my favorite, “it’s just a medical procedure” to having a hand shoved elbow deep in your uterus with no communication. It sure didn’t feel like a medical procedure to me. I didn’t grant permission. I didn’t say, “yes. Go ahead”. I didn’t say, “I understand the placenta is stuck, and you need to try to get it out”. I wasn’t given the option to say yes or no. Permission? What’s that? Those consent forms cover it, right? Yep, just like a marriage certificate guarantees that my husband can have sex anytime he wants. I wonder what my doctor will think about the addition?
Here’s my revised birth plan:
This isn’t the typical birth plan. I know that things can go wrong very quickly. I don’t care about IVs, pitocin, dim lights, or vaginal exams. I expect that I’ll be trapped in the bed by a multitude of cords coming out of nearly every orifice. I expect that things will go wrong, all hell will break loose, locusts will descend upon the earth, and the plague will rage throughout the land.
However, I would like this experience to be better than my last birth.
Communication
Please talk to me constantly, especially when I can’t see what you are doing.
Please follow this protocol when explaining interventions to me because I may not ask the appropriate questions.
- Get my attention! Call me by name, grab my hand, look into my eyes, and talk to my face - not my cervix or anyone else in the room.
- Why do you want to intervene?
- What intervention do you want to implement?
- Are there any long-lasting side effects or consequences of this intervention?
While, “it is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”, it is not the right choice to make when it comes to breaching my reproductive organs. Ask before placing anything inside / through my cervix, hands, electrodes, amniohooks, etc.
If there is any disagreement between caregivers over what treatment option is appropriate, please work it out between yourselves. I don’t wish to take sides, or argue with either of you. If there is a legitimate choice for me to make, please present me with both options in a non-confrontational manner, and allow me a few moments to reflect upon my options prior to making a decision.
If I tell you that something isn’t right or isn’t working, please believe me instead of dismissing my comment as a fallacy because I’m not acting the way YOU believe I should be acting to make that comment a truth.
Please tell me the name of every medication that you are giving me whether it is given orally or through an IV at the time you administer it, and write it down for me before I am discharged.
Please write down any complications you diagnose prior to my discharge, so that I can research them after I get home if I have any questions about them.
Procedures
My uterus has a history of flipping inside out, so please don’t pull on the umbilical cord.
I only consent to manually removing the placenta if I’m fully anesthetized. Please verify this with me prior to proceeding with the procedure.
If I’m hemorrhaging, have another accreta, and my uterus has inverted again, then don’t take extreme measures to save my uterus. I won’t be using it again.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Birth Rape?
Birth Rape
Isn’t that an ugly term? The first time I heard it, I thought a bunch of radical feminists were making a big deal out of nothing. How can those two words possibly be spoken together? Birth is about innocence. Is there anyone more innocent than a newborn baby? Rape is so ugly, so violent, so brutal. It offended me at the core of my being. However, I think there may be something to it.
Some people believe that birth rape can only occur if a woman has been previously assaulted. They believe that the birth itself isn’t a rape, but that the woman is experiencing a flashback to a prior criminal act. This flashback is so real, that they transfer their feelings about the original assault to the act of giving birth.
This experience impacted me the night my daughter was born:
I’d met this guy six months before that night. At first, I saw him only occasionally, but over time I’d started seeing him once a week. I invited him into my room. After 6 months, I trusted him enough to let him come inside. I was sitting on the bed, and he was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed while we were talking. All of the sudden, he shoved his hand inside me. I tried to push him away with my legs, but I couldn’t move them. I tried clawing at the sheets to drag my body away from him, but he wouldn’t get his hand out. I was in massive amounts of pain… This couldn’t be happening to me.
Doesn’t this sound like a date rape experience? I trusted this person. I invited them into my personal space. I didn’t give permission for this to happen. I tried to get away. I was violated. I must have had a flashback to this prior crime during my birth if I think birth rape is a valid term.
Now, let me change six words:
I’d met this doctor six months before that night. At first, I saw him only occasionally, but over time I’d started seeing him once a week. I invited him into my room. After 6 months, I trusted him enough to let him come inside. I was sitting on the bed, and he was sitting in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed while we were talking after my daughter’s birth. All of the sudden, he shoved his hand inside me. I tried to push him away with my legs, but I couldn’t move them. I tried clawing at the sheets to drag my body away from him, but he wouldn’t get his hand out. I was in massive amounts of pain… This couldn’t be happening to me.
Does that change you opinion of my experience? Do you believe this behavior is suddenly acceptable? Why is it that behavior that is unacceptable every where else in society suddenly becomes acceptable in a delivery room? Before my daughter was born, I’d never been the victim of a violent crime. I’d always been treated respectfully by the men in my life. No one had ever touched me in an inappropriate manner. This wasn’t a flashback. It’s my reality.
Birth is an incredibly intimate act. It requires you opening parts of yourself that you keep hidden from the world in order for it to happen. It’s deserving of the same respect that women expect when giving themselves to their lover. It’s something to be treasured. If consent is so essential to a healthy sexual experience, consent is also necessary to healthy birthing experience.
It took several months before I admitted that my daughter’s birth had resulted in my birth rape. I didn’t want to admit it had happened. I tried hiding from it. I tried ignoring it. I didn’t report it. I blamed myself for it. But I’ve learned that this doesn’t help, so now I’m talking about it. I’m not sure yet if I’ll discuss this when I meet with the doctors at the hospital, but I’m thinking about it. I know they don’t want to admit that this happens. I know they want to bury their heads in the sand, but someone has to speak out. There was a time when people didn’t believe that one spouse could rape the other, but now we recognize this as a truth. In this time we live in, people believe that a woman in labor cannot be raped, but a time will come when we will believe in this truth also.
Isn’t that an ugly term? The first time I heard it, I thought a bunch of radical feminists were making a big deal out of nothing. How can those two words possibly be spoken together? Birth is about innocence. Is there anyone more innocent than a newborn baby? Rape is so ugly, so violent, so brutal. It offended me at the core of my being. However, I think there may be something to it.
Some people believe that birth rape can only occur if a woman has been previously assaulted. They believe that the birth itself isn’t a rape, but that the woman is experiencing a flashback to a prior criminal act. This flashback is so real, that they transfer their feelings about the original assault to the act of giving birth.
This experience impacted me the night my daughter was born:
I’d met this guy six months before that night. At first, I saw him only occasionally, but over time I’d started seeing him once a week. I invited him into my room. After 6 months, I trusted him enough to let him come inside. I was sitting on the bed, and he was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed while we were talking. All of the sudden, he shoved his hand inside me. I tried to push him away with my legs, but I couldn’t move them. I tried clawing at the sheets to drag my body away from him, but he wouldn’t get his hand out. I was in massive amounts of pain… This couldn’t be happening to me.
Doesn’t this sound like a date rape experience? I trusted this person. I invited them into my personal space. I didn’t give permission for this to happen. I tried to get away. I was violated. I must have had a flashback to this prior crime during my birth if I think birth rape is a valid term.
Now, let me change six words:
I’d met this doctor six months before that night. At first, I saw him only occasionally, but over time I’d started seeing him once a week. I invited him into my room. After 6 months, I trusted him enough to let him come inside. I was sitting on the bed, and he was sitting in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed while we were talking after my daughter’s birth. All of the sudden, he shoved his hand inside me. I tried to push him away with my legs, but I couldn’t move them. I tried clawing at the sheets to drag my body away from him, but he wouldn’t get his hand out. I was in massive amounts of pain… This couldn’t be happening to me.
Does that change you opinion of my experience? Do you believe this behavior is suddenly acceptable? Why is it that behavior that is unacceptable every where else in society suddenly becomes acceptable in a delivery room? Before my daughter was born, I’d never been the victim of a violent crime. I’d always been treated respectfully by the men in my life. No one had ever touched me in an inappropriate manner. This wasn’t a flashback. It’s my reality.
Birth is an incredibly intimate act. It requires you opening parts of yourself that you keep hidden from the world in order for it to happen. It’s deserving of the same respect that women expect when giving themselves to their lover. It’s something to be treasured. If consent is so essential to a healthy sexual experience, consent is also necessary to healthy birthing experience.
It took several months before I admitted that my daughter’s birth had resulted in my birth rape. I didn’t want to admit it had happened. I tried hiding from it. I tried ignoring it. I didn’t report it. I blamed myself for it. But I’ve learned that this doesn’t help, so now I’m talking about it. I’m not sure yet if I’ll discuss this when I meet with the doctors at the hospital, but I’m thinking about it. I know they don’t want to admit that this happens. I know they want to bury their heads in the sand, but someone has to speak out. There was a time when people didn’t believe that one spouse could rape the other, but now we recognize this as a truth. In this time we live in, people believe that a woman in labor cannot be raped, but a time will come when we will believe in this truth also.
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