The Birth of Marguerite

BEFORE: My labor started on the morning of November 11. I remember having a lot of different things to do that day. My dad picked me up that morning and took me to Harvest Health to buy some herbal tinctures/homeopathic medicine's to assist with my labor progress. My contractions were definitely irregular, but throughout the day they kept developing into greater, more intense, and closer together. I continued my day as I normally would. My dad encouraged me to lie down while he was at my house, but I couldn't. 6 pm rolled around and my contractions felt greater so I had our dog, Henry, picked up from our small, 500 sq foot apartment in case this all developed into the real deal. I texted our midwife and she sent over one of her student midwives/team members to support me throughout the evening. Typically this is what's still considered early labor or pre-labor, however, to me, in my opinion and from how my body felt, it all felt like labor, and it was all the real thing. I tried to lay down and get rest in between my irregular contractions. The next day, I was feeling the same way. Just off. Without going into too much detail here, and with sparing you the details of my failed-at-home-labor because my body wasn't working and was actually starting to shut down, I'll make this brief. On the morning of November 13th, my midwife broke my waters for me so we could try to get my contractions to be closer together/harder- get the baby out! This didn't really help at all. It only made them harder and more intense, but not closer together and my body still was refusing to work. I hadn't peed in three days, so I was cathed between contractions (this hurt like hell) only to get an ounce or two of really really dark orange urine out. There was no relief. This felt like it would never end. And there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I had spend November 11-November 13th laboring entirely at home, with no real outcome. I did everything the books said, I "breathed through contractions" I "visualized" my cervix opening. I used every essential oil to help. I took at least a cup of castor oil over those three days. I took herbal tinctures, homeopathic medicine. I squatted. I walked. I did labor sprints around my neighborhood. All to result in a discouraged me. However, delirious, the 13th came and went, and by 7-8 pm on Friday the 13th, hospital admission was required. After 50 hours of labor, I was only 5 cm dilated and I could feel my body wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. I had nothing to go by, nothing to relate it to, but I can tell you this; my body just wasn't working to get my nearly 10 lb baby girl out. She was comfortable and did not want to enter the world. All this natural labor haze seems like a distant foggy memory, a dream compared to the nightmare that would come following...

DURING: At some point after we decided to go to the hospital, I was admitted to triage, and since I had chosen a midwife as my care provider during my pregnancy, they had to do routine standard blood work and tests, (monitoring baby, ect). Baby was fine, I was fine. I got the pain relief I so desperately had wanted to avoid in dealing with my birth. But with 50 hours of natural labor, your body starts to begin to shut down. I needed some pain relief so that I could rest and have enough energy and strength to push out a 10 lb baby. The hospital staff was concerned about my swelling. I hadn't weighed myself during pregnancy but I ended up gaining 70 lbs, was so swollen I could hardly lift my legs to step into the shower at home (claw foot tub) and looked nothing like myself. They thought I might have preeclampsia. All the tests came back that I didn't, despite my high blood pressure and swelling. I was fine. I was feeling pretty positive at this point about getting some rest at the hospital and preparing for the birth. This is when this all took a freak turn for the worse. My family, my advocates, my birthing assistants, were all told to step out of the room. Four doctors in white coats then surrounded me and tell me the news that nobody wants or expects to hear: after running your blood work, your tests have come back HIV positive and Hep C positive (neither of which I actually have). They told me I couldn't birth my child vaginally and had to have a C-section. I told the hospital that they were wrong. That there is no way I could have contracted either of those. That both my partner and I are faithful. That we don't use or share needles. That we don't engage in behavior that would permit a contraction of either of these. They looked at me and said these words while looking me up and down (I have four tattoos and had a nose ring at the time) "well, when did you get your last tattoo or piercing?" As if I had gone to some back alley in the ghetto of Detroit fucked some prostitute myself and shared a needle while they gave me a stick and poke tattoo. What kind of person did they think I was?

Excuse my language, but truth be told, I have become very bitter, very sour, very resentful, very hurt, very protective mama bear. Very everything that isn't typically me.

I asked to redo blood tests. They advised me against "telling my family the news". They said there was only a 2% chance that these tests were wrong on the Quick Test that was administered, which is much different than the actual blood lab work that they send away for (takes 5-7 business days). I was taken away for an "emergency c section" despite getting new results back for the quick tests. Let me just remind you, I was fine. Baby Marguerite was fine. In any rational situation, they would have just kept us in the room a bit longer until they redid blood work and saw that the new tests would come back negative. Because the next ones did. After I had my surgery. I had signed forms upon my arrival for no Vitamin K shot, and for no infant drops in the eyes. These were honored but they tried forcing me into both, despite the already signed paperwork. I had also signed to keep my placenta (my student midwife was going to encapsulate it for me), I couldn't even keep it because I was "HIV positive and HEP C positive".
During my cesarean, they were talking about their days as if I wasn't even a patient in the room. I was delirious, tired, antsy, on edge and I was a lot of things. But I was still present. I was still there and they were ruining the birth of my daughter. The thing in your life that's supposed to be an experience how you want. My birth was robbed from me because the hospital fucked up. 

After my surgery in recovery room, they told me that if I breastfed my child, I would have CPS called on me. I was advised not to, in fact, I was not allowed to. I had asked the hospital immediately after birth for donor breastmilk. They refused that choice and told me that the donor breastmilk was exclusively for pre-term babies.
Being the woman I am, I had my midwife sneak me in donor breastmilk and I fed her with someone else's milk for her first three days of life in a shitty bottle that the hospital probably found from a garbage can somewhere. I wasn't going to give her formula for her first start to life. She was screaming and hungry, I waited to feed her anyway. The bottle was fast flowing & entirely difficult to wean her from and get her latched to the breast properly (after I got home). I can tell you right now, that despite you, Spectrum Health and your "protocol" I fed my daughter with milk from a woman who I want to thank so deeply from the bottom of my heart and I was able to avoid manufactured, synthetic formula. Nurses had told me at one point that they would "look into" getting me donor breastmilk. While my baby screamed in the recovery room, I laid there shaking, unable to do anything, terrorized by what I was going through. I had Matthew hold her for her for a half hour while she screamed. I wasn't going to have the first milk in her body be formula. The nurses never got me the donor milk I asked for.

After being in this recovery room for what felt like an eternity, we were finally able to go to our room and get away from these awful people. So I thought.
I'm not sure what standard hospital policies are with all these things, (because I so desperately wanted to avoid them anyway), but people came into our room every hour. Even the first night. I stayed up, holding my baby. She was born November 14, at 12:21 AM, weighing 9 lbs 14oz. We got to our room around 3 am. Matthew and I were exhausted. We had been awake since November 11. And I would stay awake until November 16, when we were discharged. I didn't put her in her in the hospital bassinet, I would dose off with her while holding her in my arms until a nurse opened our door and I would quickly open my eyes to "appear" awake, I knew the hospital policy on co-sleeping. However, a huge advocate to co-sleeping am I. It helps regulate baby's sleep & it helps mama's milk supply (especially those first several hours after birth). This is about the only thing that went the way I had wanted it to. And even this, I just did behind backs of hospital staff. I was so exhausted but I wasn't going to let anything happen while I slept. I was outraged, skeptical, saddened and hurt.

After they got my second and third Quick Test's back, both came back negative for both HIV and HEP C. This doesn't mean anything to the hospital. You're still treated like a leper. It's funny how quickly they jump into surgery because of a quick test. But then, once two more come back the opposite outcome, how that means nothing. Very, very interesting.

This was a horrible, awful nightmare. I felt like I was trapped. I had conspiracy theories about the hospital. I was in my own mind. I was locked in. Nobody would help me. On top of this I had a new baby to take care of. Matthew ended up caring for Marguerite for the first days in the hospital. He fed her and changed her. I lay there staring at the wall like a mental patient. I felt betrayed by the people I trusted. I felt shame and guilt and like nobody would listen to me, or hear me out. I hardly wanted to look at Marguerite or hold her. This doesn't mean I didn't. I still made myself hold her and try to love her despite all of this. I felt so much resentment toward her, a resentment I cannot even describe. After all, if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be here, subjected to this torture. I loved her but I hated her. That first week was so hard.

These details I recall from the hospital (I have no sense of order or time):
- I was bleeding so heavily one night so I called the nurse line. I ended up having to call the nurse line several times before a young CNA came to "help" me. Sore, and hardly able to walk, I asked her to help me to the bathroom and to help me change my pads. She looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "we usually let people do that themselves." Nevermind I had just had surgery.
- Marguerite was given medicine for HIV and HEP C that she DID NOT NEED. She was given antibiotics. We were also FORCED to pay for medicines upon leaving the hospital that were totaled around $60 that neither of us needed. I did not give her these medicines.
- My breastpump was taken out of my room to "ensure that the diseased patient wasn't going to pump her own colostrum or milk and feed her baby"
- Infectious Disease people came into my room to "examine" me. Stated I showed no signs of having either of those diseases.
- Pediatrics tried to have my child taken away from me by CPS because I felt too strongly about breastfeeding/not having my child injected with unnecessary shots/vaccinations (I'm not vaccinating).
- No happiness in my room, nobody congratulating.
- One VERY kind nurse advocating for me named Kitty. I will forever thank her from the bottom of my very hurt, very angry heart.
- Drinking copious amounts of water and having my family bring me greens/food that would help my deleted blood supply. They were trying to get me to agree to a transfusion. I felt weak and awful but I know that the body can repair itself through foods. Again, I was considered psychotic because of my beliefs in natural and holistic medicine. And let me just say this, just because something is not what YOU believe, it doesn't mean that it's wrong.
- I was openly talked about in the hospital halls- which is a direct VIOLATION of HIPPA. My paperwork was the talk of the maternity-halls. My family heard doctors and nurses talking about me, although they didn't know my "name" they overheard them talking about me. 




AFTER: There were many other details about my hospital-transfer/freak accident/horrific/traumatizing birth that I can recall. But they hurt too much to explain and recite.
My anxiety has spiked, my depression has hit an all-time low, and I battle these things every single day.
I have gone to therapy. I have spent hundreds of dollars on holistic medicine and supplements. 
My mom took 6 weeks off work UNPAID to try to help me cope with trauma. 

I went in twice to get my medical records file, the first time, it was "claimed" that they "lost" them. The second time, I finally received them and I was billed for them. I still have not paid that outstanding bill.

My midwife, Sara Badger called a "board meeting" with the hospital and told the powers that be exactly what had happened and the hospital and its staff did not reach out to me or try to help me in any way with this matter- not even a written apology or financial re-imbursement for things unnecessarily purchased like the medicine we HAD to buy but did not need. Lack of respect entirely on Spectrum Health's behalf. 




I had wanted to avoid a hospital in the first place due to things like this happening. There are so many things wrong with the way things are done and how people are treated.
I can tell you this, very few people are probably treated how I was treated. I was a leper. I was a drug addict. I was a prostitute. I was a minority. I was an unfit mother.
I was considered everything I'm not. The hospital didn't even have the decency to call me or write me to let me know they are deeply sorry for everything that happened.


I had no advocate, I had no voice, I had no choice, I had no power. 
Let these words sink in.

I was a healthy person who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and I had to PAY for it.


Birth impacts a woman in a way that nothing else does. In every sense a woman is reborn when she gives birth. Everything I wanted was taken from me. And you might say this, yes, I have my healthy daughter, I realize that. I know that and everyday am grateful for her. But mama isn't healthy right now and isn't that just as bad? We don't give women the time or comfort or compensation here in the United States when becoming a parent. It's truly the hardest job out there. I always joked when I was pregnant that America loves pregnant women but does nothing to support new mothers. This is beyond true.

I hold so much hate and resentment in my heart for the hospital robbing me of happiness and joy; of an experience that should be celebrated. Of the joy a mother should feel sweep over her when her child is born. I felt like a specimen. I was, in their eyes, a "patient with HIV" and nothing more.
These things will forever be burned into my life and memory. And I weep for what I will one day have to tell my daughter. Even now, I can hardly contain myself and hold myself together. I will have to tell her the trauma that was surrounding her when she entered the world. And the lack of love and support we both felt. I hope for her that the energy surrounding her forever in life does not feel the way that felt. Nothing breaks my heart more than imagining her feeling guilty because of these traumatic accidents. I'm left with scars, both physical and emotional from the birth of her. And what terrifies me most is feeling the resentment toward her that I felt in the hospital later in life. I feel such guilt and shame already. I feel sorry that my body failed me. I feel guilty that I failed her, and that I failed Matthew. And that I failed in bringing our child into the world in the way that I would want every child to be brought into the world, around family and loved ones in the support and comfort of the home. This is not a birth story, this is a tragedy. And I'm living in the aftermath, trying to pick up the pieces and continue on. With a negative bank account, a crying child, my fleeting joys and my dark, dark depression and PTSD caused by Spectrum Health. 



Breastfeeding took the first few days to get her off the bottle and onto the boob. A nightmare in itself that I should not have had to endure. She would have had no latch issues if she had been able to breastfeed from the start. Every time I would feed her, I would fill her little tummy with a little bit of my pumped milk from a bottle then I would get her to latch, letting her scream and cry for sometimes 30 minutes or an hour at a time. I was determined to make it work. And we did. Because for me there was no other option. Formula was no way in hell an option for me. It was either pumping milk to give to her in a bottle (which takes a really long time and serious hats off to the moms who do this) or it was getting her to latch and having the successful breastfeeding relationship and journey that I had always envisioned. With no lactation consulting, or support, or help from any real outside source, I sat shirtless for a week. I would sometimes literally shove my nipple in her mouth while she screamed. She got the hang of it and by day 4 at home she had latched once. By day 5, she had latched twice and by day 6, she was EBF (exclusively breastfed) and I could not have been more proud of myself.


CURRENTLY:I tried to go back to work two weeks ago. Yesterday while I was there I had such a large panic attack and breakdown that I had to take another month off. I have anxiety. I can hardly leave my house. All I want to do is stay home and forget about my feelings by helping myself. I obviously force myself to go out, to exercise, to eat healthy, to help myself, to nurture my feelings. Financially, I should really be working but I cannot afford to. I can't afford to put my mental and emotional health out there. I am so fragile that if someone even looks at me a certain way, I usually go to my car or whatever is near and break down while my baby cries too. It all fucking hurts and I wish I could do better and be better and I know that all this weighs heavy on Matthew too because all he wants is for me to be happy and I can hardly do that one basic thing. It's such a confusing and low time for me.

Life doesn't stop, ever. Especially when you have a child who is literally attached to you in every possible way. You are mama. There is no break. It only speeds up and suddenly three months go by and you realize you haven't gotten the therapy that you need and you haven't had the time to physically work on your body like you want because when you look in the mirror you see a fat, awful, stretched, ugly version of yourself staring back at you, hardly recognizable, and you've got to keep going because who else is going to for you? You've got to pick yourself up and carry on, like you've done several times before. Only this time, you've got a baby to feed and change and keep happy.

This is my life now. I write these words, friends, to hopefully help and heal myself. Sometimes writing is therapy; to get it all out. It's a release into the wild. And I feel transparent. Open to receive. I write these words not for sympathy, but for understanding. From you, whoever you are and whatever role you play in my world and in my life.

So now you probably understand why I lied to you. Why I told you the version of my birth that I wish were true, at worst. Because this was all, and still is very much a real nightmare to me. I feel so many things about this. Mostly shame and guilt and sorrow. I feel that my body failed me. I wish I could sit here and write to you that it's all better now and that I'm healed and that things are going to be just fine. But I really can't. I feel attacked from every side. I trust nothing right now. I make no real efforts. I try to do basic things every day and I try to enjoy them and I try to see the good in my life. That's all I have the energy for right now.
And I thank my mom, and my dad, and Matthew and my family for sticking with me through all this. There have been very hurtful things said to me post-partum that have made me want to crawl into a hole but I haven't--  yet. And that's really a miracle in itself.

My daughter is beautiful beyond words and I'm working on trying to believe that about myself right now, too. Time is the only thing that help.