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This is an intentional but completely organic juxtaposition between birth and death in modern society. And it’s all completely true.
Memphis, TN:
In the modern world, the poor, birthing mothers are herded into stainless steel cages along-side poor mothers miscarrying. When I was giving birth to my oldest, I was put in a door-less stainless steel room with a woman who was 5 months pregnant and miscarrying. We were both screaming in agony. There was nobody to come to our comfort besides each other for hours.
The stainless steel room was almost immaculate besides our birthing excretions. Except for the blood splatters on the ceiling. Birth and spontaneous abortion are both very messy, I guess.
ETA:
The first thing you need to know about birthing or miscarrying in a steel cage is that you are screwed. Banging on the walls won’t bring your family to you. The PTB do not care. The more you make noise, the more you’re a troublesome number.
5 Comments
It was BY FAR the most horrifying experience I’ve ever had. It went from bad to worse from there. And I had a kid#2 intentionally “natural” after that, at St. Francis, Mem. (I didn’t want to risk an epidural failure ever again)
I am so sorry this happened to you, just awful.
I have heard two hospital horror stories coming from poor folks in the last week, one came from a mother, but it was kind of the opposite…they just put her in a huge room with, you know, 28 people from the passing public, all there for various reasons…no privacy, all party down dude, except for her, of course.
Thank you for having the courage to share this, athena1. I do not know this country anymore.
Really is a marker for just how craven and sick we are as a culture.
And,because you were poor, I am sure the damn view is/was “well, your poor, and therefore, probably a slut anyway, who shouldn’t expect any comfort.”
I am so sorry, Athena1, that your experience was so divorced from any respect for life’s arrival, or the experience a woman goes through in that arrival process. And thank you for sharing it.
so sorry for the horror…doctors and some nurses,think of people as numbers….we ned more of each not less high pd ones
This is appalling. Athena1, I’m so sorry that you were treated so terribly. It sounds like your suffering must have been incredible. Were you given any pain relief at all?