She Went From Being Overjoyed About Her Pregnancy To Totally Tweaking Out
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“I got pregnant. It was a planned and very much wanted pregnancy with much excitement. Two days later, I woke up with cramps, went to the bathroom, and saw bright red blood. I went to the ER where they did the following:
Did not look at the bleeding to assess the amount.
Did not ask me to go to the toilet and check if the bleeding had continued, worsened or stopped.
Did not perform a transvaginal ultrasound.
Did not perform blood tests.
Based on one ten minute conversation with me, the ER doctor said, ‘Yeah, you’ve had a miscarriage,’ and pretty much discharged me on the spot. I was absolutely devastated. I went home and cried all day, as you’d expect. Then I started googling and learned that red blood in early pregnancy, especially after a bowel movement, does not always mean miscarriage and that cramps in early pregnancy are super common.
I went back to my general practitioner who said, ‘Let’s test your HCG (pregnancy hormone levels) over a few days and if they’re still rising, you’re still pregnant.’ I also had an ultrasound to check if it was an ectopic pregnancy. By the end of the week, I had confirmation that I WAS, in fact, pregnant and had not miscarried.
The overall effect of all that was that I became completely panicked about the potential for something to go wrong with my pregnancy. My existing anxiety spiraled out of control, and by the time the morning sickness hit, I was suffering from antenatal depression and needed time off work, a big increase in my antidepressants, and started taking anxiety pills, which is not ideal. I’m now 23 weeks along and, fortunately, everything has been normal so far.”
She Had To Beg Him For A Simple Test
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“I became super swollen starting at 20 weeks pregnant. My blood pressure was consistently high and always right on the line for possible preeclampsia. At 24 weeks, I asked to be tested after I started pitting edema from swelling so badly. All they had to do was test my urine. I was already high-risk and was seeing a high-risk OBGYN, but he refused to test me saying that swelling was normal and my blood pressure was only borderline for what some considered a warning sign for preeclampsia. His personal opinion was that it needed to be 10 points higher before he would worry
At 30 weeks, I begged him my whole appointment to test me and was again told it was unnecessary, that I was just pregnant, and that I just wasn’t used to it since it was my first one. At my 34 week appointment, he FINALLY agreed to test my pee, mainly to get me to shut up. I went into labor two days later and had my son six weeks early. He had to be put into a medically induced coma and receive hypothermic therapy to prevent brain damage because his lungs were underdeveloped due to not being able to get both shots to help his lungs develop since ‘no one thought he’d come so early.’
I worked up until the literal day I went into labor. My test results came back two days after giving birth. I was alerted on my phone because they were put into the patient portal; I had preeclampsia. I should have been on bed rest since 20 weeks, which was when I knew something was wrong.
So, I had to have an emergency C-section, my son almost died, I spent nine days in the hospital after contracting an infection from said C-section, and my son spent weeks in the NICU, all because my doctor told me I was simply pregnant and ‘not used to it.’ If I would have been on bed rest he likely would have made it to term and I could have given birth naturally, or at worst they would have had weekly appointments with me to monitor the baby. Then they would have known that he was coming early and I could have gotten the shots to help his lungs develop.”
She Literally Had To Have Therapy To Recover From The Experience
“I was pregnant with my second child and was 30 weeks along. Every time I stood up, fluid would run down my leg. I called my doctor and she said, ‘Don’t worry about it. You’re overweight and pregnant, so your bladder is leaking.’ Then I went to the cabin for a weekend (on a remote island with no emergency services). I was still leaking, even gushing at times.
After I came home, I decided to walk into the doctor’s office without an appointment and see the locum. She tested the fluid right away, and guess what? It was amniotic fluid, not urine. I was rushed to the hospital with a fetal heart rate monitor strapped on. I’d lost a lot of fluid, but the baby’s heart rate was good.
The next day my husband and 5-year-old came to visit me. When I stood up to hug my son, blood came gushing out of me. It was chaos. I was whisked into an operating room for an emergency C-Section. It turned out to be a placental hemorrhage that started the previous week. I was bleeding out and the baby was suffocating. She was a blue preemie but survived. My son is still scarred by seeing my hemorrhage and it took a lot of therapy for me to get through the trauma. The doctor was reported and no longer practices medicine.”
She Tolerated Insane Levels Of Pain Until The Last Possible Second
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“It started with a pain in my abdomen that got worse as time went on. By the second day, I had to leave work early because of the pain. I’d had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured several years before, so I made an appointment with my doctor thinking that it was related.
Day three, I went to my appointment and was told to come back in the morning to get an ultrasound. Before the test, I was supposed to drink two liters of water and hold my pee. On day four, I went to the ultrasound in tears from the pain and a full bladder on top of it. I was told they would fast-track the tests and have the results for me later that afternoon.
At 4:30 pm, I called to check before they closed for the day. The nurse told me that the test showed some ‘free floating fluid’ in my abdomen, but according to the doctor, there was nothing to worry about. That was insane to me because at that point I could hardly get off my couch and I couldn’t stand up straight because of the pain.
When I explained that to her (while crying my eyes out), she got super prickly and said, ‘We can’t give you pain pills, your test was normal.’ I told her I never asked for pills, I just wanted to know why I was in so much pain that I couldn’t walk. Her response was, ‘Well, if you’re in that much pain, you just need to go to the ER.’
I laid on my couch for several more hours, debating if I was just crazy. Finally, around 9 pm, I went to the ER. The first thing they did was a pregnancy test, which I told them was a waste of time since I was on birth control pills. The nurse came back and told me the test was positive and that I needed to get another ultrasound ASAP. They found that I had a tubal pregnancy and it was close to rupturing. I was rushed into emergency surgery for removal and found out after that they couldn’t save my right fallopian tube due to the damage. The doctor told me that if I hadn’t come in for treatment, I could have died from it.”
They Prescribed Misoprostol to “Flush The Fetus”
“My daughter found out she was pregnant in March; a little while after, the doctor did an ultrasound and couldn’t find a fetus. After blood work, she was told that she miscarried, and was given Misoprostol to ‘flush the fetus.’ About eight weeks later, she went in to get some birth control and was told she was pregnant again. She went to the doctor and after some more blood work, she was told it was another nonviable pregnancy. Again she was given Misoprostol.
She had severe pain that night and her husband took her to the ER. It turned out she was 6 months pregnant with a little girl. Everything seemed fine with the baby, but with taking Misoprostol twice and not having any prenatal care, we can only wait and hope that everything is ok. How can a doctor misdiagnose a miscarriage with the same pregnancy? Twice?! My daughter and her husband are reporting the doctor to the medical board and hiring a lawyer just in case the baby has any medical or mental issues as a direct result of the doctor’s mistake. Some issues, such as learning disabilities, may not be noticed until the baby is 4 or 5 years old.”
Her Doctor Botched Multiple Things In One Pregnancy
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“When I was six months pregnant, I went to my doctor for a checkup. I had been going to the same doctor since I found out I was eight weeks pregnant, so they knew me well. Every time, I would just do the blood draw and pee test, get my check up, and go home.
This time was different; the doctor asked my mother to leave the room and they proceeded to tell me I had chlamydia. I was mortified because I hadn’t had any relations since I found out I was pregnant and was perplexed as to how it’d gone by undetected up until then. I spent a good portion of my visit arguing with them…and then they realized that they had the wrong chart. What the heck!
Another time, during the same pregnancy, I did the test where you drink a sugary drink and then have your blood sugar checked every hour. I went back for the results afterward and they told me I had gestational diabetes. But instead of sending me to talk to a dietician about controlling it with my diet (my blood sugar number was like five points above the maximum), they sent me on my way with 5 bottles of insulin and a box of needles. They never even attempted to show me how to use it. I went home, got a blood sugar monitor, reduced my sugar and carb intake, and my levels were fine.”
The Doctor Couldn’t Believe What He’d Almost Done
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“During my wife’s first trimester, she had some complications that ultimately led to the doctor telling us the fetus was no longer viable. A couple weeks later, when she did not spontaneously abort, they prescribed Misoprostol.
It was not our first child and something just didn’t seem right. She still felt pregnant, so she held off on taking the pills. Then she went back in and asked for another ultrasound. They relented and checked again; the doctor went white as a sheet. There was a second, perfectly healthy fetus they had missed during all of the prior appointments, and he had nearly killed it.
Thank God everything turned out fine, and my son is now 11 years old. We changed doctors after, but I don’t necessarily blame him since he wasn’t the one running the ultrasound.”
The Doctor Made A Huge, Misogynistic Oversight
“I started experiencing horribly painful periods at the age of 9. I could barely get out of bed or go to school, and my periods were heavy as well. My doctor (a man) told me and my mother to suck it up since it was all part of being a woman.
I was depressed and lived like that for 9 years, barely getting out of bed for a week (at least) a month and missing heaps of school. Then I got pregnant at 17, which I now know was a miracle. I had my first ultrasound and they found that my ovaries were covered in endometrial cysts. I tried to give birth naturally but all the endometriosis and scarring made it impossible, so I had a C-section.
After my surgery, the endometriosis attached to the area around the incision, causing severe pain and, unfortunately, two more operations before it was cleared. I lived in severe pain for so long because my doctor thought periods should be painful…they shouldn’t!
If I had been diagnosed earlier, my body could’ve been prepared for pregnancy through dilation and curettage, and other procedures which would have made my pregnancy, birthing, and recovery much easier.”
It Seemed Like It Was Going To Be The Worst Case Scenario
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“A few months ago, my mom was having this horrible pain in her lower abdomen, sides, and back. We put her symptoms into a symptom-checker app, and one of the diagnoses it came up with was an ectopic pregnancy. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s when the embryo begins forming in the fallopian tubes. When that’s the case, it’s pretty much a guarantee the baby won’t make it and it puts the mother’s life at serious risk, too. However, it was a silly little symptom app, so we didn’t take it seriously.
A few days later, she went to the doctor and got her blood tests done. The doctor came back with the results and told her she was pregnant. My mom knew it wasn’t possible to have been recently impregnated, so she started freaking out that it was an ectopic pregnancy, and that’s exactly what the doctor thought too. Meanwhile, every nurse and doctor in the building was rushing around, freaking out, and trying to get her to specialists, but they were busy. So they started calling ambulances to rush her to the hospital.
Amid all the chaos, the doctor approached my crying mother and apologized, saying he was looking at the wrong blood results. The results were hers from almost exactly THREE YEARS PRIOR, which made sense because she had a two-and-a-half-year-old.”
The Doctor Nonchalantly Mentioned She Might Have A Life-Changing Disease
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“One morning I woke up extremely short of breath with stabbing pains in my chest. I went to the ER, where they promptly send me to get a CT scan to look for a pulmonary embolism. The doctor came in, glanced at my chart, and rattled off, ‘No pulmonary embolism, but they did find some nodules in your lungs, so you might want to follow up with your general practitioner because it could be cancer.’
I was 28 years old and six months pregnant. I said, ‘Whoa, what?! Wait, what does that all mean?!’
He replied, ‘I don’t know, call your general practitioner in the morning.’ I walked out to my car, in total shock, and started bawling.
As it turned out, I did not have cancer. My general practitioner pulled up the radiology report and was like, ‘Haha, yeah, that guy is an idiot. It says right here, from the radiologist, and in my opinion, that we’re just looking at some scar tissue.’ She referred me to a pulmonologist just to put my mind at ease. They also said, ‘Yeah, not cancer.’
By the way, my original complaint of chest pain and shortness of breath was never addressed or diagnosed in the emergency room that day. Months later, when I was able to get into the pulmonologist, he said he thinks it was an intercostal cramp.”
The Doctors Accused Her Father Of A Horrendous Crime
“When I was 14, I was told I was pregnant after getting an ultrasound to check my kidneys due to high blood pressure. No pregnancy test and no questions. I was a young girl, so they assumed I was pregnant after they found an abnormal mass, which ended up being a cyst. None of the doctors would listen to me when I said I had never even kissed a boy before.
The sad part of the story was that after the doctor told me and my dad that I was 10 weeks pregnant, and when I adamantly denied that it was even possible, my dad actually stood up for me and took my side. The doctors then called my mom and accused my father of violating me. Eventually, I was sent to a women’s hospital, and two hours later they confirmed that I was not the miracle mother like Mary from the Bible. Physically, it didn’t affect me, but I’ve been very wary of going to doctors ever since.”
It Was Offensive How Much The Doctor Didn’t Trust His Patient
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“My sister went to the ER with canal bleeding when she was about 3-4 months pregnant. The doctor did an ultrasound but couldn’t find her baby. He kept asking her if she was sure she was pregnant, and she said, ‘Yes, my OB-GYN is Dr. XYZ, just like I told the nurse.’ Instead of doing an ultrasound or doing bloodwork, he ordered a psychological evaluation on her for pseudocyesis, AKA faking a pregnancy, and she checked herself out against medical advice. She went to her OB-GYN shortly thereafter and it turned out the bleeding was from the placenta separating from the uterine wall.
Fast forward a few months, her daughter had to go to the ER for a sudden terrible ear infection and the same doctor was to be treating my niece. He saw my sister and her giant obviously-pregnant belly and said, ‘So you really were pregnant!'”
They Told Her She Had Virtually No Chance Of Getting Pregnant
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“When my girlfriend was growing up, she had cancer on three separate occasions, and at one point, she was even a ‘Make a Wish’ kid. Fast forward to our early 20’s: we’re going to her fertility doctor to ask about her periods and see if they will work after all the chemotherapy she had received. They told us there is a 0.01% chance of her ever having a child. Naturally, we were bummed but moved on and started weighing alternative options.
Then, out of nowhere, boom! She became pregnant and we had a son. Three years later, we went to see another doctor and asked about her fertility. The doctor told us that she was so fertile she can have plenty of kids, no problem. So, to sum this up, that first doctor was blatantly wrong, and I wear rubbers now.”
She Felt Like She Had Shrapnel In Her Stomach Lining
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“My OB-GYN said I had a clean miscarriage when I was about 15 weeks pregnant and went in with sharp cramps. The cramps continued and I was told that was to be expected.
Then, about a week later, I blacked out at home. My husband rushed me to the hospital and I was blacking in and out the whole way. The ER doctor immediately suspected a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Ultrasound confirmed my fallopian tube had ruptured and I had severe internal bleeding. I was rushed in for emergency surgery just as I began to have trouble breathing. My tube and the embryo felt like shrapnel in my stomach lining, and I needed a transfusion. Thanks OB-GYN ! Luckily, after I recovered I was able to get pregnant again fairly quickly with just the remaining tube. I was also sure to immediately switch insurance and doctors.”