Has everyone been listening to the new Serial podcast, The Retrievals?
I despise trigger warnings. I think they’re ridiculous and should actually be called feeling warnings. WARNING: you’re about to feel an intense emotion, prepare to be vulnerable. I just hate that a trigger warning gives someone the option to look away, especially those who make a habit of avoiding difficult feelings. Shouldn’t we all attempt to move forward and experience discomfort? Let’s build some resilience.
Anyway, if you haven’t listened to The Retrieval’s first episode yet, prepare to have FEELINGS.
I’d never heard about the court case featured in this podcast. But it centers around a nurse at a Yale fertility clinic who, due to her addiction to fentanyl, began siphoning off bags of the medication for her own recreational use and replacing each with saline. What ensues are stories of women undergoing very invasive egg retrieval procedures, unmedicated.
I sat in my car as the first episode played, listening to each woman’s testimonial. Tales of intense, blistering pain. It sounded truly hellish, not unlike science fiction. Each woman was told they’d received the maximum dose of the narcotic, and each procedure carried on.
I paused this episode once or twice to breathe. I knew I had to keep going (see above) but I craved a respite from these retellings.
My first son, he required an emergency cesarian section. My water broke in the evening on November 20, and three hours later I was having intense contractions, one every minute.
I received an epidural and prepared to rest, hoping for a nap.
But that nap was not in the cards, because the baby was showing signs of stress. His heart was working too hard and the team of medical professionals decided he needed to get out, stat.
I was then wheeled into the operating room, alone. Doctors and nurses were everywhere, but there was not one familiar face. Immediately, I was prepped for surgery, and the anesthesiologist spoke to me directly, asking about my pain levels.
Before I could even catch my bearings, the surgeon began cutting.
I’ll take a small break here because I don’t trust what I’m about to say. I don’t believe my own memory.
But what I felt were scissors, cutting me open. I told the doctors; I’m feeling this. I know I used the word cutting in my description of the pain. And then the anesthesiologist demanded the surgeon pause. The two doctors had a full-blown argument over my body. The surgeon expressed concern for the baby and how he needed to remove him, right away. And the anesthesiologist argued that there was time to reassess my pain levels. But I remember witnessing a legitimately heated back and forth.
The anesthesiologist had an intern with him. This man’s wide-eyed concern grew palpable. I turned to the intern, recognizing a possible ally, and asked if he wouldn’t mind holding my hand. My husband wasn’t there, having not been allowed back. I still don’t understand why, but the word emergency was used to explain his absence.
I was asked if I wanted to be knocked out completely, which set off another panic response. NO! Please no. I wanted to be awake and aware. I wanted to meet my baby. And soon after that, the pain dulled.
I need to acknowledge right here that this baby emerged completely healthy and perfectly fine, and I owe that to the operating doctors. I am grateful. I do not wish to minimize their work. But that surgeon, he never looked at me. He never spoke to me, except for one time and this was after it was all over. I can’t remember his exact words, but basically, he complimented himself aloud by telling me he’d done a really great job. That I’d only have a small scar. That the size of my scar was this surgeon’s barometer for success told me all I needed to know about this man.
I was believed, thank goodness, by that anesthesiologist, and my pain was taken seriously by him. But that kind of pain, it lives in the body.
I remember people telling me that pain experienced during childbirth is always worth it and quickly forgotten, chalked up as part of the process. And yes, some of that is true and valid. Because my son is my world, and I would go back to that hospital right now and experience all of it again to save him.
But I’m just wondering, did his birth have to be so traumatizing? From a medical perspective, could something have been done differently? I don’t know enough about the field. But that pain, I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
