I don’t like to blog about work but I need to vent…

Every single damn day someone says something completely heartless to me. On Tuesday I was cornered by TWO nosy co-workers from another department (I was over there to drop off some documents) and being unable to escape, I burst into tears instead. Then I returned to my department to hide in my office and cry. My manager took me aside and after a brief chat, she sent me home and gave me Wednesday off too. I was glad for that because I did not want to pretend to be happy while choking down birthday cake at morning tea. Yeah, Wednesday was my birthday. I’m now 35 and officially of ‘advanced maternal age’.

Happy birthday to me… I woke up at 6am, saw the husband off, did the ironing, played a pc game with a few online friends (gaming has kept me out of harm’s way these last few months), ate just a piece of cheese and a cup of tea, listened to my brother tell me his plans now that he and his wife have split, then went to collect my organic fruit/veg order. I was home by 7pm-ish, my sister dropped in for a quick dinner (Pizza Hut, which I don’t like but the husband does and that’s what matters) and then I went back to gaming before crawling into bed at 11.30pm. Some time during the day, my grandmother called to wish me a happy birthday. She had lots of ideas to help me “get over it” (it??) including take up tennis, do some volunteer work, take up painting, do some gardening, take a florist course, etc. I had to tell her over and over that my problem has nothing to do with needing activities to fill my days and everything to do wanting a baby but not being able to keep one alive. So adopt, she says. We don’t qualify for adoption; we have no religious affiliation, my husband is too old, we do not have ‘proven infertility’ and we don’t have the money.

I went back to work today and was largely ignored by everyone. At lunch time, four of my co-workers stood in the corridor outside my office and had an animated conversation about their pregnancies One of them is currently pregnant and was leading the conversation. I pushed my office door closed and tried not to cry. Again.

I love my job but I think I’m going to have to resign.

I didn’t want to “celebrate” Mother’s Day meaning I didn’t want to receive a card bearing a picture of a flower and a stupid poem from someone who is not my child.  But… it would’ve been nice if someone on this planet, anyone would’ve done, had just said “hey it’s Mother’s Day and I know both of your babies died so this must be a really hard time for you etc etc or some other kind of appropriate acknowledgement”.  But no.  Just another fucking day on the ranch.

Having put it off for weeks, I finally talked myself into going to Medicare to submit Nicholas’ forms.  According to the Family Assistance Office, I am entitled to apply for the Baby Bonus (even though he died) as well as the Family Tax Benefit which would be paid in the form of a bereavement payment to help cover medical and funeral costs.  These payments are means tested and I’m almost certain that I earn too much to receive any of the bereavement payment but it looks like we’re under the threshold for the bonus.  The Medicare office was packed but I only had to wait ten minutes before they called my number (the time stamp on my ticket said 3.48pm).  The woman behind the counter spoke at a frequency range that was completely inaudible to humans but eventually I worked out that she was asking for Nicholas’ birth certificate.  I handed it to her and watched as she chewed her bottom lip for a minute.  She made some more ultrasonic sounds that were lost on my mere human ears and then vanished into the back office area.  She returned with another woman who glanced at the screen before stating they would need to start the application over again.  She flicked through the forms and without making any eye contact, told me “these types of payments are processed immediately and payment made within 48 hours”.  She entered the details into the computer while flicking between the pages of my application form, then stopped to deliberately scrutinise the birth certificate.  Without looking at me, she said “You know, you don’t get the Family Tax Benefit for stillborns”.  I told her he wasn’t stillborn.  She turned the form over to the section completed by the midwife.  The midwife had ticked the box next to “gave birth to a living child that died” and had included his date of birth, date of death, gestation and weight in the right places.  The “delivered a stillborn child” section was blank.  She pointed to the date of death and then at the date of birth, as if that automatically makes him stillborn.  I showed her the death certificate that very clearly shows his age at death as two hours.  She kept flicking through the forms, pointing out his date of death, over and over.  I was seconds away from pulling out my mobile phone to show her the fucking video of him ALIVE and not fucking stillborn when she said she would need to get the manager.  She was gone for the longest time but I presumed she was explaining everything to the manager.  Eventually she returned with the manager who greeted me with a “oh a new baby, congratulations, is this your first?”.  Fucking idiot.  She flicked through the forms and asked me what the problem was, as if I was making a fuss.  I told her that there wasn’t a problem, that I just wanted them to take my forms and acknowledge that I am entitled to apply for both payments because my baby was NOT stillborn.  She typed a lot of things on the computer and eventually said they would “sort it out” and that I didn’t need to wait while they did it.  They took photocopies of his birth and death certificates and said the application would be processed “usually within seven days”.  So much for “immediately”.  I asked her to confirm that she could see from my paperwork that he wasn’t stillborn but she just repeated that they would “sort it out”.  It was already five o’clock and I was the last customer left.  Obviously they just wanted me gone so they could go home.  What are the odds that they will lose the application?

At least everything went smoothly when we met with our loan broker tonight to discuss refinancing our mortgage.  He’s going to send the new loan papers through tomorrow.

While I was in the hospital, the social worker contacted an organisation that arranged for a volunteer professional photographer come to hospital to take photos of Nicholas.

From their website:

Participating photographers will come to the hospital or your home at a time convenient to you and will help supply you with cherished photographic memories. There will be no charge for this service. After your session the photographer will provide your family with a full set of 4×6in prints (approximately twenty, circumstances permitting sufficient variety of images). The photographer will also supply a disk of high resolution images for the family. There will be no charge for this service or these prints.

At the time the photos were taken, the photographer offered to give us the photos before the funeral so we would have them for the reflection DVD.  After many email requests, we received just three photos via email.  Each time I emailed her, she promised to “send the photos tonight” and I would spend the following days making myself sick by checking my inbox every ten minutes.  Three weeks ago she said she would post a CD containing the photos to me.  It hasn’t arrived.

It’s a free service, and you really do get what you pay for.  And if she had asked us to cover her expenses or to pay the going rate for a professional photographer, we’d have done it but we weren’t given that option.  It is killing me that this woman is holding back his photos from me – I’ve done nothing to her and tried to be very very patient.  Do I just move on and cut my losses or do I keep trying?  How many emails can I send??

Edited to add: I decided to send one more email and it bounced back.  I guess the universe just decided for me.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, late last night I discovered I had head lice!  I’ve never ever had head lice before and completely lost it.  Ugh.  The husband googled for a late night pharmacy and found one that was still open then raced off to buy some vile-smelling lice treatment.  I washed the goop out of my hair over the tub and counted fifteen lice in the water when it was done.  I’m told that’s not a lot but it still upset me.  Of course now I want to know who the hell gave me lice as apparently they’re spread via head to head contact.  Well I’ve received a lot of hugs from a lot of people recently and am completely disgusted that one of them has given me lice.  Ugh.  I had to warn my sister inlaw and she checked her kids this morning but they’re lice-free.  I was with them on Friday so I hope she doesn’t have an infestation on her hands next week.

Normally I’d do one of those Year in Review type posts but I really can’t be bothered.  As the clock struck midnight going into 2009, my husband and I declared that this new year was going to be “our year”.  We’d already been through so much in 2008 that we were certain 2009 was going to be the one for us.  But it wasn’t.

Now, as everyone is wishing each other a happy new year and best wishes for 2010, I get this terrible sinking feeling.  I know that 2010 is not going to be a good year at all.  While most people stop counting down at midnight, we will continue our own countdown until the baby is born.  I want nothing more than for our doctors to be wrong and for little Nudge to survive but sooner or later I am going to have to face the facts and accept our fate.

2010 is not going to be our year.

I almost forgot…. while I was at the hospital, I asked the doctor to flip back through my file to the 22 Oct which is the day I saw the doctor that gave us the hopeful MRI result (before the report was changed). All I’ve ever requested is that they explain to me why, on the 22 Oct they told us that the MRI showed one good kidney with appropriate structure and a small bladder, only to change that one week later stating NO kidneys or bladder visualised. There’s a huge difference in those two diagnoses. I just want to know how this happened. Either someone did the wrong thing or someone changed the report. I don’t want to sue, I don’t want money. I just want to understand how it happened – I believe I have a right to this information because the change in the report changed the life/death outcome for our baby.

The doctor went right through my patient file and it turns out that the doctor didn’t write any notes at all for that consultation! She gave us a “life and death” diagnosis but didn’t write a single word.

I’m not sure how it works in the rest of the world but in Australia, doctors are required by law to make notes for each contact with the patient. This hospital is dreadful. Even if we make a formal complaint, there’s no proof of what transpired – it’s just our word against hers.

And seeing that the doctor didn’t even bother to update my file that day, it’s like it never happened. The only proof that we were even at the hospital that day is that the high risk preg nurse documented that she took us through the NICU and explained the plan for baby. But there’s nothing from the doctor at all. I just keep hoping that the MRI is wrong, that the radiographer is erring on the side of caution by saying he can’t see anything when maybe there is something there. But it seems that MRI trumps everything else, so all of the previous ultrasound reports we have stating they can see renal arteries, etc are ignored because MRI, the king of diagnostics, has spoken.

Incidentally, the husband found a documented case in Canada where a woman was told that her baby had renal agenesis based on MRI findings. She declined termination, carried the baby to term and that baby was born with two (non-functioning) kidneys and bladder. MRI is not infallible.

I had another appointment at the hospital this morning. I’ve complained about this clinic plenty of times and unfortunately today I can only add to it.  Buckle up, this is going to be a long one!!

My appointment with the midwife was at 8.30am but they told me to be there at 7.30am to do the glucose test.  I stood in the main foyer waiting for them to open until 8am.  A midwife arrived and explained that the admin staff wouldn’t be there until 8.30am but she let myself and three other patients into the waiting room to sit while we waited. I still had to take a frigging number, wait for the admin staff to arrive, then wait to be called to tell the clerks that I was there and then wait again to be seen.  I explained to the clerk that I was told to be there at 7.30am to do the glucose test but the clerk just shrugged at me.  The nurse unit manager (they wear red shirts while the other nurses wear blue) overheard and came back a few minutes later with the glucose drink. I mentioned that been told to fast for the test when it was scheduled but she said that was wrong and that I should’ve eaten breakfast.  Ummm?  I can only do as I’ve been instructed.  She went on to tell me to drink the glucose, and to not eat or drink anything else.  She said I would be seen by the doctor in a minute then she’d do the BSL finger-prick test after that.  Sounds good.

I followed her directions and waited. And waited. Jerks. The nurse manager walked by me half a dozen times and knew damn well that I was still there.  She’d said she would come back to me for the BSL so I just waited for her.  And waited.  By the time the nurse got back to me to do the finger prick test, 2hrs had passed and she flipped into bitch mode by telling me that it was too late to test and wouldn’t be accurate anyway. How is that my fault????? She called over another nurse and told her to do the test, adding that I’d left it too late.  This all went on in a busy corridor with other patients milling around waiting to drop off their wee samples.  Geez, got privacy much??  There was no point in arguing with this bitch, as much as I wanted to tell her that it was HER fault.  And this from a MANAGER.  I still have to go back there for two more months, and unfortunately I need these assholes on my side.  Anyway, the result was normal (4.9) but of course completely meaningless given the amount of time passed since drinking the glucose and the fact that they didn’t take a blood sugar level BEFORE I did the test.  I’d told her I’d fasted, how do they know that I wasn’t hypoglycaemic before having the sugar drink???  Effing idiots.  I have access to a BSL monitor at work, I guess this is something else I will have to monitor myself.

THANK YOU NSW HEALTH FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUBSTANDARD LEVEL OF HEALTH CARE!!!

I really wish a senior health manager would stumble across this blog and DO SOMETHING about it.  Fat chance.  The husband and I are now seriously discussing making a formal complaint about all the problems we’ve had with XXXXX Hospital.  We are lucky that we both work in health and understand how the system works and we both have the initiative and skill set necessary to self-manage our health.  If we were from non-English speaking backgrounds or even of a lower socio-economic status, we’d be fucked.

Eventually I was called in to see the doctor.  At my last appointment I was told that I would be seeing the high-risk pregnancy midwife from then on.  I guess they forgot?  Or is it just another example of the complete lack of continuity of care?  If they just said “you’ll be seeing which ever doctor or midwife happens to pick up your file” I’d be fine – but this place never ever does what they say they will do.  A perfect example is the ultrasound appointment I had on 23 November.  I was told by the doctor that she would do my normal check-up on the same day.  I arrived for that appointment, had the u/s and was told to come back again because they didn’t have my file available and didn’t know I was suppose to have my normal check-up at the same time.

Baby is measuring 28 weeks based on fundus height (I’m now 30 weeks).   She didn’t seem worried but from my notes it means the baby hasn’t grown since 26 weeks.  My bump is bigger and the baby is moving a lot, with those movements getting stronger every week so I *guess* he is just curled up??  I’d never seen this doctor before but she was ok, she read through the notes and asked if it was ok if she grabbed the low-tech u/s machine. I think she was just being curious since you could see the baby moving through my stomach while I was laying there. Anyway, not wanting to miss a chance to see our baby, I agreed. He’s still very breech, facing out with his legs tucked up, feet by his arms and his butt sitting firmly on my bladder. I asked for a photo but the machine was out of paper and she couldn’t find any more – are we surprised??  The husband took a mobile phone pic of the u/s machin instead (he’s so wonderful, he knew right away how important it was to me).

It’s a bit hard to see what’s what but essentially that’s the baby’s head and what we think might be a hand.

And as per always, I had to take another number from the ticket machine and wait to be called to make the follow-up appointment.  They want to see me again in two weeks and although the senior ob told me that they wouldn’t be doing anymore ultrasounds, they have asked me to book for another tertiary ultrasound at 34 weeks.

I am so sick of people asking me if I am alright. What the fuck could I possibly be “alright” about????

I stopped in at the local supermarket on my way home from work to get a few things for dinner.

Teenage Check-out Chick: Is this celery?

Me: Erm, no it’s shallots.

A moment later…

TC-oC: Are these Lebanese Cucumbers or umm… normal ones?

Me: That’s zucchini.

Honestly, what does her mother feed her????