Stillborn at 38 Weeks, the insurance, trisomy 21, life after
I am 10 weeks postpartum from my 4th daughter who was stillborn at 38 weeks 5 days. I’m struggling. I’ve lost my daughter, the life our family would have had with her, my perfect 2 boys - 2 girls family, my identity, my mental health. Some days are ok but others I am on a deep dive to understand what happened. I had a very normal pregnancy which I did 9 ultrasounds for (constantly nervous about my other kids bopping into my belly) my pregnancy felt normal other than being denied maternity insurance.
I am self employed and when I found out I was pregnant I did what I did with all three of my other healthy pregnancies, called my agent and said I needed to switch plans to one that covered maternity. That’s when a big problem happened, because I had a confirmed pregnancy it was a preexisting condition, because I don’t qualify for Medicaid I couldn’t apply into one of those programs, because it was July and I didn’t have a life qualifying event I couldn’t change insurance. I could change to marketplace at full price in November but I wouldn’t be covered until Jan 1, my daughter was due March 10. I called and asked so many OB’s if I could cash pay as the financials were not a problem it was simply the timing of insurance. No OB would take be on as cash pay due to the liability, even if it was only part of the pregnancy. At this point I was so frustrated with the whole system that I said screw it I never did anything at those OB appointments anyway and did things on my own. Blood pressure, urinalysis, blood tests, all of it on my own. I was so confident.
I went into a normal labor at 38 weeks, we rushed to the hospital and I was checked and brought to a delivery room. No one told me they couldn’t find a heartbeat. I pushed through no meds, just like I planned. They set her on my chest and went into to cut the cord, my husband said “don’t cut the cord!” And they responded “we have to” my daughter was pulled from me and worked on beside my bed. I remember feeling like this can’t be real, they’re going to work on her and she’s going to cry any second. This isn’t happening. This is not happening to her. After nearly an hour, they told us she was gone.
If you can imagine the guilt I felt that I had failed her, it was unimaginable. Days where I just screamed and cried but still had 3 kids to take care of. Thank god I have my husband and them or I really do not know I would have survived this.
2 weeks after her birth, funeral and the emotions in between, we found out she tested positive for Trisomy 21, Down’s syndrome. To say this has been another emotionally charged news is an understatement. Once again, I failed to protect her. How did I not know she needed more help.
Just needed to share my story as today was particularly hard.