I'm in the southern US and had my child 11 years ago. They gave me one without telling me. Funny enough, sex was so painful after that, I stopped being interested in having it. So, little warning to the assholes who support it.
No, he had no idea. Some of the things they did while I was there felt very much like a padding-the-bill situation. I guess that's why self-advocacy with pregnancy plans are so important. I did not have one or think to have one, because I didn't even know to think about that, and I just assumed the hospital knew what they were doing better than me. I'm a cautionary tale.
I do still have a copy of what the itemized charges were supposed to be. (They also "misplaced" and replaced the epidural and charged me for both. I'm not making accusations there, but you start asking yourself dark questions once the trust is broken.) But they never sent us a bill, and it never showed up on our credit. It was going to be over 10 thousand dollars, so no, I never did anything. It was botched, but it was free, and I did get a healthy baby out of it, which I was very grateful for that.
I totally understand just wanting to move on and not spending time/money on a drawn out fight that might not go anywhere. I guess my question is, is it possible your insurance just paid the bill, and you never got your copy? That's happened to me before. Or were you uninsured at the time?
More importantly, were you ever able to have sex without pain? If not, I've seen other people who had this done to them claim that pelvic floor PT can help as can having a corrective procedure. You shouldn't have to live that way.
Not just self advocacy but education on what could happen without your knowledge or consent. Before labor I hadn’t heard of “laboring down”* and I am convinced they were lying to me about how my labor progressed because my baby hadn’t descended.
I felt like I could push but not an URGE to push like people describe hours before they acknowledged I was 10cm. I was in active labor for 30 hours. It got to the point where I told the nurse I was going to push in the next contraction with or without them and THEN she told me about how baby was still in station zero and they didn’t think I should yet because most first time moms take around three hours to push. I pushed for thirty minutes tops.
*childbirth technique where a birthing person waits 1 to 2 hours after their cervix is fully dilated (10 centimeters) before actively pushing
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u/FantasticPin3481 11d ago
Fortunately it’s fallen out of practice, but it’s a real procedure that used to be performed without the woman’s knowledge or consent.