A Little Green Leaf

Our first day at the hospital the woman from food service who delivered my lunch offered us congratulations on the impending birth of our baby, as well as some words of encouragement about getting through the labor. I thanked her, and she left. Her words reminded me of what I was missing, and they underscored my feelings of isolation and loneliness. Everyone else on that floor came in excited and nervous and happy. I came in hoping for the best from a terrible situation. I didn't want to be reminded of that. My mom talked with my nurse to make sure that it didn't happen again. Evidently the food service staff is not supposed to enter the rooms at all, but there had been a mix up with the order and the woman had wanted to get my food to me as soon as it was ready rather than leaving it for one of the nurses to take in. My nurse was horrified at what happened and even the food service manager called to apologize. Shortly thereafter, someone placed a picture of a green leaf with a dew drop on it outside of the door of my hospital room. Obviously the leaf was a sign intended for various hospital staff to alert them that we were in a difficult situation. When we left the maternity ward to go upstairs for recovery, this little leaf picture followed us.

Recently I went to my OB-GYN for my annual check-up. Whilst checking to confirm that my last appointment was indeed a year ago, the nurse looked at my chart, and must have seen that my last check-up happened at a pregnancy confirmation appointment. After weighing me, she asked if I had lost all of my pregnancy weight. I said yes, hoping that could be the end of our conversation. Then she asked me how much weight I had gained during pregnancy. That put me in a bad spot. I gained ten pounds. If I say to a nurse, I gained ten pounds, and don't say anything else, then I will seem like a horrible mother. Only people who smoke, or do drugs, or starve themselves will gain such a small amount of weight during a normal pregnancy. I hate having to tell people about what happened, but I felt weird ignoring her question, or not telling the truth.

I probably should have just said something like, "I don't want to talk about it," but instead I came up with "I only gained ten pounds because my baby died at 25 weeks." By that point she had the stethoscope in her ears to take my blood pressure (which was probably sky-rocketing by that point). "How much did you gain?" she asked again. I repeat above awkward statement. She responds, "Oh," and tells me my blood pressure. 110/70. Guess I am fine after all. Then she hands me my paper outfit, tells me to change, and leaves. I do so, then sit in the office waiting and wondering why the nurse didn't even say she was sorry, and why there isn't a note in my file, or something to indicate what has happened so that I don't have to deal with questions about my pregnancy. I called Jeff on the way home to talk about it, and he suggested that I should get a little green leaf sign to put in my file. I agree.