When my third baby was born, he was healthy and perfect. He nursed really well, better than my other babies at birth. I brought him home, but soon I noticed that he occasionally sounded like he was gasping for air. It was so minor that it was almost imperceptible. My first two babies had never done this, though, and I didn’t want to take any chances. So we decided to take the 3-day-old baby to the hospital. My husband and I regret that decision. We had no idea that hospitals can threaten to take your baby away and even create something like a hostage situation.
My baby was given lots of tests, then was hooked up to wires for the night. A mattress (more like heavy springs with a cloth over it) was thrown onto the floor for me to sleep on. I’m not sure why there wasn’t some kind of bed for a nursing mother to stay with her infant. Every time my baby gasped for breath, the monitor did not go off at all. When a nurse happened to be passing by, she looked at my baby gasping as if it was completely normal. All the tests came back that there was nothing wrong. As soon as I knew that my baby was okay, I wanted to go home, but I went ahead and stayed the night.
The next morning I was ready to leave. After all, my baby was fine. But a forceful woman doctor started interrogating me, telling me that my baby could not leave the hospital until he had gained a lot of weight. He was already 8 pounds 12 ounces, totally normal, and my milk hadn’t come in yet, but he was nursing beautifully. She forced me against my will to feed my baby formula after every breastfeeding, and she threatened me that she would not release the baby until he weighed a certain amount that she made up out of her head. When I said, “I think I’ll just take my baby and leave,” she said that she would take my baby away by force.
At this point I felt like I was held hostage. Against my will I fed my baby formula after every feeding. Because of this I started bleeding because the baby would latch on much tighter because of the bottle, plus I always fed him for as long as possible to bring in my milk faster so that this hostage situation could come to an end.
Having just given birth a few days before, I was cramping up and bleeding now from three places, lying on a bed of springs, and every time I went to the bathroom, I got on my knees and begged God for the nightmare to end. (Inside the hospital room, there were windows where every passer-by could look in, so the bathroom was the only place for privacy.) When my husband came to see me, I just sobbed and sobbed and said to please talk to the wicked witch of a doctor if she came in, because everything I said, she twisted. I felt dizzy and just wanted to go home.
I think we were held hostage four entire days before we were allowed to go home. I will NEVER go to the hospital again unless someone in my family is almost dead.
Just yesterday I read an article by Michael Farris of a similar (but worse) situation of another homeschool mom. When I read the article (click here), I was so furious I could hardly see straight. The HSLDA is taking donations for this case, so if you want to stop this kind of idiotic ripping away of our rights as parents over our own children, please support them.
