pregnancy – Pulse

Elderly Multigravida

Lisa Sieczkowski October 25, 2024 7 Comments

I had to drive across town for my appointments with the high-risk obstetrician. I had been referred to him by my normal-risk obstetrician due to my age (thirty-six the first time, and now again at thirty-nine) and my two previous miscarriages.

The waiting room was never crowded. It was dimly lit, with photographs of babies and children plastered across one wall.

Today, as at every visit, I studied the photos fiercely while waiting for my name to be called.

Kindness in the Face of Loss

Yuval Topper September 4, 2024 6 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I’ve just received a call from a hospital: An urgent appointment at its fetal-medicine unit has been arranged for me for tomorrow.

I try to get all the critical information.

“Which hospital did you say?” I ask. The medical secretary repeats the name, sounding a little surprised. I haven’t heard of this hospital; but then, I haven’t really heard of any, except for our local one.

Powerless

Maria Gervits March 15, 2024 14 Comments

“I know it wasn’t really your fault, but I blame you on some level,” said my patient Aisha, sounding husky over the phone. “I’m working on forgiving you, but I’m not there yet.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, but I kept my voice steady as I replied, “I understand. I’m sorry about my role in what happened. Please let me know if you ever feel ready to come back to see me, but I can refer you to another doctor in the meantime.”

What had I done to deserve such harsh words? I hadn’t prevented her traumatic childbirth experience.

None of My Mom Friends Are Dying

Katherine Peter January 9, 2024 26 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I’m squarely in the middle of my friends, in terms of when we became “mom friends.” However, one aspect sets me apart: None of my mom friends are dying.

None had excruciating pain during pregnancy, unrelenting constipation or unexplained blood in their stool. None went septic five days postpartum or were ultimately diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer with liver, lung and peritoneal metastases. None are parenting a two-year-old, knowing that they might not see him turn three.

Due Date

Georgia Eldridge April 14, 2023 12 Comments

It’s the bright orange color that catches my eye. Nestled in a box under my home office desk, alongside unused breast pads and pumping supplies left over from the birth of my first daughter.

My first, because there should have been a second. A girl.

What Little Separates Us

Adam Lalley March 3, 2023 8 Comments

Among the handful of patients who visited the emergency department one night in June with abdominal pain, rashes or fevers, I especially remember Michelle. She was a woman in her late twenties, eight weeks pregnant with her second child. I was a second-year resident, and she had come for help with something I’d already encountered over a dozen times in my training.

“I think I might be having a miscarriage,” she said. She stopped herself, then looked at me as if to gauge my reaction.

Toxemia of Pregnancy

Joan Baranow June 10, 2022 5 Comments

There was the bed bent in half,
the needle in the wrist,

the crack of bathroom light under the door.
Your father tried to sleep in the hospital cot

Room 103

Caitlyn Renée March 1, 2022 2 Comments

The tension in the triage section of my hospital’s emergency department is palpable as I walk toward Room 103. There are more nurses at the station than usual, and their eyes follow me as I push my ultrasound cart towards my destination.

This Is Why

H. Lee Kagan May 29, 2020 3 Comments

February 2016
Tierra Nueva, Dominican Republic

I’m in the last of five days caring for patients at rural clinics in western DR, along the Haitian frontier.

Tierra Nueva, miles from anywhere, is a collection of clapboard shanties and shacks scattered along a dusty, unpaved road that dead-ends at the border. People survive here by coaxing vegetables out of the earth via scratch farming. The lucky ones have a goat and maybe some hens.

Unexpected

Christine Loftis August 2, 2019 6 Comments

Christine Loftis ~

“You’re twenty-seven-and-a-half weeks pregnant.”

As I lay on the exam table, time froze.

How can this be? I wondered dazedly. I’m a second-year medical student. I’ve just completed a course in female reproduction and endocrinology. How could I have missed the signs?

I attribute my obliviousness to the surgery I’d gone through only months before: the removal of a twenty-seven-pound, mucus-filled ovarian cyst. My lack of menstrual periods was nothing new; they’d been irregular for years. My recent abdominal bloating must, I’d thought, be the cyst recurring. I hadn’t worried about it because, frankly, I’d always put my health and personal life second to my future career as a physician.

Ode to the Uterus

Riana B. Jumamil June 14, 2019 4 Comments

They call it

A woman’s coin purse
Buried away like an afterthought
In the folds of her body.

But hers is a feral little thing
Throwing away angry outbursts
With the tide of each moon.

It scoffs at being
Belittled and unused
Writing her opinion in bloody letters.

Eye-Opener

Daniel Lee May 10, 2019 54 Comments

Daniel Lee ~

1. Bipolar disorder
2. History of postpartum psychosis
3. No custody of her children
4. In treatment for cocaine abuse
5. Regular smoker

I digest each of these facts on the computer screen in rapid succession, progressively cementing the picture of Renee Pryce, a twenty-eight-year-old woman in her final months of pregnancy.

I’m a first-year resident in a large urban county hospital. In the course of my training, I’ve learned that some people (mostly older doctors) find the electronic medical record (EMR) burdensome and inefficient.

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: pregnancy

Elderly Multigravida

Kindness in the Face of Loss

Powerless

None of My Mom Friends Are Dying

Due Date

What Little Separates Us

Toxemia of Pregnancy

Room 103

This Is Why

Unexpected

Ode to the Uterus

Eye-Opener

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: pregnancy

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