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Testimony of Jeanne Cuendet

"My story as a mom began in August 2016. With my husband, we felt ready to start a family, yippee, let's go for it! Life doesn't give us time to wait, in September I'm already pregnant. After 4 months of violent nausea, the pregnancy was going well. Week 28, my cervix is too short, week 31 it's completely erased. We feared premature delivery. I have to take corticosteroid injections to mature my baby's lungs so that, should he come out, he can breathe on his own. I stay in bed until my term... We also detect cardiac inconsistencies in the baby during monitoring. We have to keep a close eye on this, and a midwife comes to my home every day. Despite all this, my daughter stays warm until week 38. As she was breech, a Caesarean section was scheduled. But when I checked her heart for the umpteenth time, and it had slowed down considerably (to 58 beats/min compared with 130 for normal functioning), I decided to have an emergency C-section. Personally, I had a good experience of this operation, which could have been very traumatic. I was lucky enough to be prepared in advance for a C-section. I knew what to expect, and I was prepared for the fact that my baby would leave with his father once he was out, while I was stitched up (45 minutes is a long time, after all). I'm even very happy for my husband that he was able to have this special moment with our daughter (even though she was trying to suckle him and had hair everywhere). Today, our daughter Elia is in great shape! The doctors didn't detect any problems when she was discharged, so we'll never know what caused her heart to slow down.

Phase two, baby two:

We always wanted to have our children close together. A year later, we're at it again. We're not sure we're ready, but are we ever? We trust life. September 2018, I'm overdue. We take a test, I'm pregnant, we're all excited. Five days later, I'm at work and I really don't feel well, like when I have a stomach bug. I have to vomit, but nothing comes out. I have to go to bed, I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm shaking, I'm sweating, it's not coming out. I decide to go home, an hour and a half's drive away. As I'm leaving, I go to the bathroom again and lose blood. I knew then that something was wrong. As I'm in no fit state to go home, I decide to go to the nearest hospital, which is a 20-minute drive from my work. I have to stop twice on the way. At the emergency room, I tell them straight away that I think I'm having a miscarriage. The gynecologist did an ultrasound but couldn't see anything. She asks me if I'm really sure I'm pregnant. She does another test, and yes, I'm pregnant. She then took a blood sample and sent me home, an hour and a half's drive away! I'm a bit surprised, given my condition, so she prescribes anti-vomiting pills and painkillers. Great, now not only am I in a lot of pain and scared, I'm also high! I call my husband to come and pick me up by train from his place of work, which is two hours away, and I wait alone in my car. I have to go back two days later to take another blood test and compare the results. There are three possibilities:

1. The pregnancy is too early to see anything on ultrasound, in which case hormone levels should have doubled.
2. I'm having a miscarriage, in which case the hormone levels should go down.
3. I have an ectopic pregnancy, in which case the hormone level stagnates or rises only slightly.

So I go home with my husband. I stopped bleeding. The next day, I'm in great shape. Very optimistic, I told myself it was nothing serious, then suddenly, in the afternoon, I had enormous stomach pains. I went to the emergency room, where the wait was very long. After an initial, extremely painful examination, they found that my belly was full of blood, but no verdict had yet been reached. Change of staff. Another wait. I know now that I'm bleeding internally, I'm in a lot of pain, but they let me wait quietly without even giving me any painkillers. Another gynecological examination, just as painful, and another wait. I still haven't eaten or drunk and have to fast "just in case". Still no real verdict, but an ectopic pregnancy is definitely suspected. In the end, they decide to keep me overnight so that I can have another round of blood test comparisons and a check-up the next day. But I could feel that the staff were under stress, checking on me all the time, and I couldn't sleep. Then the doctor tells me that he's not at ease (I'd noticed, thanks) and that he's summoned the head doctor. He examined me and his verdict was straightforward: we're going to the OR right away! I underwent a laparoscopy under general anaesthetic, with two small cuts on the sides and one on the navel to evacuate all the blood from my belly and "empty" and sew up my tube. In fact, the foetus had developed in the tube, which was not viable, either for it or for me. As a result, I had to have regular blood tests to check that my hormone levels were coming down completely. In my case, it stagnated: problem! I had another round of tests (still just as painful). There were still "remnants" in my uterus, despite the curettage. My body didn't understand that I was no longer pregnant and continued to produce pregnancy hormones. I had to have an injection of methotrexate, a very violent product equivalent to chemotherapy, to stop the cells from growing. New tests, always just as painful. A nightmare! Two weeks after the operation, my stomach was full of blood again. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to take a second course of methotrexate. My body felt like a sieve. Between the three scars from the operation, the blood tests every other day for almost two months and the injections... It was a terrible time for me. I was in constant pain. I had no compassion from the staff and the examinations were endless and very painful. I was in so much physical pain that it was hard to grieve for this little baby... My husband had to deal with everything and run around, he was exhausted too. I couldn't carry our daughter because of the scars and the bleeding, and she didn't understand why. She was very worried to see her mom always tired and in bed, at the end of her tether. It wasn't easy. In the end, everything went back to normal and we were lucky to be surrounded by our families. We'd never have got through without them.

Phase three, baby three:

February 2019, we decide to stop using protection. And, once again, I get pregnant straight away! The fetus is well placed, its little heart is beating, everything is looking good. But very soon, as with my first pregnancy, the nausea returned. I'm terribly sick for the first three months. And this time around, I've got a little girl to look after, so there's less opportunity for me to rest or isolate myself. I also feel that my husband is getting exhausted, which is difficult. And all of a sudden, miraculously, the nausea stops! We've passed the famous three-month mark, everything's going well and I'm full of energy again. We're relieved. We're having a great week and looking forward to our ultrasound scheduled for the following week. I go shopping for maternity clothes, finally able to look forward to this project on the way. On Saturday morning, I see brown spots in my panties. In the late afternoon, it turns red, but it's just a few tiny drops. I tell myself that it might be better to have a check-up so as not to be stressed over the next few days, as I've got a big week ahead of me and won't be able to go and see my gynaecologist. We have our daughter babysat and go to the emergency room, really just for a routine check-up to reassure us.

I had an ultrasound and all the doctor could talk about was my bladder, which was full... I knew right away that something was wrong, otherwise he would have reassured us that the baby was fine. Now he was beating around the bush about my bladder, and it seemed to go on forever. We couldn't see the screen. Then he said, "I'll show you. My husband, who had been sitting down, got up and came over to me to take my hand. The doctor turned the screen towards us and again, showed us my bladder, (grrr), before zooming in on an inert fetus, which had no movement. The heart had stopped, apparently already in sound 9 (we were in sound 15). My husband felt sick and had to sit down. I was shocked. Used to our daughter's ultrasound scans, where everything jumps around and you see the heart beating and life, this inert image of a fetus already fully formed was extremely violent. I'll never forget it. We weren't expecting it, we were so confident. And my belly starting to grow, and those three months of hell behind me, all for this... Impossible to realize. Then we were left with two choices: do a curettage the following week or take medication to "expel" the baby. There was no hurry, we had time according to the images the doctor had seen. We opted for the curettage. We went home, sheepish, not understanding what was happening to us, with this dead fetus still inside me. But in the middle of the night, my body decided to go into labor on its own. I started to lose a lot of blood and clots. So we went straight back to the emergency room, where it was terrible, long and painful. I was on a table, my feet in stirrups, suffering like mad to "expel the matter" in the ultra-violent words of the doctors and staff. They kept me in hospital to make sure I didn't haemorrhage and to expel what was left. But nothing was coming out and I had no more contractions. So I was given drugs to induce contractions, but they did nothing except make me suffer, even though I had nothing left to expel. The doctor didn't come to check on me, so I was given these drugs again and again. It lasted a whole day, and I hadn't been able to eat or drink anything for over 30 hours, in case I started hemorrhaging and had to go to the emergency room. I'd pulled an all-nighter and couldn't take it anymore. It was torture. Finally I had to demand to see a doctor to find out that everything was already out. It was Sunday evening. The doctor said to me: "That's it, you can go home and go back to work tomorrow. I hadn't slept for 48 hours, I was just exhausted and completely depressed, I had just lost a child. I thought I was dreaming. I had to beg him for two days off... And when the nurse came to get me and asked the doctor if she could finally give me something to eat, he replied: "She'll just have to eat at home when she arrives, but you can serve her tea." The medical world has a real tendency to minimize the impact of such experiences on patients and their families. It uses barbaric terms and offers no psychological support.

As future parents, we're well aware that the early stages of pregnancy are complicated and that there are many miscarriages, but that doesn't stop us from suffering physically and psychologically. We're never prepared for it, even if we're warned. I was really shocked by the lack of empathy of the medical service.

I also wanted to point out that we often tend to worry about the woman, because she's the one who carries the child in her body and feels the physical suffering, but the man suffers just as much and needs help too. People sometimes forget this.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my husband for his support during this ordeal. Our whole balance as a couple and a family has been turned upside down and it's been really complicated. Thank you for believing in us and our family. One day, it will grow, I'm sure of it!"

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