"The year was 2009 and I was in labor with my second child.
As a rape survivor, having control taken from me is a trigger, which is why I wanted a medication-free birth. I wanted a home birth however, insurance would only cover a hospital birth and the ob-gyn practice that was covered by my insurance was a practice with two male doctors. From my first appointment, I was clear on wanting a natural birth and the doctors were supportive.
The night I walked into labor and delivery and was admitted, I clearly stated to the nurse that she was not to offer me an epidural as I would be having a drug free delivery. She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said “we will see about that”. During my labor, I refused to be in the bed and took my monitors off to labor alone in the bathroom. The nurse came into my room and began screaming at me that I was not allowed to be without my monitors. I asked to compromise and do 15 minutes on the monitor and then 45 minutes free off the monitor. She said that was not "allowed". When she’d leave, I’d remove the monitors and go back to laboring on the toilet.
She came in on another occasion and told me that “no one cares about natural labor" and that I don’t "need to be a hero", that I just "need to get the epidural.” I told her not to come back into my room and that I was having my baby drug-free. I was laboring peacefully on my own in the bathroom, I was not screaming out or panicked in any way, just riding out my contractions.
When the doctor came in, he put me in stirrups and laid the bed back. I said I wanted the birth bar that was offered during my hospital tour. The nurse said it "didn’t exist" and I "needed to lay back and pull my legs back". I instead got on all fours to which the doctor told me to lay down, and that I was "not allowed to deliver that way". The nurse helped to force me on my back. When I tried to roll to my side, she pushed my hip down to keep me on my back.
I began panicking at this point. As a rape survivor, this was my biggest fear... and I’m in my most vulnerable position pushing my son out. I’m being yelled at and held down by a nurse who has verbally abused me for the past four hours of my labor.
My sister starts recording the birth (which was allowed at the birth of my daughter three years earlier) however, the doctor and nurse say it was not allowed now. The doctor then shoved two fingers up my rectum as my son was crowning and I began screaming that I felt that, that he had to stop! He removed his fingers and went to inject my perineum to prepare for an episiotomy. My mom said he needed to stop that, that I didn’t want one. He turned to look at her with the needle still in my perineum, telling her it was "necessary". He was still talking down to her/looking at her when my son’s head delivered bending the needle in the process.
He was given to me - a healthy 8lb, 9oz baby - but I felt broken.
I felt like I had been raped.
I was literally sodomized by the male doctor during my son’s crowning while the nurse held me down.
Before my doctor left, he looked at me and said, “well, you got your natural delivery.” As the nurse pushed me in my wheelchair to the recovery wing, she made a snide comment about "women needing to be heroes". I asked to be discharged six hours later. Since I had no epidural and no complications, I was released.
I suffered from post-partum depression after his delivery. I had flashbacks of being assaulted. I couldn’t let my husband touch me for months and I struggled to bond with my son. I went on medication when he was six months old and started therapy to recover. My next two children, I gave birth at home with a midwife and still to this day refuse to see any male ob-gyn.
Today, I am a RN and doula as well as on my path to becoming a Nurse-Midwife. I want to protect women from what I went through. There was no respect for my labor, or my choices, or me as a human being. I had my husband, my mother, and sister there for support and was still treated as a disobedient child by the medical staff."