Is Anyone Listening?

She prescribed anti-inflammatory gel when what I needed was surgery.

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Note: This piece is a personal essay that covers topics such as medical misogyny and birth trauma. If you do not feel up to reading this then please don’t. Take care of yourself. It is a piece I never thought I would write or share but it feels important to. Not only for other women who have suffered but selfishly for me to move forward. It feels like I am taking back some of my own power. If you are new here, not all essays will be this heavy but it seemed appropriate for me to start from the beginning. Jade x

"He is as close as they come to perfect!" The paediatrician gleefully said as she pressed his hips and circled his coiled-up legs. It is true. He is, indeed, perfect. He has ten slender fingers, the type my grandmother would have said is ideal for playing the piano, and ten baby-carrot-like toes. He also has the most immaculate plumped lips that will never require over-lining and eyes like my father. Deep blue and discerning.

When we arrived home from the hospital at around 5:00pm on the 28th of August, my ever-upbeat husband was keen to crack open a bottle of champagne. A bottle we had been saving for this very occasion. I politely declined, with tears filling my eyes and spilling onto my cheeks. I was fearful my body would break again. I kept replaying what had happened over in my head. Oscillating between self-pity and self-loathing. I should be grateful. I am, after all, home with my healthy baby. I will be fine. I just need to rest and drink plenty of water. That is what the urologist said. But dark thoughts overrode all logic: could one sip reverse his work? I imagined a champagne bubble, large and robust enough to dislodge the plastic stent that he had sewn into my left ureter tube. The anxiety consumed me. For months nothing but H2O passed my lips. Not even my usual 3pm can of Diet Coke could seduce me.

This radical way of thinking was new to me. As was the spontaneous, often uncontrollable weeping when anyone asked, "How was the birth this time?" The tears were primal and impulsive, just like a mother's letdown. Milk. Another liquid that had me undone. I fed him a mix of formula and dribbles of breast milk from a bottle. I was, at this point, a failure in establishing breastfeeding—a consequence of the circumstances that unfolded after his birth. The events that were the reason I am still sobbing months after and now have a foreign object lodged inside of me.

Five years ago, I had my first son. His labour was long, traumatic, and left me with a 4th degree tear. "The best of the bad ones", as one male doctor put it. A doctor who will never go through the trauma of birth or understand what it feels like to be fearful of ripping open stitches when doing something as routine as going to the bathroom. He was, however, right about one thing. I am one of the lucky ones who was fortunate enough to recover with no physical complications. But no birth leaves a woman unscathed. The scars remain.

Then in December 2023, I fell pregnant again. The anxiety of having another tear was enough for me to consider a c-section. So I enlisted a private obstetrician. He read my surgical notes from my first birth and recommended a planned c-section. I agreed. I felt in control. I understood the risks, the procedure and the recovery. On the 23rd of August 2024, my second son was born via c-section. His birth went smoothly, and after recovery, we were sent back to our room, completely in awe of our newborn. I had the routine pain relief: a cocktail of opioids, and for the first couple of hours, I was in skin-to-skin bliss.

But the pain grew. "It's just caesar pain" The registrar explained. I buzzed again. "Looks like she is dehydrated, give her more fluids", the registrar commanded. I buzzed again, and again, and again. I was engulfed by the pain. I kept shifting my body, searching for some relief. I knew It was not the incision, I had told her that. I buzzed countless times, and more nurses and midwives poured into my room. Their eyes filled with worry as they repeatedly paged the registrar. Each time, she interrogated me, confused me, and made me second-guess my pain. I felt my temperature rise. I am not sure if I had a fever or what I felt was the bubbling of my own fury. The frustration of explaining myself over and over yet still no one is listening. Then, I am silenced by my own discomfort. Breathing deeply, desperately trying to stay in control. I no longer talked using words, only grunts and groans. I can not take this anymore. I was not making this up. It was not all in my head, and it was not caesar pain. I handed my newborn to my husband. I could no longer hold him. My body was failing me, and so was the registrar. I had lost control just as I did the first time.

I remember my body quivering and wincing and later shouting for someone to “fucking do something”. All spontaneous responses to the intensity of the pain as they pressed, poked and irrigated. The energy in the room dropped. The nurses’ faces sunken and perplexed as they watched on. I asked them to go slow as I screamed. The pain was now radiating to my left side. They flushed the catheter countless times and I watched on like a spectator. Witnessing blood clot after blood clot fall out of me.

Hours later, I felt some reprieve. I was exhausted in every sense of the word, but all I wanted to do was hold my baby again. So I did, and for a brief moment, I believed the worst was over. I placed his chest on mine. I could hear him breathing, feel his tiny heart beating and I ran my fingers along his soft, peach-like back. I promised him that I was okay. That I was his forever and he would not have to leave this spot again.

The next morning, the pain was still humming inside of me. I told myself it was nothing. That my body was recovering. I didn’t want anything to ruin this day. Today was the day my eldest son was coming to meet his brother. My big boy, enthralled with my littlest. He was sheepish at first just as I knew he would be. His new brother was too exquisite to touch. He held off as long as he could before he surrendered. My heart, as full as my camera roll.

But the pain began to sharpen. I flagged my discomfort with the nurse. She was concerned and paged her superior. The same registrar who, last night, had assured me my pain was ordinary. The same registrar who demanded that the nurse fetch anti-inflammatory gel and a heat pack because she believed she had resolved my issue with no further investigations necessary. The same registrar who believed my ruptured ureter tube was nothing more than muscular pain. To her, I was just another hysterical woman.

I could feel myself trembling again. The pain was back, and it was taking over. The registrar was paged again. She questioned if the anti-inflammatory gel had helped, and I snapped. I could tell my response shocked her. I wanted it to shock her. She had spent 36 hours diminishing my pain. Finally, someone broke rank and I was being taken for an MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging). I remember telling the nurses that the registrar was not listening to me. That I can not hold or feed my baby. I was begging them to page someone else, anyone else. They nodded succinctly, and I felt relief that this was not all in my head. That smart women with medical degrees had been paying attention and agreed that the registrar was not doing her job. She was not listening. My pain mattered.

I was back in my room for a few minutes before my obstetrician burst in. He was the one who ordered the scans. He was the one who was told I was doing well up until now. He explained I needed emergency surgery. That my left ureter tube had ruptured. The tube that connected my bladder to my kidney had burst and now required a stent. He said they were hoping this was all I needed. That they wouldn’t know until the urologist took a look inside. I had to sign here and head to the theatre straight away. No time to think, let alone call my mother. Another surgery. Another recovery. Another night I could not hold or feed my baby. The first 48 hours of my son’s life were dissolved by pain.

Exactly how and when the rupture occurred is still unknown, but two things are for certain: It was not normal c-section pain, and no amount of over-the-counter anti-inflammatory gel could fix a ruptured anything. I was right. My pain was real. I was going to be okay. Though, I am left wondering what if? What if the registrar escalated my case in the first instance and what if she had listened instead of allowing her own ego and internalised misogyny to get in the way? What if this all could have been avoided? The truth was, I expected more from a female. We were born with the same anatomy. I expected her to have empathy and to act quickly. To care more than her male colleagues. But perhaps that was my own internalised misogyny speaking.

I am not the first woman to tell a horror story of medical misogyny. To feel dismissed, talked down to and have my pain diminished. Birth trauma affects one in three Australian women, it is so common that it feels almost expected. Two out of three Australian women experience discrimination in healthcare. I am now a member of both of those clubs, somewhere I never thought I’d be. I have always trusted medical professionals to do their jobs. To listen, to act in my best interest and to treat me as an individual. I have read countless stories and have had conversations with friends about how our concerns often fall on deaf ears. I have heard so many that our words are beginning to bleed together.

There have been days that I don’t want to get out of bed. Days when I can not calm my panicked thoughts. The slightest twinge under my skin makes me fear my body will crumble. Then, I look into my son’s indigo eyes and begin to brood: he is worth the stent. He is worth the sacrifice and being tossed into the inferno. My son is perfect and I? Well, I made it out alive. I should be grateful. I am told to be grateful. I am again, one of the lucky ones.

It is four months since the surgery and eight weeks since the consequential procedure to remove the stent. The removal was just a day surgery but just knowing I needed another surgery was enough to stab a gaping hole in my newborn bubble. My husband suggested therapy might help and maybe he is right but more than that, I need time. I need to know someone is listening and that my experience was not in vain. That is what I truly need to heal. But for now, the best I can do is to stop the bleeding by covering my wounds in Spider-Man bandaids.