Obstetric violence in Plasencia: "I kept thinking that I was going to die"
They wanted to have a baby. They were going to have a girl, but everything went wrong with the 20 week ultrasound and the ordeal that is neighboring Plasencia (Caceres) lived ever since has "shattered" her. More than eight months after an abortion that they did not want, but to which circumstances forced them, she has the strength to tell about it and to denounce the "helplessness, abandonment, humiliation and dehumanization" that has been experienced by the Extremaduran public health system, a form of obstetric violence who wants to make known "for help others women in my situation and that no one else has to go through what I have gone through. I do it for my daughter's legacy.".
The pregnancy had been going well until the 20-week ultrasound. From the health center they refer her to the Virgen del Puerto hospital and once there, "they don't let my partner in and five or six gynecologists come in to see me. I had no idea what was happening, they tell me that something is wrong and that they refer me to the hospital on October 12".
He compares the treatment in the hospital in Placentino with the "impressive humanity" of the gynecologist on October 12. "I thought he was going to tell me to decide if I had my daughter or not, but told us there was nothing to do." Because her baby had several affected organs and "was going to die inside of me, I didn't have a chance of anything."
"Each kick was like a stab because I knew she was alive and I thought about what was going to happen to her, I didn't want her to suffer for a minute"
From that moment on, she remembers that she was in a state of shock and that all she wanted was "for the baby to be taken out of me as soon as possible." Because at 20 weeks old, he was already moving and each kick was "like stabs because I knew he was alive and thought about what was going to happen to him and I didn't want him to suffer for a minute".
In fact, she then decided to isolate herself and not leave the house until the abortion "for fear that they would see me pregnant and ask me about the baby." He criticizes that, "At no time did the hospital provide me with psychological or psychiatric help. I felt abandoned by the system, when I needed it most, they abandoned me."
conscientious objectors
I did not imagine that I would have to wait more than three weeks feeling your baby day after day. Because they were told that they were referring her to a clinic in Badajoz for an abortion. "They never told me that the Plasencia gynecologists were conscientious objectors and by law they have to tell you." He also states that they were given no choice but the Badajoz clinic, despite the fact that Health assures that the SES has concerts with another clinic in Salamanca and, "if the woman wishes, it is the clinic that is offered to the areas of Plasencia, Navalmoral and Coria".
Not her. "They never gave me that option, they play with us, with our mental health and they have no empathy," she stresses.
Because, after the diagnosis in Madrid, she had to wait a week to do the preoperative in Badajoz and another for the abortion and, if the wait had been "horrible", in the Badajoz clinic the situation got even worse.
"They didn't let my partner into the dilation room. I was eight hours with a very strong medication, with morphine, with terrible pain because it was going to be an induced natural birth. They told me that if I wanted to pee, I had pads, I felt humiliated and very afraid, I thought all the time that something was going to happen to me, that I was going to die because it was not a hospital, the law says that, in the case of fetal anomalies, you should preferentially refer to a hospital".
"They didn't let me see her, nor did they ask if we wanted to cremate her, it was as if she were a remains"
He remembers that the gynecologist "rejected me that I had not done the fetal DNA test, but they had told me that it was not necessary" and that, when he felt like pushing, They took her to the operating room, sedated her and woke up next to her partner. The first thing he asked was "if I hadn't died".
Besides, apart from the feeling of guilt, he never heard from his daughter again. "They did not let us see it, nor did they ask us if we wanted to cremate it, it was as if it were a remains. In some hospitals they offer you a box of memories with the weight, the height, the footprint, they didn't give me that option either."
After the abortion, "I sank". Her he has had to pay for a psychologist and a study to find out if they will be able to have other healthy children. Because they want to have them, but "I'm scared to death and I don't dare." In fact, she knows that, when it happens, "I am going to experience a pregnancy in fear" and she is also clear that she will not give birth in Plasencia: "I need humanization in Health and that is what has failed in the whole process. I have felt mistreated as a woman by the system and so has my daughter. Many women live it, but they don't tell it."
