Something Was Wrong - S23 E5: Tragic and Horrific

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal empire. Every suspicious text you ignore masks a huge network of compounds where thousands are held captive and forced to scam others under the threat of death. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences.

Starting point is 00:00:35 This season contains discussions of medical negligence, birth trauma, and infant loss, which may be upsetting for some listeners. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, broken psychomedia, and Wondery. The podcast and any linked material should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. At the time of this episode's release, Midwives Jennifer Crawford, Gina Thompson, and Caitlin

Starting point is 00:01:14 Wages have not responded to our request for comment. This season is dedicated with love to Malik. Every year in the United States, hundreds of women die during or after pregnancy, and many more face serious long-term health complications. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 80% of these deaths are preventable. Tragically, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. deaths are preventable. Tragically, black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. This disparity is driven by a

Starting point is 00:01:52 variety of factors, including inequities in health care quality, underlying chronic health conditions, and social determinants of health that limit access to care, particularly for racial and ethnic minorities. The U.S. continues to have the highest maternal death rates among high-income nations. Within the U.S., Black women are disproportionately affected, often receiving lower-quality care than white women, with significant disparities in care processes, outcomes, and overall patient experiences. These inequities are deeply rooted in discrimination and clinician bias. In 2023, the CDC reported the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, far higher than the rates of White women at 14.5, Hispanic at 12.4, and Asian women at 10.7. While the rates for White, Hispanic, and Asian women decreased from 2022, the rate for black women

Starting point is 00:03:06 rose slightly from 49.5 per 100,000. Race also plays a component in infant loss. According to the CDC, in 2022, the United States reported a total of 20,577 infant deaths, marking a 3% increase from 2021. The highest mortality rate was observed among infants of Black non-Hispanic women at 10.90 per 1,000 live births. This was followed by infants of American Indian and Alaska Native women at 9.06, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander women at 8.5, Hispanic women 4.89, White women 4.52, and Asian women 3.51. Systemic racism in health care also plays a role in where patients and clients seek care, such as freestanding birth centers. These are facilities that offer an alternative to hospital

Starting point is 00:04:13 births that are gaining popularity for their potential to reduce adverse birth outcomes and aid maternity deserts. However, less than 5% are led by people of color, despite their effectiveness, especially in minority communities. Examples like Roots Community Birth Center in Minneapolis, which serves a predominantly black and indigenous population, show positive outcomes such as lower cesarean rates and higher breastfeeding rates. Challenges such as limited funding persist, especially for community-based organizations in minority populations.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Efforts to establish birth centers in areas like New Mexico's Navajo Nation have struggled due to insufficient financial support. To add, between 2021 and 2023, an average of 63.7 of birthing mothers in Texas who are Hispanic were Medicaid users, and an average of 61.2 of birthing mothers in Texas who are Black were covered by Medicaid. And as data from the March of Dimes illustrates, 48.8% of Texas births are covered by Medicaid. This limits options for those receiving pregnancy or labor care via Medicaid approved facilities, as only a portion of licensed birthing centers are covered by Medicaid. These efforts highlight the need for greater support

Starting point is 00:05:45 to improve maternal health outcomes and address disparities in minority communities through accessible, relationship-centered care. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all You don't know anybody until you talk to someone Please note, this episode discusses the death of an infant and may be distressing for some. Please take extra care when listening. Hey, my name is Marquita. I am a registered nurse here in Dallas. I am a firm believer

Starting point is 00:07:00 in all things wellness, all things health, something that I always advocate for. I'm also a firm believer in holistic medicine and healthcare. I do believe Western Medicine has a place seeing as I am a registered nurse and I do work in a emergency room, but I definitely also believe in holistic care. So that is one of the primary reasons that I did choose to have a natural birth. That is what brought me to midwifery. Most people were like, really? What made you choose that?

Starting point is 00:07:40 I definitely got those looks and questions, but I still stuck with it because I do believe that our bodies can do it naturally, but there are cases where when it cannot, then it's a beautiful thing that we're in the 21st century and we have the technology and the interventions to step in and help in those instances. I believe my body will do what it's supposed to do.

Starting point is 00:08:07 That's what I had hoped for whenever I first was researching birthing centers and midwives. That's why I chose midwifery over the route of choosing an OB-GYN doctor. Another reason why I thought that having a midwife and having my birth at a birthing center would be different is because of the alarming statistics in hospital.

Starting point is 00:08:37 What happens with Black mother and babies. The fact that regardless of where you choose your prenatal care and where you choose to give birth for us women, unfortunately, we have to be not only the patient, but we also have to be advocates for ourselves, unless you have someone that can truly advocate for you. In the healthcare system, oftentimes we get looked over. Things go untreated, unseen, and we're ignored. We have to make sure that we

Starting point is 00:09:12 advocate for ourselves as much as we can and just continue to make ourselves be heard, especially if it is a health scare or something that is concerning. That is what led me to Origins Birth Center in Dallas, Texas. How did you find them? It was online. There weren't a lot of nurses that were gung-ho about holistic stuff. I've come across a few that kind of had my same perspective, but I looked up some birth and centers here

Starting point is 00:09:43 in the Dallas area and was searching, you know, looking through reviews and I will go to their website and see what they have to offer. How did your partner feel about you selecting Origins and taking this route? He trusted my choosing. I typically do research and I look people up. I went and did a tour at Origins and I felt good about it. I actually came to Origins in the middle of my pregnancy. I was 20 weeks pregnant whenever I got to Origins. I was at the Dallas facility.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Who was at your first initial appointment and what do you recall about that experience? Honestly, I do not remember who it was because I didn't have the same person each time. You would have a different midwife whenever you went to your appointments because whenever you go into labor, the midwives were on call so you wouldn't get your particular midwife that you would have chosen. I know towards the end I was seeing Jennifer more, but I had had an appointment with all of them at least once, I know, because it was, I believe, three midwives, three or four. Although Jennifer Crawford was allegedly practicing as an unlicensed student midwife while caring for Kristen during her pregnancy, as we heard in episodes one and two,

Starting point is 00:11:15 Jennifer did receive her certified professional midwife license according to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on May 20, 2022, prior to Marquita's care at Origins. I can't obviously assume their intention, but it certainly makes it convenient if you're understaffed to be like, we're just free flowing, stopping here. Exactly. It should have been a red flag, but I didn't think of it that way. I was just like, oh, you know, okay.

Starting point is 00:11:44 Well, it's your first pregnancy, correct? a red flag, but I didn't think of it that way. I was just like, oh, you know, okay. Well, it's your first pregnancy, correct? Yes, first pregnancy, first baby. Yep. What sort of typical things were happening when you would go in for your checkups? Some people have sort of described like group doctor appointments. Was that also your experience? There were two group things that I did. One group was the glucose check. You would come in, there were other women,

Starting point is 00:12:10 and they would do it all at the same time. We had to wait a certain amount of hours and they'd have to recheck it. And then there was another time, but my appointments that I would typically go in for like my monthly appointment, it was just me. The midwife would ask the same life questions,

Starting point is 00:12:28 how are you feeling about supplements? They would do like a manual, fundal height check, check the baby's heart rate with the Doppler. And that's really pretty much it. My pregnancy, I was very healthy. My son was very healthy. There was no issues.

Starting point is 00:12:48 I didn't have morning sickness. And I didn't really get any swelling or anything to my last month of pregnancy. It was all pretty smooth. I worked all the way up until probably to like 37 weeks, somewhere around there. There weren't really any red flags until I went into labor and went to origins. I was like an easy patient. Everything was normal. So it wasn't until things went abnormal,

Starting point is 00:13:18 they had no clue of what to do. On Friday, June 30th, I remember the mucus plug. I've seen that and I was like, oh, I think it's about to happen. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the mucus plug is a thick piece of mucus that blocks the opening of the cervix during pregnancy. It forms a seal to prevent bacteria and infection

Starting point is 00:13:43 from getting into the uterus and reaching the fetus. You can think of it as a protective barrier between the vagina and the uterus. An increase in pregnancy hormones like progesterone form the mucus plug. Shortly after that, it was probably around 8 p.m., I started having contractions. Initially they were pretty far apart and inconsistent so you know it was early labor. And I did text the

Starting point is 00:14:12 midwife on call that Friday night and I told her that I was having contractions and she gave me some tips maneuvers to do. And this was I believe Danielle that was on call. And then I had text her on Saturday again because they were getting closer and closer and we thought maybe it's almost time to go in. But she told me don't come in until they were four minutes apart, lasting at least a minute or something like that. So they wanted you to wait till you were like very, very close in contractions. It was definitely confusing.

Starting point is 00:14:49 It was a little nerve-racking. Saturday, I did not sleep all night because every 10 minutes I was waking up, contracting, trying to move around. Then on Sunday, days started to get worse and worse. I would try to sit in the tub to try to help. I would try to sit in the tub to try to help. I would try to move around but my contractions they were already lasting like a minute and they were already three to four minutes apart. I

Starting point is 00:15:15 was timing them and I was having Malik's father time them because I was like well I don't want to go up there and they send us back. That was one of my concerns. Finally it got to the point to where I was crying between them and that's whenever Malik's father was like, oh no, we're going right now. So finally I went Sunday. I got there around 8 p.m. I was already dilated to a seven whenever I got there. So I was already dilated to a seven whenever I got there. So I was already in active labor.

Starting point is 00:15:47 The midwife that was there was still Danielle, and she had been the one that I was texting the days prior, whenever I first went into labor. From my understanding, she was a licensed midwife. She was there by herself. And it's so crazy because the first thing she asked me for was the $500 that they tell us to bring or how much ever money it was, it was a couple hundred dollars for a birth assistant that's supposed to be there whenever we're in labor.

Starting point is 00:16:16 And that was the first thing she asked for. And we had to bring it in cash. She got that and it was only her there by herself. And did they still charge you the full amount for services and everything? Oh, goodness, yes. And we had to have the full amount paid before we got to the very end of our pregnancy. I don't know when my water broke. It did not break at home.

Starting point is 00:16:42 I don't recall the gush of fluid or anything like that. And I told her whenever I arrived there. So she did like a swab to see. And according to the swab, at some point throughout the night, my water broke. According to Mayo Clinic, typically at the beginning of or during labor, membranes will rupture, also known as water breaking.

Starting point is 00:17:09 It's not always easy to tell if water has broken. For example, it might be difficult to tell the difference between amniotic fluid and urine. Typically, after water breaks at term, labor soon follows, if it hasn't already begun. Sometimes, however, labor does not start. The longer it takes for labor to start after your water breaks, the greater the risk of infection. I hadn't got any rest at all,

Starting point is 00:17:39 but I was feeling the excitement of meeting my son. I was excited that it had finally come. So whenever I got there, you know, I was feeling the excitement of meeting my son. I was excited that it had finally come. So whenever I got there, you know, I was tired, but I was also, you know, like, oh, man, we're so close. I had a doula that met me there. She was actually my cousin, amazing doula. And then my mom and my dad was also there. So my mom was in the room,

Starting point is 00:18:05 but my dad was out in the little living room area. They had arrived the day before because I'm the only girl. So they were excited for me. And then my best friend, she's also a registered nurse in the emergency room. She arrived maybe a couple of hours after I got there. I have amazing family, amazing friends. I have amazing people in my life, so I'm really blessed.

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Starting point is 00:19:40 When I got there, they have the ball that you can bounce on. There's the Chucks pads that you put on the bed. So they had put that on the ball. And this was right after I got to the facility. I noticed there was like a little bit of yellow fluid there. Yes, I'm a nurse, but no, I've never given birth before. I seen a baby born once and it was in a car. A mom pulled up to the ER and popped there goes baby.

Starting point is 00:20:08 I've never experienced birth myself, so I thought that this fluid that was on the Chucks pad was normal. I noticed that, but I didn't say anything at the time. It was a very small amount that was on the pad there. Throughout the night, I was in and out of the tub because the tub helped provide some relief when the tractions came. Between walking and being on all four and on the ball and I was doing all of those things throughout the labor. What's funny is I had said something about

Starting point is 00:20:41 taking something for pain and Danielle made a smart remark about, I can only give you Tylenol. I'm like, well, obviously I know that they don't have anything stronger than that there, but it's just funny thinking back on that. Probably early in the morning, maybe around one, two, my labor stopped progressing. Like my contractions started to slow down a little bit and they started to space out. Was it a cause for concern or was it more them saying just try to rest while you can in between?

Starting point is 00:21:13 Yeah, she told me to rest while I can. She didn't say anything about the contraction slowing down. And in the midst of in labor, my brain was only on one thing, and it was just me and the baby. I really wasn't paying attention to, like, logistics of stuff, and I wasn't in my nursing brain. I didn't know that they shouldn't have been slowing down. I had already been in labor for 48 hours. This was in the middle of the night, Sunday night, so it's now into early Monday morning,

Starting point is 00:21:45 around two, three, or whatever. I remember Danielle being in the room a couple of times. She would come in to change the water in the tub. Because I was so exhausted, Danielle, she did start an IV and start giving me fluids. I hadn't really eaten anything. I was snacking on little stuff and trying to me fluids. I hadn't really eaten anything. I was snacking on, you know, little stuff and trying to drink water.

Starting point is 00:22:09 We had asked Danielle to check me at some point to see how far, if I was dilated to a 10 yet. And she had told me to wait for whatever reason. I don't really remember. Danielle had been there on call since Friday. She had left that morning, Monday morning. At 8 a.m., there was a switch. I was not aware of the switch.

Starting point is 00:22:33 My doula noticed that they were switching. And at this point, my doula was also getting concerned. I do remember I was just standing there and I was like, y'all, I'm exhausted. I don't know what to do because I had been in labor for so long and he wasn't coming. So my doula had went into the kitchen area or their break room and she noticed that the other men and women had came in. And so she went and told them that she wanted to have them come and check me to see how far I was dilated and see what's going on. It had been so

Starting point is 00:23:09 long. You know, she was concerned for me. Then here comes Jennifer. There was a student midwife that was there with Jennifer. And Jennifer said it with like a smirk and a tone that was not polite. She was like, I'm not gonna check her right now. She didn't come into the room until probably about 15 or 20 minutes after that and Danielle had already left. She walks in and then mind you, it was 42 hours, I'm exhausted. I was laying in the bed getting fluids at that time

Starting point is 00:23:42 when she came in to check on me. There was a second bag that was going in. It helped. I actually asked for another bag because I just felt so dehydrated. Some of these things that I'm going to say the people in the room have told me. They told me when she first walked into the room she did not speak to none of my family. My mom had said she didn't address her. She comes to me and she talks to me and lets me know that she's going to check to see how far along I was. And mind you, my contractions at this point, they have slowed down a whole lot.

Starting point is 00:24:19 They are back to like 10 minutes apart. They're nowhere near as close as they were before. Some of them were strong, some of them were not. I didn't notice these things during the time because I'm exhausted and I didn't know that this was an issue. This is when I do believe she suggested that I take a shower. She doesn't stay in the room. So I go to take off my robe and I accidentally,

Starting point is 00:24:51 whenever I'm pulling off my sleeve, it pulls out the IV. My best friend has to put a bandage on it, close the IV, pick the stuff up, clean it up, because Jennifer never came in and she didn't help. She didn't start another IV, picked the stuff up, cleaned it up because Jennifer never came in and she didn't help. She didn't start another IV, so I didn't finish the rest of the fluids. What is your best friend and your cousin saying to you at this point? They're just trying to encourage me and help me in the labor. My doula was telling me she was kind of getting concerned. So at this point, they're helping me get into the shower.

Starting point is 00:25:26 And I recall having contractions in the shower, myself and Malik's father, we kept asking, Jennifer, when will we know when to push? Like, how will we know that he's coming? Like, I don't know how this is supposed to go. She would say, oh, I'll know by the sounds that you make or the grunts that you make. She was like, your body will know what to do. Your would say, oh, I'll know by the sounds that you make or the grunts that you make. She's like, your body will know what to do. Your body will know. So that part was

Starting point is 00:25:51 always unclear throughout the whole time because I feel like I'm grunting. I feel like I feel him there. Like he's there and I want to come out, but he's not coming. I could feel it. So while I'm in the shower, I felt something hard and I'm like, is that his head? I don't know. And if it is, why isn't he coming down? I get out the shower and the yellow fluid that I mentioned, so that was happening throughout the night and it progressively got worse. And now after I got out the shower, it was extremely dark. It was a lot more coming out. It was so much like we had to put the towels between my legs because when the contractions

Starting point is 00:26:31 did come, so much was coming out. And then finally I'm like, why, what is this and why is so much coming out? A student midwife that was there with Jennifer, She come in and she tells my family to use the Chucks pad instead of the towels because they didn't have that many towels. Some BS. But Jennifer didn't come in to do an assessment of like, oh why are they using so many towels? Whenever she did come in after that I had a Chucks pad sitting on the bed and I said, hey, what is this yellow fluid? And she was like, oh, that's meconium. I was like, meconium? Because in my head, I'm like, you're not supposed to be seeing meconium. That's not a good sign.

Starting point is 00:27:18 She was like, no, I'm not concerned about it until it is green like that. And she points to my best friend pants. She had on dark green, army green pants. We were like, OK, we're trusting what she's saying because she's a professional. And so we continue on with labor. She had me do these exercises with the ball. And she steps over and Tells my family to step out of the room and I did not ask her to do this and my family

Starting point is 00:27:53 None of them were in the way. They were all helping me. They were quiet They weren't making any commotion in there or anything Later on my best friend tells me Jennifer went to my best friend. So my best friend is Caucasian. And she said, since you're the only reasonable one in the room, I'm going to ask y'all to step out. I have no idea why she would even say something like that because my mom was asleep. She had been up for as long as I have been up.

Starting point is 00:28:23 She had been there with me the whole time. So she would sleep half of the time. And then Malik's father, you know, he was right there with me. He would kind of doze off sometimes. And my best friend and my doula, they were helping me, but none of them were in the way of things. They weren't loud.

Starting point is 00:28:40 They weren't doing anything crazy in the room. Looking back on it, I was like, why did she even do that? I didn't ask her to do that. She had me doing these exercises with the ball on the bed. I do remember that was causing excruciating pain on my right side. And I kept telling her that, but she was like, you need to keep pushing because I needed to open up more on my right side. After I do the exercises, at some point, my family comes back in.

Starting point is 00:29:10 Were people trying to not alert you to the feelings that they were having? I don't think they were trying to alert me. I know my mom was trying to respect my decision because she was very iffy about me choosing to do the natural way. So I think they were just trying to respect the decision. They were trusting her professionalism and trusting her quote unquote medical background of being a midwife. I was trusting her.

Starting point is 00:29:38 I started looking back and replaying things as my family was telling me stuff. In the moment, I just wasn't really paying attention to anything outside of what was going on. I was literally exhausted. I didn't start pushing until Monday morning. So now at this point, this is like Monday going past noon. This is between the hours of like one and three now.

Starting point is 00:30:16 She did check and she did say I was dilated to a 10. I still don't know when my water broke. My contractions though, at this point, they were from like four minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, two minutes. Like they were just all over the place. Some of them will last really long and really strong. Some of them would just come for a short period of time, but they were not normal at all. Whenever I was pushing, I was literally grunting because I felt like he was there,

Starting point is 00:30:46 but he wasn't coming. Jennifer came in around eight and then probably around 10 or so. There was another lady that came in who was the birth assistant that I had paid the money for. She was coming in whenever I was having contractions every now and then to listen to the heart rate with the little Doppler. I don't know how long she listened to them. I don't know if she would listen for the full 60 seconds or not, but I do remember her coming in every now and then. Now we get to probably around four o'clock and this is when Jennifer burst into the room and she's like, okay, let's get this baby out. Just so random because she hadn't really been

Starting point is 00:31:33 in the room all day and we had been asking her, trying to figure out when we know he's coming. She had told us that it wasn't a concern about the meconium. She never said anything about the contraction slowing down, my labor progressing. Never said anything about me being in labor for over almost 60 hours now. After she burst into the room, she had me lay on the bed on my back and they could see his head. Malik's father looked and he's like, oh yeah, I see it. It was the same thing that I felt when I was in the shower hours ago, hours,

Starting point is 00:32:06 hours ago. Because when I took a shower, it was that morning. And this was now around 4 PM. And my water had already been broke and meconium was leaking. So he had already been in distress for hours. There was no concern ever expressed throughout the entire time until what I'm about to say now. And even then, she didn't seem that concerned. It was only whenever I was having the contraction, she would use the Doppler every now and then. It wasn't every contraction.

Starting point is 00:32:35 My next contraction come, but it was very difficult. It was hard for me to push laying on my back the way she had me. So when the contraction come, I couldn't really push that well. She's like, I'm going to help you on your next contraction. I don't know what she was going to do, to be honest, but that's what she said she was going to help me get him out. She had inserted four fingers and after that, Malik's heart rate drops below 70. Mind you, in the middle of this,

Starting point is 00:33:07 whenever I'm laying on the bed and his heart rate first drops, she gets a phone call from another mom or something calling in, because she's the on-call midwife. So she answers the phone in the middle of this. Now she's telling me, "'Okay, I may have to have you do a couple of maneuvers. We're going to try to get his heart rate up.

Starting point is 00:33:26 She had me stand up and try to push. I think at some point it may have came up to like maybe a hundred or something. It never went back up to where it was supposed to be. Then she had me sit on the stool. After that, she tells the student midwife to look for the phone book because she says, we may have to transfer you. The student midwife tries to call. Looking back, I'm assuming she called a non-emergent line because she said something about they

Starting point is 00:33:56 told her it was going to be 30 minutes. And then Jennifer was like, no. And she said, give me the phone. And then she called somebody. The birth assistant put oxygen, nasocannula, in my nose for oxygen after his heart rate had dropped. And then finally, she's like, well, y'all are just going to have to drive her over to the hospital. His heart rate is still below 70. Now everybody's scrambling around the room, trying to get everything, keys, get to the car.

Starting point is 00:34:25 Jennifer doesn't come. The birth assistant person that was there, she sends her with me. The reason she didn't come and she sent the birth assistant was because she had another mother. I know this because my family told me they heard what was going on, but the mother wasn't even in active labor. So she could have came with me. She didn't come, Danielle didn't come, and she gives no instructions. We don't even know really where to go. She just tells us to go to the hospital because Baylor

Starting point is 00:34:58 University Medical Center is right around the corner. We go to the hospital. Right as we're leaving the birthing center, I see the ambulance pulling up behind us. Malik's father stopped. He was like, oh wait. But then they told him like, hey, she's already in the car going. We can't get her out and take her. So my doula just drives off and takes me.

Starting point is 00:35:22 We pull up to the emergency room. We don't know where the maternity part is and she didn't tell us where to go. Naturally, we're emergency nurses, so we pull up to the ER. My best friend runs in and gets a wheelchair. The birth assistant takes off the oxygen for whatever reason. And then we go in, the birth assistant has no idea what to say. So now my best friend jumps into nursing mode and gives a full report of what's going on with me. Two people run up and they get the wheelchair and they're pushing me through past the ER, down halls. And this whole time I just have this feeling of like, I just know it's not good because it's heart rate is still below 70.

Starting point is 00:36:07 And it takes probably at least 10 minutes because the hospital is so big. They took me down the hall and they were gonna take me to a set of elevators, but then somebody stopped us and told us that the elevators were out, so they had to turn me around and then take me to another set of elevators.

Starting point is 00:36:23 And so this way was longer. So we had to go up to a floor, come back down, go around. Like it was just all over the place. They will meet directly to the OR. I stepped from the wheelchair to the OR table, 15 people in the room telling me we're about to put you under and do an emergency c-section. They started an IV. I went out after that. And then I just remember waking up, going down the hallway and then into the room. I just remember Malik's father.

Starting point is 00:37:08 He really didn't know what to say. Finally, he was like, Malik is in the NICU. My family later tells me his heart was still below 70. So whenever they got him out, they had to do CPR. They were going to stop, but then they got a heartbeat back. So he went to NICU, but he didn't have oxygen for so long that he didn't have any brain activity. So my healthy seven-pound baby that was healthy throughout my entire pregnancy is now born with no brain activity and is in NICU. The next four days I'm in the hospital and they're trying to do different tests and they're trying to do different tests to determine if he'll get any brain activity back. None of the tests showed any brain activity, and so I had to say goodbye to my baby. It wasn't until after this had happened while I'm in the hospital, I'm kind of going back over things and I'm thinking like, how could this have happened?

Starting point is 00:38:09 There's no reason this should have happened. At some point while I was there, we started looking back over like the records that Jennifer and Danielle had charted and trying to figure out at what point should we have been sent to the hospital and none of the charting made sense. Something that was so preventable, something that a competent and a reasonable midwife, a professional, if they would have actually been caring for me the way

Starting point is 00:38:40 that I should have been cared for, then maybe at some point they could have called like, hey, wait a minute, why would she go from contractions being three minutes apart to being 15, 20 minutes apart? Like, oh, wait a minute, she's been in labor for over 48 hours. Nobody never said anything about my contractions slowing down, nobody never said anything about my contractions slowing down. Nobody never said anything about the meconium. Is it a lack of judgment? Is it a lack of

Starting point is 00:39:11 competence? Is it a lack of care? It's so many questions and I feel like it's all of them. If you were truly taking care of me and being a midwife, you would have noticed these things. Malik was in the hospital from the third, which was the Monday, the day that I arrived at the hospital and had the emergency C-section until that Friday, which was the seventh. And that was the day that we had to decide to basically let him go.

Starting point is 00:39:44 And that was the day that we had to decide to basically let him go, and that was the day of his death. Only a couple of days after I gave birth, I downloaded a copy of my medical records. After I was out of my labor brain and back in my regular mind, I was like, wait a minute, this is not adding up. Like what is happening? There really are no words to describe. It's just sorrow that I feel for your loss and I'm so sorry. What came next for you after those five days in the

Starting point is 00:40:18 hospital? So they actually let me stay for the extra day there. I had an infection that I had to get IV antibiotics for my first couple of days there After all of that, I was discharged home. I mean the next few days were difficult to say the least To go home to a home prepared for a baby and to come home with no baby. It is definitely indescribable. The next few days, the next few weeks, they were very, very, very difficult.

Starting point is 00:40:57 I did have family that would come and check on me. The same people that were there throughout my birth and so many people were calling me and checking in on me, the same people that were there throughout my birth. And so many people were calling me and checking in on me. I definitely had an amazing support system. I got a text message from Jennifer a couple of days afterwards, which I didn't respond to. Then I got like a postpartum automated email or whatever. They didn't care.

Starting point is 00:41:26 Later I got a card mailed to me from the owners, Gina and Kaitlyn, expressing their condolences. But that was pretty much it. After that, maybe two or three months, I requested a copy of my medical records. Whenever I was in the hospital, so only a couple of days after I gave birth, I downloaded a copy. Then whenever I compared them, there were changes. It looked like Jennifer had tried to go back in and change some things. For example, she mentioned that she gave us an option

Starting point is 00:42:08 to transfer to the hospital. She did not mention anything about what she actually said, which was, I'm not concerned until it looks like this. Actually, there were a couple of things that she wouldn't change. I have it all marked and highlighted. Have they ever addressed that? No, they never addressed it. I haven't even seen or spoken with any of them,

Starting point is 00:42:31 aside from the letter that I got in mail from the owners and the responses on the reviews. After the six weeks, I went back to work. I think I needed to be occupied doing something I think I needed to be occupied doing something versus being at home. I was pretty much recovered from the surgery. So I did start working and eventually started back working out and things like that. I imagine it was hard to go back to work, given you work in a medical setting or do you feel like it was more a distraction? It was a lot of things. It was actually very hard because the hospital that I was working at at that time was actually,

Starting point is 00:43:15 they had a children's emergency room. And the second part of my contract that I did there, I actually worked on the children's side. So it was very, very hard, you know, seeing babies come in. I had to really hold my composure, I guess you can say. But the thing about it is the people there, they didn't know that I was pregnant before that. They didn't know that I just lost my baby because this was a travel contract. It kind of was a good thing

Starting point is 00:43:48 because I didn't want people to know that it's just, it's already hard enough for everybody to know. It was good to be busy with something instead of just sitting at home, but it was difficult because of the line of work that I'm in. Did you hold services for Malik? We thought about it, but I just think at the time it was a little too overwhelming and

Starting point is 00:44:13 I really couldn't handle holding any kind of service. I said I was going to do a one-year memorial and just release, maybe not balloons, but do something just as a one year like this was gonna be his birthday. I didn't do that but instead my family, so I have two brothers and my mom and my dad, we all got matching tattoos of his footprint with his name and his birthday. So that was kind of a little sweet thing that they surprised me with and that we did on his birthday. I will say that I have come to a place

Starting point is 00:44:51 of peace and of forgiveness because for a long time, I was very angry with origins, with the way they handled everything, with the incompetent care that I received, just with everything. I'm a big believer in Jesus Christ and forgiveness, and I am working on myself. I don't want to have an unforgiving heart.

Starting point is 00:45:19 I'm just going to pray for their hearts. After everything happened, I knew that what occurred was not right, and it shouldn't have happened, and it was preventable. So that is what led me to leave the Google review. Looking back, I don't even know how I had the strength or how I left this review, but I left a long detailed but summarized review on their Google page because I knew what had happened wasn't right. I knew what had happened should not have happened.

Starting point is 00:45:56 I knew that if this had happened to me, it probably happened to other people. It could happen to more people, and I just had to get the word out. And I had already made up my mind that I was going to try to do whatever I can to help other people from this tragic and horrific event that has happened to me. I know that people read reviews. Whenever I looked at them, I had read their reviews. They had all these beautiful reviews with pictures and all of this stuff. I also made reviews under Jennifer's business because she has her own midwifery school and her own midwifery practice.

Starting point is 00:46:38 They responded to several things. A lot of it is just really upsetting. I did read a little bit of one of her responses, but it was all just nonsense. It doesn't matter. You were wrong and you didn't take accountability. You sent a text message as a follow-up. You didn't do what you were supposed to do. And at the end of the day, what happened to me and what happened to my son Malik should not have happened. And you are part of the problem. Next time on Something Was Wrong. I started reading reviews and I stumbled across Marquita's review. These are very serious stories

Starting point is 00:47:28 and ours wasn't the first and it wasn't the last. I started forming this group called Survivors of Origins, Birth and Wellness. Gina and Kaitlin were very quick to disregard us on social media, on their social media platforms especially. Some of these responses from these women was very disturbing. I had read one comment saying she had wanted to physically attack us for saying anything negative about origins at all. We're jumping down each other's throats because somebody had a bad experience. I never said that your good experience was invalid.

Starting point is 00:48:07 I never said that nobody could have had a good experience there because I didn't. Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media, created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese, associate producers Amy B. Chesler, and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High. Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, and Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist. Thank you to Marissa, Travis, and our team at WME, Wondry, Jason, and Jennifer, our cybersecurity team, Darkbox Security, and my lawyer, Alan. Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership. Special shout out to Emily Wolf for covering Gladrag's original song,

Starting point is 00:49:08 You Think You, for us this season. For more music by Emily Wolf, check out the Episode Notes or your favorite music streaming app. Speaking of Episode Notes, there every week you'll find episode-specific content warnings, sources, and resources. Until you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Are you captivated by the dark and mysterious world of true crime? Wondery Plus offers you the ultimate true crime experience with early access

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Something Was Wrong - S23 E5: Tragic and Horrific

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