St-Mary’s Hospital Center

I stumbled upon this website today and memories I had desperately tried to forget came flooding back .
For those of you (women) who are blessed with wonderful news that you are pregnant, Congratulations! One word of advice, take the time to research what Hospital you will experience the birth of your child and what Doctor will do your follow– ups. I am not saying that this hospital is not good, because many aspects of St. Mary’s was A+ but the Doctor I had for my followups, didn’t give me the time of day, was always late and made me feel like a number. Thank God he wasn’t the one who delivered my baby — this other doctor I had was excellent and the nurse who coached me before he came was amazing!
My experience before I went into labour and after I gave birth was what affected me negatively. I was hospitalized an extra week after I gave birth due to heart failure (very rare condition after pregnancy) I also had my lungs full of water preventing me from being able to breathe.
Being a rare condition that I had, I understand that it took a few days to figure out what was wrong with me but the sense of urgency I felt when trying to explain my painful symptoms was not understood by the nurses and therefore not transmitted to the Doctor. I wasn’t taken seriously. Hospitals are short staffed and I know they work hard but our health and life is at stake and I don’t feel that I was treated as quickly as I should have.
So, I signed myself out Sunday night insisting on leaving and as soon as I did that all of a sudden I was being begged to stay as they thought I had a clot in my lung… but not once did they mention this to me the entire weekend I spent in my bed sitting up because anytime I tried to lie down I couldn’t breathe. So here I am trying to recover not knowing that my heart is failling and my lungs are swimming, not sleeping a minute (honestly) and I’m given Motrin and my blood pressure is being checked??? I was furious, can anyone blame me? 3 days like this…
So, I left, even if they told me to stay another night to do x-​rays the next morning. That night at home I still couldn’t breathe or lay down and I was having chest pains. I went to the hospital close to home and within 2.5 hours they did several tests to finally determine what was going on.
They could have treated me there but my baby girl was still at St. Mary’s (5 weeks premature but very healthy and almost 7 lbs) so yeah. guess what… I had to go back. I dreaded the whole ambulance ride there and didn’t want to see the nurses tell me «I told you so» but they didn’t do anything about it for 3 days!
Anyways, I had to realize that I was no longer in the Obstetrician department and that I was being taken care of by Specialists in Heart failure and to be quite honest, they were great and helpful and very caring. I appreciate all that they did for me and my baby despite my experience before I signed myself out.
You can’t always expect A+ in everything but it left a significant memory that I only today felt the need to share. Thanks for taking the time to read my experience.