A Heartfelt Thank You, Two Ways

I am sharing a very intimate experience but one very worthy of sharing.  It is not everyday you would want or have the opportunity to say thank you to the doctor who confirmed your baby is dead. Yesterday I got to do just that and I know it helped us both.

Yesterday I had the honour of being part of a team from Still Life Canada who presented at the Perinatal Services BC Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Conference.  I wrote about it here.

After our presentation, there was time for questions and comments.  One of the first comments was from a doctor who in the work she does, has to deliver the news that babies have died and that they will be stillborn.  She thanked our team for our presentation and related it to the work she does.  She was tearful in her thanks and commented that through her work, she does cry with patients, gives them hugs and is present with them.  She said she often feels that she has failed her patients because she shares her emotions with them.  She thanked us because we had helped her see that she hadn't failed, but in fact was doing the right thing.  She thanked us for helping lift a burden she had felt and carried with her. 

I had realized earlier, prior to our presentation that this doctor was in the room.  I knew her on a very personal and private level and had already decided that I would try and talk with her after our presentation.  Her comments after our presentation gave me that much more strength to go up to her, to thank her.

When we finished, I went straight over to her.   Just as I had recognized her, she said she had recognized me, remembering the brief time we we spent together last year. 

I had driven myself to the hospital from my OB's office where we couldn't see or hear my son Zachary's heartbeat. I was meeting my husband at the hospital.  I got there first.  They knew I was coming.  They sent me over to ultrasound, letting me know that really they were already closed for the day but a doctor had agreed to do the ultrasound as there were no techs left there that afternoon.  Thank you, I said, I think.  I got to the ultrasound area and somebody sat me down at a chair to the side of the desk, told me to wait there.  In those minutes before Chris arrived I heard a few people mumbling about how they were not going to get out of work on time if these doctors kept sending people over.  I must say I felt very unwelcome.  I understand wanting to get out of work on time on a sunny Friday afternoon in June.  But really, patients don't need to hear that frustration.  Especially patients that are being sent there at that time of day for an unscheduled ultrasound.

Finally Chris arrived.  Soon after, the doctor who would be doing our ultrasound came to get us.  She was kind and caring from the moment we met her.  She walked us down the hall.  Of all the ultrasound rooms at that hospital, we were taken to the same room where just weeks before another doctor had done a detailed ultrasound and told us everything with Zachary was perfect.  I looked at Chris, he at me, and we entered the room.  This doctor showed us true compassion.  She told us everything she was doing and said that she would tell us right away what she discovered.  It was clear from the start that Zachary was no longer alive.  She explained that she could stop the ultrasound or could do a few more things on the ultrasound that could possibly help in determining why Zach had died, it was our choice.  She was so respectful and checked with us if we wanted our monitor turned off.  This doctor gave me a long heartfelt hug.  She was there in the room with us, a part of the devastating reality of the end of Zach's life. She cried with us, she told us she was so sorry that our beautiful baby had died and she sat with us.  She stayed with us for the right amount of time, and then left us to ourselves, to take the time we needed at that moment. And when we were "ready" to return to the assessment room, she again hugged us and gave us her condolences. That was our brief moment with this doctor.  Even at one of the worst moments of our lives, we appreciated her so very much. She is one of only a handful of medical providers that we've encountered who truly provided the kind of bereavement care and support we needed.  I did not know if I would ever have the chance to thank her in person.

Yesterday I had the chance.  I went to her, and the first thing we did was hug.  We recalled the time in the ultrasound room.  She thanked me for our presentation and I thanked her for the care she provided when we really needed it.  She thanked me again, and said that because of our presentation, and because of sharing with her what it meant to me for her to have shared our time together so genuinely, she will continue to provide that kind of care to her patients. 

I have lived through the kind of news she has to deliver regularly, twice.  It takes a special kind of person, who has to share these moments regularly, to keep it human, and keep it genuine.  I am so thankful for this doctor, and the work she does.  I'm also thankful that she learned yesterday, that the kind of care she provides is the kind of care every parent deserves from every provider.  She will no longer have to question whether sharing emotion with her patients is something she should do.  I feel good that I was a part of helping relieve some of her burden yesterday. 

I feel so grateful for having had the opportunity to thank this doctor from the bottom of my heart for the care she provided to us in our time of need.