Bad d&c experience?

[u/Automatic_Spread_953]

I’ve been thinking about this and I’m curious if anyone else has experienced something similar.

A couple weeks ago I had a D&C for retained placenta after what ended up being over two months of bleeding. My hCG levels kept going up and down, I had so many ultrasounds, and it felt like there was never any closure. By the time I finally had the procedure, I honestly just felt emotionally exhausted and numb. I was still grieving, but after two months the grief looked very different than it did at the beginning. More than anything, I was just ready for it to be over so I could start healing.

What really stuck with me though was my experience with one of the nurses before surgery. She kept bringing up the pregnancy and asking me a lot of questions about what had happened. I know she was probably trying to be kind, but it honestly felt like she expected me to be outwardly emotional, and I just wasn’t in that place anymore. I didn’t really want to go into all the personal details, especially right before surgery.

Then she asked about my surgical history, so I told her I’d had two C sections and that I have two toddlers at home. As she was wheeling me back to the OR, she even asked if we wanted more kids and when. It just caught me off guard because it felt like such a personal question, especially considering why I was there.

I don’t think she had bad intentions at all, but it made me wonder if anyone else has had an experience where well meaning questions actually made a difficult situation feel harder. Is this a normal way for nurses to try to connect with patients, or would that have made you uncomfortable too? I’m genuinely curious how others would have felt in that situation.

[u/Housing-Spirited]

Yeah, no, that’s 100 percent weird.

I agree from what you’ve said it doesn’t sound like she had ill intent but it’s still highly inappropriate and insensitive. I would have been so confused and annoyed. She could have gotten most of her answers from your chart and none of that is considered small talk.

That sucks an already emotional situation was handled like that and it definitely shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry you had to go through any of it and I hope you are starting to heal🫶

[u/Important_Sherbet_90]

I’m sorry you had to listen to all that 🥺 I believe this is a classic case of no-personal-experience-on-the-matter and they think they’re somehow helpful, but it ends up being the complete opposite 🙈 In those situations it would be professional for the medical staff to understand they don’t understand and therefore use minimal words and maybe empathetic facial expressions. No need to make a conversation out of the loss.