I'm in shock, amazed and shocked, but perhaps it is just my cultural expectations....
Girl is pregnant 8-10 weeks, over weekend girl has miscarriage, but it is only partial, so doctor needs her to visit hospital, an ultrasound reveals that the Doctor needs to operate "to clean out what is left".
Unfortunately, girl involved resigned her job in December to start at a new company in February, while each job package includes health insurance, girl is not covered for 2 months ! talk about Murphy's fuckn Laws!
OK. given an ultrasound picture attached to a doctor letter and told meet upstairs, so we wander around the supposedly international hospital showing pic and letter to all and sundry, supposed to check in down first floor, anyway it all gets sorted out! Never mind privacy!
Shown into a private room, TV shower bathroom etc. Nurse wanders in and starts setting up a tray of medical tools, a medical waste box nearby and the sudden realisation that this room is also the bladdy operating theatre!!
The tools are gruesome, stainless steel, heavy sounding clanging as the nurse sorted them out, looked like BBQ implements (sorry for that analogy, but its true!)
Girl laying on bed in stupid gown, still bleeding and crying, didn't want to lose said baby. Anyway, then the nurse gives girl a form sign here please, form says something about an abortion, try to explain that the procedure is more or less the same- its just that the miscarriage has already cause the embryo to die already.
Anyway, lots of staff wandering in and out, yelling up and down the corridor, doctors and anaesthetist come in do their thing, afterwards have disappeared but nurse allows me back into the room where she is sleeping.
She struggles wakes up through the drugs, nurse wanders back in and begins chatting, the nurse gives girl a little plastic bottle...
inside was a pink and red mess,
my growing horror,
surely not,
maybe it is the placenta remains or something?
a cancerous growth removed?
I'm handed it, look at it,
It WAS the dead baby, 2 inches long, recognizable as such, eyes, mouth, arm buds, even the umbilical cord....
I place it on the bench away from girl, apparently we can take it home, I'm not sure why we would want to do that!
The nurse takes it away, but says she'll keep it on her desk in case we change our minds before we leave....
After awhile I thought to myself, that perhaps that viewing the dead foetus is a good way of saying goodbye, that whole closure thing that westerners are not good at, but why on earth would we want to take it home!?![]()