Two months ago I opened my email to find a message from a mom who was being forced to have a repeat cesarean against her will.  This mother was full term, and the cesarean was scheduled.  I immediately responded and told her she had rights.

This mother had four previous vaginal births, and her fifth (last child) was a cesarean.  She did not want a cesarean, and she did not believe she needed to have one, but she felt that they could do it against her will.  She needed help, and I made it my personal mission to help her.  This is what I do.  I help. And she needed a lot.

I talked to her several times a day, almost every day for weeks.  Her case became hugely stressful.  I was up nights tracking down information for her.  I worried for her every time she wrote me with more awful things her OB said to her.  I agonized with her.  My husband watched me pacing the floor, racking my brain to try to come up with resources for her.  At a certain point I told my husband I wasn’t sure how much more help I could give her because it was taking up all my time and all the space in my head.  But then I pressed on, because she needed me.

And all the information I directed her to got her doctor more and more mad.  At her 40 week appointment, her doctor finally had enough of her sticking up for herself, and sent her a certified letter dropping her from care.  If you know me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve heard me talk about her.

When the mother sent me the frantic email about being dropped by her OB, I dropped everything I was doing that day.  I was at work, my last week of work, and I was busy as hell. But nothing was more important to me than her crisis.  This was the most outrageously unethical thing I had witnessed from a provider, and this mother was scared out of her mind.  Here she was, 40+ weeks pregnant and without any care whatsoever.

I immediately got on the phone with the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.  I wrote everyone from ICAN I could think of.  I talked to the Illinois ACLU.  I had half the reproductive justice community invested in her case.  I did everything I could to find help – everything I could do to get attention to her case so we could find her an emergency provider, and hopefully some peace of mind.

After all my hard work, I got a text message from this mother the morning after I left my job, announcing her beautiful baby girl born by VBAC.  It was one of the most triumphant feelings of my life.  I could place this up there next to my own VBAC.

And this mother described me as her “angel” in her VBAC story.  I was just glad I could help.  But admittedly, I was so very, very proud to be thought of that way.

After her VBAC, I directed her to some places to get media attention for her story.  She contacted the local news station, and they decided to do a piece on her.  I helped prep her for interview.  I sent her everything I could.  I helped calm her fears.  She told them (twice) in her interview that it was my ICAN chapter that helped her.  She mentioned us by name.

The reporter has been working on the story for the past month, and I’ve been waiting for a phone call or an email from her, if she wanted any information from us at all.

Instead, tonight, out of nowhere, I got an email announcement from another chapter stating that they had been interviewed about this mother, and that the piece would air on Tuesday.

Reading that email, I felt like I got punched in the gut.  I’m not sure why someone who doesn’t know anything about this case would be compelled to speak to a reporter doing a story on this mother.  Am I wrong in thinking that they should have directed that reporter to ME?  I can understand the reporter not realizing the difference between chapters, but I cannot understand another person speaking about any part of a situation they were not involved in.

Especially not after all the work I did.  I feel so totally betrayed.  I feel like I did all the hard work, and somebody else just stepped in front of the media to take credit for it.

I’m not going to hide it.  I’m pissed. I could go on and drag up so many other issues I have with this particular person’s actions, but I am trying to be as professional I can about this, considering I feel the way I do.  I don’t want to be a drama llama.  And I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to martyr myself.  Maybe nobody cares that it was MY work that helped this woman.  Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Just. Goddammit.

*stomping feet on ground*

UGHGH!!!