Another homebirth death …
From The Experience Project:
I lost my son … in Feb 2013 at 40 weeks 2 days during delivery, the last pushes killed him official cause was cord prolapse. The hospital staff tried everything possible to revive him for 26 minutes after his birth but he never came back to us. He was 8lb’s 6oz and absolutely perfectly beautiful. I miss him, my arms ache, my heart hurts, my breasts ache every time I am around a baby …
… with all the heartache, bewilderment and questioning that accompanies a homebirth loss:
I have gone through feelings of guilt I should have done something different … I do still blame the midwife as I do feel she was not monitoring him very well at all & was very against me going to the hospital & told my husband that all women say that they wanted to go & to ignore me until I insisted screaming for my husband to call 911 when she finally used the fetal doppler to check his heart rate & he was fading fast…
This was our first baby we had no way of knowing how things were supposed to be we were clueless thinking we were going to have this beautiful romantic home birth & instead we live in a nightmare…
The doctors and nurses struggled to save the baby:
His heart stopped almost as soon as I was transferred from the the stretcher to the hospital stretcher as they were trying to position him for an emergency C-section his heart stopped & the Dr said it was to late for a C-section he was wedged to far down in the birth canal. I pushed with everything I had & finally delivered him within minutes …
But it was too late:
He never took a breath I didn’t understand he was dead I didn’t believe them when they told me he was dead. I remember … thinking his little blue body was perfect & beautiful & thinking of course that is what he looked like. I petted his head as the Dr cut the cord & told him “Hello” then he was whisked away to a warming table set up in the room across from my bed & I watched as they were performing CPR the hospital staff did such a good job that he turned pink but his heart never beat on it’s own & he never took his first breath.
I kept saying they made a mistake as I cuddled his lil body I finally asked the Dr if there was a mistake & was he really dead & he told me with tears in his eyes that yes he was dead.
And the midwife?
She said her name was Sharon Kocher however we found out this was not her “real” name I think her “real” name is Victoria I don’t know her last name… I forgive her but I pray every night that God will block her from practicing again.
A bit of internet research revealed this:
Victoria Kocher helped bring tiny Ethan Criswell into the world in the home of his parents, William and Cheryl Criswell.
Despite Ethan’s diminutive size and physical ailments, Kocher said she saw no reason to call the hospital. “He looked tiny, but what’s my judgment of small?” she said. “He breathed good … I saw no risk.”
Ethan, who authorities said was delivered seven weeks premature, weighed less than 3 pounds and suffered from multiple birth defects, was born March 14. He died seven days later at an area hospital.
Ethan’s parents are charged with involuntary manslaughter. Kocher, who said she served as the family’s labor coach, is charged with child endangerment…
The Criswells, through their lawyer, tell a different story. “She represented herself as a licensed practicing midwife,” said attorney Lynn Johnson, who also accused Kocher of lying about her name. “The Criswells knew her as Sharon, not Victoria.” …
Kocher refused to comment on the allegation she used an alias. According to court documents, she has also used the names Sharon J. Kocher, Vicky J. Newman, Victoria J. King and Victoria J. Smith.
According to another news story:
Victoria Kocher later pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorized practice of midwifery and was sentenced to five years probation.
The mother who posted her story on The Experience Project is left with empty arms and a broken heart:
I have felt that all this is a nightmare that I will wake up from since that day. I think about him everyday, I grieve everyday, I have returned to life in someways it does get easier to cope but I do not think I will ever stop grieving for him.
