Terrible birthing experience resulting in health concerns for my child
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
I had my first son in 2007, who was delivered by Stacy Hudepohl. She was wonderful, and I had a great delivery. Unfortunately she was let go by Dr. Vardaka, but I decided to continue going to Dr. Vardaka's office. This was a horrible mistake. I recently gave birth to my second son, and had a terrible experience. Dr. Vardaka ordered for me to be induced at 9 PM on August 12th, so she was aware of the possibility that I would go into labor that night. I was hypersensitive to the induction medication, so she was called and told I was in labor around 12:30, but she did not come in. She was called again at 2:45 because my son's heart rate was going down a lot after each contraction, which was dangerous for my son. They wanted to her to come in and see if I should have a C-section. She did not come in. She was called at 3:30 am because I was dilated to 10 cm and she said "oh should I come in now?" to which she was told yes. I was forced to lay on my side with my son's head in the birth canal waiting for her to come in. She said it would be 15 minutes. The nurse kept calling and every time she said she was almost there. At 4:20 (after almost an hour of pain and more epidural being administered) the nurse delivered my son. Vardaka came walking in at 4:30, and said "You couldn't wait for me?". So not only was she not there when she should have been , but then she made that awful comment. My son was born with a huge hematoma on his head because he sat in the birth canal for an hour when I was ready to push waiting for her. He had jaundice for 2 weeks because his body was trying to reabsorb the blood in the hematoma. He is now almost 3 months old and he still has a big calcified lump on the back of his head, and we don't know if it will ever go away completely. He may have this for the rest of his life because she couldn't get herself out of bed to come in. She claims it was because my labor was short, but I think that 5 hours is plenty of time. I would strongly discourage anyone from seeing Dr. Vardaka