The Difference It Made When My Doctor Believed Me

My husband and I are both doctors, so we understood the medical language and knew how hospitals worked. We had a better sense than most people of which questions to ask, and I still felt completely dismissed during my first delivery.

I had a rare complication and knew something wasn’t right, but instead of having someone stay curious about what I was experiencing, I was repeatedly told what wasn’t happening. I experienced medical gaslighting as a doctor myself. By the time I became very sick, I was carrying the fear of what had happened and the anger of knowing I had tried to speak up before it did.

My second delivery brought the same rare complication, but this time, the doctor looked at me and said, essentially, this is strange, I believe you, and we’re going to figure out why it’s happening. She didn’t immediately have an answer or make the complication disappear, but she made me feel like a person whose experience belonged in the room.

That difference is a big part of why I wanted to talk with Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, an OB hospitalist and the author of The Birth Book. Dr. Jen and I talked about preparing for a birth without pretending we can control it, what patients can do when they don’t feel heard, and why care for the person who gave birth can’t end once everyone’s attention shifts to the baby.

The experience is bigger than the medical outcome

Dr. Jen has cared for patients who went through incredibly serious complications and still felt supported because they understood what was happening and remained part of the decisions being made. She has also cared for people whose deliveries looked relatively straightforward on paper but felt deeply traumatic because everything happened quickly, they were scared, and nobody came back afterward to help them understand it.

We often judge a birth experience by the final medical outcome. Was the baby healthy? Did the parent recover? Those things matter enormously, but they don’t tell us whether someone felt informed, respected, frightened, ignored, or completely out of control along the way.

A debrief can’t undo a frightening delivery, but it can give someone the chance to ask what happened, understand why certain decisions were made, and begin putting language around an experience their body and brain are still trying to process.

What a birth preference makes room for

Dr. Jen intentionally calls it a birth preference rather than a birth plan, and I appreciated that wording because I received some of the same training culture she did, where a detailed plan could be met with an eye roll before anyone had even read it.

It wasn’t until I became pregnant myself that I understood what many parents were actually trying to communicate: I’m scared. I want to know what could happen. These are the things that matter to me.

Her template (check it out here!) begins by asking for the three things you most want your care team to understand about your birth. Maybe you had a previous experience where nobody asked permission before touching you, there’s a cultural tradition you want respected, or your partner becomes overwhelmed in medical settings and needs information explained clearly.

Those details may tell your care team more about how to care for you than a checklist of ideal conditions ever could. Birth is unpredictable, but preparing ahead of time gives you language for the conversation when circumstances change and everything starts moving faster than expected.

You shouldn’t need insider knowledge to be heard

My husband and I knew the system, and we still found it incredibly difficult to navigate from the patient side. I thought constantly about the families who don’t speak the medical language, don’t understand the hierarchy, or have never been told they’re allowed to ask for another opinion.

Dr. Jen wants patients to know that you can ask to speak with the charge nurse, request a patient advocate, or ask for another medical opinion. A doula, partner, or trusted support person can also become your voice when you’re in pain, overwhelmed, or simply don’t have the energy to keep pushing.

This doesn’t require assuming the worst of your care team. Dr. Jen and I both know how deeply many clinicians care and how difficult it is to show that care inside a system built around rushed visits, staffing shortages, insurance restrictions, and too little time. Understanding why the system is strained, though, doesn’t mean you have to stay quiet when something feels wrong.

The patient is still there

Dr. Jen compared pregnancy care to candy inside a wrapper. Once the baby is born, everyone reaches for the candy, and the wrapper gets thrown away.

It’s a hard image, but it captures what postpartum care can feel like. You go from frequent appointments to standing at home with discharge paperwork, a healing body, very little sleep, and a follow-up visit that may still be weeks away.

Before leaving the hospital, know exactly whom you can call for yourself and your baby, including after hours, and which symptoms require a call now rather than waiting to see whether they pass. Mental health conditions, including deaths related to suicide and overdose, are also a leading cause of pregnancy-related death, and many of these deaths happen months after delivery, when the check-ins have slowed down and everyone assumes the hardest part is over.

Support doesn’t only come from a medical office, either. Tell the people around you what would actually help, whether that means no visitors, food left on the porch, or someone taking your older child for an hour. I learned through my own experience that people can love you deeply and still have no idea what you need, and giving them direction gives them a real chance to show up for you.

Birth will always contain some uncertainty. What we can ask for is honest communication, room for questions, and care that continues to see the person having the baby as a person.

Listen to my full conversation with Dr. Jen Lincoln wherever you get your podcasts.

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