The US sucks. I didn’t have an epidural, and the nurse clotheslined me and then got one of her buddies to hold me down flat. Maybe an L&D nurse can comment, but my impression is that American hospitals go on an assembly-line model: everybody gets an epidural, everyone lies flat with feet in stirrups, everyone gets an…

Amen.

I had some of this happen to me. Our hideous, awful, piece-of-shit, if-I’m-ever-out-driving-and-see-her-I’ll-probably-run-her-over-before-I-can-stop-myself L&D nurse - well, she *hated* women who didn’t get epidurals. I came in with my water broken but labor barely started, and she kept telling me to get some rest…

It is incredibly frustrating. But it might be useful for you to consider how how the oligarchy came roaring back after we beat it into submission in the early part of the 20th century. You see, the oligarchs have been patient. They have been playing the long game. The goddamn Kochs have been at it for 60+ years - and…

I bet they think they are fighting the good fight. Abby will always be a martyr to truth and justice to her parents and all of the people they run with.

I think those are the same test, actually. And either way = diagnostic. And also, all the other stuff I wrote.

Death in childbirth is not a usual or foreseeable outcome of pregnancy. Death is an inevitable and completely foreseeable outcome of untreated meningitis.