I am from the Healthcare industry and I personally knew the Gynaecologist and his Anaesthetist wife who was going to deliver our first new borns... Yes, I mentioned new borns, as they were TWINS!

 

Fate took a cruel turn, and the TWINS were detected without having any fetal heart-beats just about 4-days away from the actual delivery date. And to add to the injury, I was away travelling on business and expected to arrive just a day before the date of delivery. The news was very softly broken to me on the phone, and I took the next available flight back home to find my wife shattered and broken mentally.

 

I went to see the still-born and was met by my Gynaecologist who was standing there waiting for me. He suggested that we should allow a Post-mortem to be done if I wish to do. I requested that I should be allowed to complete all the formalities without the need for conducting a post-mortem. After fulfilling my religious duties as a father towards my still-borns, returned back to the nursing home. I was waiting to meet up the Gynaecologist and understand as to what went wrong despite being tired...

 

The Anaesthetist wife came around and offered her condolences to us and examined my wife. Incidentally, the infants were delivered normally, and for a good reason, which I will share later. We asked about the Gynaecologist and as to when he will come around so that we can meet him. She suggested that he will come and meet us shortly. As the day ended, we were too tired after the never-ending relatives coming and consoling us. Again, the next morning despite the relatives visiting us, we were looking out for our Gynaecologist to visit us and inform us about what happened. We were informed that he had a long list of appointments scheduled for the day and hence he may come later. Again, we found that his wife came late in the afternoon to meet us and examine my wife!

 

Finally, when we asked her again, she sat down and had tears in her eyes. She said that her husband was completely shattered that he could not save our TWINS, whom we were looking forward to receiving as new parents. He was unable to understand what went wrong and hence he was reading, consulting and getting second opinion about our case with his colleagues. At this point, please allow me to suggest that this Gynaecologist is quite senior and well-respected and he has my highest regards and which is why we decided to go to him for our first-born.

 

The Anaesthetist wife said that her husband will definitely come and explain to us, and that we should be patient. On the other hand, our relatives and friends were really annoyed that we did not know what went wrong and as to why our Gynaecologist was avoiding meeting us. I and my wife decided to keep the faith and wait till our Gynaecologist was willing to meet us in person.

 

Finally on the second day, our Gynaecologist and his wife together came and visited us in the morning. We were eagerly looking at him and he just could not raise his eyes to see us. He spoke very softly and with moist eyes that he was extremely sorry that he could not do not any thing to save our infant TWINS. Further he went on to tell us that he was so disturbed that despite his many years of training and experience he could not understand what went wrong and which is why he went through the case again and again and consulted books, colleagues, resources to finally be sure about the diagnosis for the outcome. He suggested that it may have been a case of TWIN-TWIN TRANSFUSION, where one of the infant deprives the other infant of all the nutrients and hence the deprived infant dies. It is sometimes possible to save the other infant, however in this case, the toxins generated due to the dead infant circulated into the live infant, and which probably may have killed the second infant. He suggested that this may have been the case, and a post-mortem could have confirmed it. He further explained that since the TWINs were no more, he did not find it appropriate to do LSCS (Caesarian section) and scar the uterus as this was the first pregnancy. He hence had induced normal labour and both were delivered vaginally. We were relieved to know as to the cause of the death, and both of us spoke to our Gynaecologist and his wife that he did what he could humanely possible in his capacity to help, and that we do not hold him or anybody responsible for it. For the first time, I ever saw a Doctor who was so moved and unable to face the patient and took it very personally upon himself, despite his seniority and his status in the society.

 

We continued to have our second and the third pregnancy there and have remained very good friends (if I may put it that way) till today.