Ascension St. Vincent Women and Infants Hospital — Attraction in Indianapolis

I was hospitalized & put in a drug-induced coma in September 2021 at the Kokomo Ascension. I was about 16 weeks pregnant & the chances of our survival were below 3%. After 13 days of being treated while in the coma, I was showing some signs of improvement & they were able to wake me up & continue treatment. After countless tests & monitoring, it was decided that I needed major surgeries with surgeons that were based in Indianapolis. I was then transferred, via ambulance, to Ascension on 86th Street in October. While there, I underwent multiple lung surgeries that required me to have two external chest tubes for 8+weeks. I also had open heart surgery with a valve replacement. All of these surgeries occurred before my baby was considered “viable”… basically, my chances of survival/recovery weren’t great, so my baby’s chances of survival were even lower than mine & if something went wrong during the surgeries, the surgeon wouldn’t be able to intervene/deliver. Each time I woke up from surgery the staff would set up the monitor so that I could hear my baby’s heartbeat & know that she had made it through the surgery with me. I was then transferred to Ascension Women’s Hospital in December to be monitored until my scheduled c-section. My room at the women’s hospital was very spacious & my first night there the nurses brought me a little desk-top christmas tree & lights to set up to make me feel more at-home. That room became my home very quickly. My c-section wasn’t until February 2022, I had been hospitalized since the beginning of September 2021 & as you can imagine, cabin-fever had set in. I had been through every heavy emotion possible the last several months, my family all lived hours away, and COVID was still prominent & a threat to everyone - especially pregnant women in my condition. The nurses, chaplains, doctors, technicians, therapists, housekeeping staff had all became a part of my daily life - some of them I would even consider friends or even family. They kept me sane, gave me hope, helped me fight, and showed me love & compassion on every level and in every aspect that occurred. The amount of doctors & staff that I had contact with up until my daughter & I were discharged at the end of March 2022 was unreal. I wish I could get a head-count on how many of them worked with me/us during our stay, but that would probably be near impossible. Anyway, out of all of those people who cared for me, there were only two who stood out in a negative way. ONLY TWO. That observation, alone, speaks volumes about Ascension. I am so thankful that I was brought to their hospital. Ascension is the best of the best because of the humans...

Do not go to this hospital if you can help it. I went here as a private patient so I can't imagine how uninsured or state insured patients are treated. Do not deliver here unless you have a support person like a doula or someone in the healthcare field. Many inappropriate and horrific things happened with I delivered my stillborn son here. I was refused any anxiety or pain medication going home because "were worried you're just going to use it to numb your emotional pain" and "no we can't give you anything you have to feel all of your emotions right now". Not their choice and not trauma based care. Also medical abuse.

I have seen two epidurals performed here over the span of five years. One was during nursing school and one was for my recent delivery. Both were terrifying and I was in extreme pain. Plus it did not work and I told the anesthesia guy it wasn't working and he said "lie on your side for a while and it'll work it's way over". At shift change hours later I was able to completely move both legs and sit up out of bed unassisted. Finally a new anesthesiologist was called in the adjust the epidural which I'm sure we were also charged extra for.

When I was in a very vulnerable position and the curtain wasn't closed I said hey please cover me or pull the curtain this I'm fully exposed. The nurse laughed and said "oh we just don't care much about modesty sorry!". I was mortified. And even though I was having a still birth they had no one come in to talk about a plan for going home. No instructions on what to do in terms of how much bleeding is too much, what size clot of too big, how long should we wait to have sex, can I use tampons? Nothing was answered.

Although I have a well documented history of anxiety, depression, and PTSD related to pregnancy loss I was still sent home with no anxiety meds and no pain meds even though I begged because I had nothing home and just delivered a dead baby a few hours ago. They said "there is no Xanax in this hospital" which was a blatant lie as I had received it during delivery. When I told them I knew they were lying about that and just wanted one pill to go home and try to survive they used that as "evidence" of me becoming agitated and combative.

Indiana has the 3rd highest maternal mortality rates in the nation and I'm sorry to report I see exactly why. Women are dismissed, disregarded, made fun of, and medically gaslit and abused into postpartum depression. Please note I was here with a "good" practice...

I was transferred here from my doctors office over an hour away. I was 31 weeks pregnant when my water broke. The first 4 days were fine as they were doing everything they could to keep baby growing as long as possible. The day I went into labor they continued to tell me it wasn’t labor until it continued to progress. I had to beg them to check my cervix again and sure enough, just as I told them, baby was already coming. I was then told to hold baby in while they cleaned a room for me to deliver in. I also feel as if I didn’t get the same quality of postpartum care at this hospital as I did at the hospital I delivered my first baby at. At this hospital, I didn’t seem to matter after the baby was born. My baby spent weeks in the nicu and unfortunately I couldn’t be there as much as I wanted since I did live so far away and had another child at home. I was made to feel bad about that by some of the nurses. They also weren’t working with my baby to come home like they should’ve. Every time I visited my baby would take a bottle for me, show all the signs that she was ready to go home yet when I couldn’t be there they would call and say she wasn’t taking bottles and would have to stay longer. I went to visit one day and found two nurses in the room with my baby while she was showing obvious signs of wanting to take a bottle and instead of letting me hold her and give her a bottle (like she’s done plenty of times before.) they told me she was too tired and needed her feeding tube. I had enough of that and decided to try and transfer her to my hospital back home. They kept telling me insurance hadn’t approved it. I called the insurance company and it was the doctor who needed to sign off on it for her to be transferred. I finally got her transferred and she was home 3 days later. These people only care about the money, not getting your baby taken care of to go home and especially not the mothers...