Justice for Josslyn: Help Us Find Peace

My wife and I are trying to raise money for our daughter's autopsy, embalming, funeral service, burial, and headstone. Most of all, to get Justice For Josslyn! Josslyn Rose was stillborn on 08/22/2024. We lost her due to medical malpractice, negligence, and complete disregard for my wife's patient care directive.

On the 22nd, the hospital was called and informed that my wife and I would be arriving at the ER shortly. She was 39 weeks and 6 days along and was bleeding. Once we arrived at the ER, they made us fill out paperwork and insurance while they tried to figure out how to admit us. We waited almost an hour without any help. No one would check my wife's vitals, use a Doppler, or even offer her a wheelchair. We walked up 2 floors to the family center delivery room, and there it took almost another hour for a nurse, a midwife, and an OB to do 4 ultrasounds with 2 different machines before they told my wife and me that there was no heartbeat.

The first ultrasound that was done, we all felt a kick and saw and heard her heartbeat, her last two beats that she would ever have. The midwife then walked into the room and started the 2nd ultrasound and couldn't find it either. She told the nurse to go get the "new" ultrasound machine. Once she finally returned with it, they began to do the third ultrasound to no avail before going to fetch the OB on call. The OB that walked in asked us if we had ever met before. She did our prenatal ultrasound follow-up appointment in April. She then did an ultrasound and after a while of searching, pronounced that she couldn't find a heartbeat and that our daughter was dead due to a partial placental abruption.

My wife demanded an emergency c-section. She told the OB to get our daughter out of her and please help her now! The OB explained the risks, and my wife again told her to do the c-section right there if she had to! The only thing that mattered was helping our baby girl! They said they couldn't do that, they were sorry but we would do a vaginal delivery. That naturally would be the best option. Then they left us for 20 or 30 minutes alone to "digest" this information in a state of panic and hysteria for the worst moment in our lives. Little did we know that this was just the tip of the iceberg and would unfold into the most traumatic event that we could never imagine.

Every time my wife begged for a c-section, they refused to uphold their oath and would not follow our patient care directive. They waited for us to fall apart and break down, and once my wife was alone for long enough, they gave an unauthorized psych evaluation due to my wife's mother committing suicide back in 2014 when she was still a kid. They then proceeded to place my wife under an M1 72-hour hold without informing me. They had a 24/7 eyes-on babysitter there with us through the entire delivery and the whole night. When asked who the person was that was in the room staring at my wife while she was attempting to deliver our baby girl, we were made to believe that she was in med school and had to witness a delivery. It was later learned she was from an outside organization the hospital contracted for suicide watch.

A couple of hours after moving my wife to a "family room," they induced labor with half of a pill that was supposed to take a couple of hours to take effect. My wife laid there for hours in labor with intense contractions that were barely a minute or two apart. She finally got an epidural 5 hours later. She was told to hold still through back-to-back synchronous contractions, barely 30 seconds apart, lasting about 90 seconds each, while the needle was pushed into her spine. She received the first dose and waited 20 minutes until the anesthesiologist returned and confirmed she only had a window of pain on one side. He then informed us that it was a good thing. His wife had that as well, and it was beneficial for her for knowing when to push. He began the second injection after he made a sick joke saying, "Don't worry, I'll give her a lil extra," and laughed. I questioned his actions and told him to think again. Then he reversed the injection, drawing over 100 ml back into the syringe.

A few minutes later, after checking her again, the midwife stated again that my wife was at 9 cm dilation and that she had to wait a little longer. Then my wife's knees started to shake, quickly followed by the rest of her body. Once I saw her eyes begin to roll to the back of their sockets in synchrony with the rest of her convulsing body, I grabbed her by the back of the head and shook her quickly and said to "look at me and push." Miraculously, she ceased to shake, snapped her eyes forward, and said okay. The nurse was surprised and ran over to coach her on how to breathe and push. She made my wife take a breath, then hold the breath for 10 seconds, pushing as hard as she could, while pulling her knees to her head and tucking her chin to her chest. Instead of the "J" breathing style, which we had learned from many different sources, including the birthing class we attended, which was hosted by the hospital. It was the "J" breathing style which was proven to greatly reduce the chance of tearing and postpartum prolapse. The nurse would not listen and wouldn't allow us to do what we had practiced.

Once the child was almost crowning, the OB broke her water and amniotic fluid gushed out before and after the baby. A push or two more and my daughter's head came out. The OB quickly cut the cord from around her neck and unwrapped it more than once. Pieces fell into the trash, and one was left hanging out of my wife. The OB trimmed and clamped the cord attached to the baby and looked at me with a colorless, blank deer-in-the-headlights look. I took my phone out immediately, taking as many pictures of the horror I was witnessing as possible. I heard someone tell me that I couldn't do that, but was cut short. The OB then shoved my daughter into my wife's arms and violently forced her hand and half of her forearm all the way up into my wife's uterus and pushed from the outside with the other hand while ripping the placenta from my wife and slopping it into the medical waste bin before stitching the tear that my wife endured. Once she was done, she quickly left the room without attempting any type of resuscitation on our baby girl, who looked alive and probably would have been if they did anything except what their ego would allow. The nurse and midwife cleaned up the mess and wouldn't let my wife or me give our baby the only bath we would ever get to give her.

Josslyn Rose had no vernix, three inches of hair or better, and fingernails a nail length past the tips of her fingers. After a perfect pregnancy with nothing more than some heartburn, our baby girl was taken from us. We worked so long and hard to give her everything she would need once we took her home. Nothing could have ever prepared us for losing her. Neither of us imagined her not coming home. After walking Josslyn down to the morgue, we saw the OB in the hallway. I showed her an ultrasound picture from 37 weeks that showed the cord next to Josslyn's head and neck. I asked if she could tell me what the picture looked like to her. She gave me that blank stare again and stated that she was sorry she couldn't read ultrasounds. Later, we found out that it was now thought to not be a placental abruption but changed to over-calcification of the placenta. The official cause of stillbirth later in the medical file stated unknown. The medical report is a joke that is clearly falsified and quickly thrown together with misinformation, deleted data, and false facts. We have spoken to neonatal surgeons as well as other OBs that say this is not like anything they have ever witnessed. That there are so many red flags from the first instance, and that our daughter should have been able to be saved.

Please help us get peace and justice for our baby girl Josslyn Rose. We need answers so we can try to make sure that such a tragedy never happens to another family. We know that nothing will bring Josslyn back, but we can help by spreading awareness, educating other expecting parents, and helping them to find advocacy. Through your support, we will be able to put our baby girl to rest, and maybe one day start a non-profit and call it Justice For Josslyn.

We are grateful for any support that can be given.

#JusticeForJosslyn