Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith have three children, sons Gus, four, Ozzie, three, and daughter, Lou, 16 months. Mandy has shared relatable information about pregnancy, parenting, and her infertility struggle. During an appearance on Amanda Hirsch’s Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, Mandy talked about her IVF attempts before surprisingly getting pregnant with Lou the old-fashioned way. She also told a story about a terrible encounter she had with the doctor who delivered Gus. It’s a doozy. Here’s the transcript of Mandy’s story:
I was pregnant during COVID and I had a midwife. I was planning my whole pregnancy to have this home birth. I had the kit all ordered, the pool was delivered and everything. About a month before I was due to deliver, I got my blood tested and my platelet levels had been dropping throughout pregnancy. If it’s under a certain threshold, you’re not allowed to do a home birth, you have to have a hospital birth.
I had to at the last minute switch teams. My midwife found the only midwife that delivers at Cedars, and she had to have a doctor backup. In my mind I was still going in and having this midwife help me deliver my baby, which is what I really wanted.
But of course – what else do you expect? Chauvinistic male doctor, at the last minute, kind of took over and sidelined the midwife. [He] was there for when I was pushing and in the middle of contractions. He was one of those doctors that probably shouldn’t be practicing anymore, truth be told. He was older and jaded.
I’m also an intense people pleaser… I labored at home for a long time, then I finally went to the hospital and had been there all night. It’s like 11 in the morning, and I’m pushing. I had my foot on the bar, pulling myself up with contractions pushing. I looked and the guy was just scrolling on CNN on his phone while I’m pushing. I just remember taking mental note of that, even in the midst of this anguish, this unmedicated birth.
Then, in between contractions, I hear him complaining to the midwife that there’s a lobster truck outside Cedars and this was taking a long time and he probably wasn’t going to get a lobster roll for lunch. I felt bad and apologized to him.
The baby was delivered, and he goes to my husband, “You want to cut the cord?” Taylor goes to cut the umbilical cord, he’s like, “You know what this means?” Taylor’s thinking he’s going to have some sage bit of wisdom. He’s like, “You got to buy him a car when he’s 16.”
[From YouTube Transcript, edited for clarity]
That is such a horrible bedside manner. If that doctor was so concerned about missing a lobster food truck, then he really shouldn’t be practicing anymore. He could have asked someone to pick up his lunch as a favor, but instead decided to complain that a laboring patient was taking too long to have her baby. What is he saying about non-famous patients? My dude, *I promise you* that no one wants to get that baby out faster than the person birthing them.
I can relate to Mandy on both experiences she talked about here. My gynecologist’s office makes you rotate doctors in your last trimester. When I was pregnant with my older son, I saw a male obgyn who only talked to my husband. It was like I wasn’t even there. We were both so annoyed by the encounter! Like Mandy, I also had to do an unmedicated birth with my younger son because my platelets dropped too low. I wanted the epidural, but it wasn’t in the cards. Thankfully, the female doctor who delivered him was great and actually listened to me.
Photos credit: AdMedia/MediaPunch/INSTARimages, Jennifer Graylock/Avalon and via Instagram
I had an emergency c-section in the middle of the night (first time mom) and I was exhausted and scared from laboring 26 hours at that point – the man who was about to perform the c-section (who I had never met) was sitting at the end of my bed repeatedly yawning loudly and openly while they were frantically prepping me – didn’t talk me through anything. A different person came in to give me a nerve block for the procedure who didn’t speak English (I’m Brazilian so I was fine with Spanish) who held me still so the needle didn’t miss and gently told me everything was going to be OK while I shook from the exhaustion, pain and strain on my body from the last 26 hours while the surgeon holding a scalpel just…yawned and leaned back on a chair with his head rolled back until they told him he “was up next”. The only thing he really said while walking up was, “Whooo – your previous scar (from a myomectomy to remove extensive fibroids) is a mess. I can fix that”. Like that was a priority in that moment – making sure I was “cuter” in the future. I was relieved to be put under to close me up.
The nice person was quite certainly the anesthesiologist and they’re the silent super heroes of hospitals, especially during birth or to comfort patients. My sister is one, too and they need more good PR.
Yikes!
OT: that red outfit with the pants with the train and the gloves is a great look, altho the pants need to be hemmed.
I had a horrible older male doctor deliver my son – a VBAC, my first vaginal delivery. The pushing phase was taking a long time. He was sitting at the end of the bed brandishing his scalpel as if he was gonna do an episiotomy if i didn’t hurry the hell up.
That’s freaking awful. I’ve been pretty lucky, the practice I go to also rotates doctors, and there’s 1 man in the practice. And he is one of the warmest, most empathetic humans I’ve ever encountered. He helped me through a ruptured fallopian tube.
The only bad experience I had there was from a younger woman, who wanted me to get scoped (camera in the uterus) all without any pain meds. F- that. And I told her so.
It is *astonishing* how callous and clueless men can be around women who are palpitating in pain and fear and in a state of personal vulnerability — the total lack of dignity seems to bring out the best and the worst in people, but the gender split is still pronounced, men seem to take it as a cue to treat the patient like a half-wit or as if the placenta were made of brain cells. As if the patient were not mentally competent. It’s so degrading.
I had three long-time male OB/GYNs from my 20s on. I adored all of them. They all were caring, really listened, compassionate, and were always booked with patients because of how wonderful they were, and the quality of care given was always top-notch. And the last one I have been seeing for 15 years is the most compassionate man. I will break down sobbing when he retires.
My worst experience ever with an OB/GYN was with a female doctor. I was furious. She was condescending. I rarely am confrontational, but I sure was with her.
I’m going to say one thing and people can take it to heart or discard it completely.
I don’t deny the doctor’s behavior was ridiculous and very unprofessional. Hanving said that, and as someone who worked in healthcare during Covid, I was completely checked out. I’m glad Mandy spoke about it but I can’t help but also wonder what that man had gone through and seen.
Really? @SC, I mean, I try not to clap back at other Celebitches, I love this place, I come here daily, but…. Really?
When we get through this back’erds era, we really have to cleanse the medical field of arrogance, misogyny and racism. We currently normalize too much absolute nonsense.
Why do people like that doctor go into the practice of medicine??? I would have lost my s*** on him.
Booooo. I had midwives for both of my births and it was what I wanted. I pushed for 4 hours with my first (she had her fist under her chin? Her head was at funny angle until the end), and I think some of the people were probably fiddling with phones (I was way too exhausted to notice), but when she finally deigned to come out they were all locked in. I’ve had two male gynos and was not impressed. That said, he didn’t sound actively mean or awful, just a little on the callous side.
The bar is in hell, or Florida I guess, where a male gyno has been getting court orders while patients are in labor to force them to get a C section when he says so.
I’m sick of home and unmedicated births. I’ve known someone who lost a child in a home birth and another who would have died had she not been in the hospital. You literally don’t have to suffer in horrible pain. It doesn’t make you a better mother or woman. It’s called progress.