Font ResizeOn May 12, Canedo began feeling pain while at home. At 35, she knew her age put her at higher risk for complications and she immediately went to the clinic where she received her prenatal care.
Like other women interviewed for this article, Canedo did not have a regular obstetrician but instead saw a succession of doctors during her pregnancy.
Medical staff at the East Oakland Health Center instructed her to go to Highland. When she arrived in the late afternoon, nurses monitored her baby's heart from about 5 p.m. until 2 a.m., she said.
"They told me the pains were normal and to go home," she said through a Spanish interpreter in the cottage in San Leandro that she shares with her husband, Rafael Sanchez, and her 8-year-old son.
The pains continued. On May 24, she went back to the outpatient clinic, where she was told once again that the pains were normal.
But she continued to feel bad. Several days later, the baby stopped moving. Her husband rushed her to Highland Hospital early May 29.
"By this time, I knew the baby was dead," Canedo said. A nurse at Highland confirmed the death. Canedo decided she wanted to have the baby naturally.
No physician was available, so a nurse delivered Canedo's son that night, according
Hospital staff told Canedo the baby died from a blood clot, Canedo said. The official cause of death was listed only as "fetal demise" on paperwork the couple received from the hospital.
Canedo said she wishes she had been able to see a doctor on May 12 and get an ultrasound or other tests. While she tries to be at peace with what happened, it's difficult. "I just wish they would have examined me more" at Highland, she said. "I feel they weren't listening to me when I said the baby was ready to be born, even though I was a month early."
The couple hope that they will have another baby but are afraid of another loss. They are reluctant to return either to the clinic or to Highland.
They keep Oliver's ashes in a gold box on a high shelf in their cottage, next to framed photos of him taken just after he was born. His eyes are closed and he looks like a healthy newborn.
They plan to scatter the baby's ashes into the sea the next time they return to their home country of Mexico. "I can't sleep now, it's nerves," Canedo said. "I wake up in the middle of the night and see him, how he was when he was born."
