Monday, May 24, 2010

Isn't it ironic?

I'm an attorney, which you probably know from reading my profile. What you may not know is that my current position is at a medi.cal malpr*ctice defense firm. Our firm represents doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers in medi.cal malpr*ctice lawsuits.

I have been recently assigned to a new file in which a man underwent a vas.ecto.my which he claims failed. Three years after his vas.ect.omy, his wife became pregnant. The couple claim that they have had DNA testing done and know that he is the father of the child. His last semen analysis post-vas.ecto.my showed only "a few non-motile sperm."

They now want the doctor who performed the vas.ect.omy to pay them various damages, including (claimed) lost earnings from their small business due to the wife's unplanned pregnancy and birth. (Mom and baby are both fine and healthy; it appears their only claim relates to the fact that they neither planned nor wanted the child and have been inconvenienced/burdened by his unplanned arrival.)

My husband has produced literally tens of MILLIONS of motile sperm every cycle we have been TTC (and in every semen analysis he's ever had), and yet I have been unable to have the baby which we both very much want. If this patient's claim is to be believed, he managed to knock up his wife more than three years after a vas.ect.omy with, at most, "a few" non-motile sperm.

Am I the only one who sees the irony in my being assigned to this file?

14 comments:

  1. Ugh! I am sorry you're assigned this one. Argh!

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  2. It would be more ironic if I was assigned it. I got a vasectomy and have been suffering horrible pain for 6 months since, with no real relief in site. I got a reversal, and am still in pain. So now I can get my wife pregnant, but I have all the after effects of a vasectomy gone wrong. I would tell the guy, he is just lucky he escaped the vasectomy without life long chronic pain, that alone shows that the doctor is more competent than 99% of the urologists out there.

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  3. oh. ug. no.

    and what about 10 years from now - when something comes up about how they SUED daddy's doctor because YOU WERE BORN. gee, thanks mom and dad. :/

    xoxo

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  4. oh wow.......I mean there's nothing really else to say to that. WOW!

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  5. Damn! Stuff like this drives me crazy!!
    ICLW

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  6. Oh wow...

    I am not even sure I would be able to deal with it! Just another reminder that life in the fertility department is unfair!

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  7. Ugh. How awful. What a jerk, a shining example of our litigation happy culture. Yuck. Can you imagine being that poor kid knowing your parents tried to sue a doctor because of your existance?
    Has AF shown yet?

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  8. Ouch... what a hard file to have to deal with. I can't even imagine. I wonder what will happen if the child ever finds out about this lawsuit.
    Thanks for stopping by my blog! ICLW

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  9. Yikes! Sorry you got assigned to that case. It is indeed ironic.

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  10. That's just wrong. Wrong that it's your case to work on and wrong, wrong, wrong that these people ended up with a baby.

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  11. Its ironic that you were assigned the case... it's not the first time that I've heard of vasectomies not working... my good friend is dating a man who had a vasectomy... and she ended up pregnant but miscarried... he was told by the Dr. that an earlier shoulder surgery affected the vasectomy...I don't understand the correlation but he didn't pursue filing a suit or anything... and they have since split up... anyway... sorry you have to deal with that...you must be a strong woman.

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  12. Um, yeah, ironic it is, but emoionally cruel is more like it. Yikes! How can you stand it? You are truly a professional.

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