The Retrievals - Ep. 3
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Alesia never expected to wind up in a fertility clinic because he never thought you'd wanna have children. SHE grew in jamaica with a lot of responsibility.

ie. S for her siblings. So I am one of five. The second um of said five, but i'm the first girl and in my culture you are required to help your mommy out like you don't have to say.

So in IT and um so bottles were done by me. Launcher was done by me since I was nine years old and I hate IT ever last part of IT. So I always told myself, when I got holder, I didn't want kids. And the site, what about that is, I think the toilet is so it's powerful. You gotto be very careful with what you said.

What do you mean?

I think because of having chills, because all my life I said I didn't want kids, that I support that into existence. Now for a lot of people that that doesn't like, you know, it's not real to them. For me IT is real. Like so that's why I mean, when I say the tongue is powerful because I kept telling myself that in the one children and then I feel ever I try to listen to me and then when I wanted children I was in a position where my only way of um having kids was by ivf.

Alesha was in her twice when he decided he wanted to have children. He was in a relationship then with the men who would become her husband. Someone SHE met when he moved to the U.

S. SHE tried to get pregnant and nothing was happening. And eventually SHE learned that her philopena tubes were blocked.

Did you at that moment when you were like, you know, finding out that that your tubes were locked, that there is an issue with your tubes? Is that the thought you had then, like, I sort of spoke s into existence? Are our world?

Yes, definitely. I, I, I, I told myself that I blamed myself. I and I does another thing to is like, I have always blame myself after that.

on the morning of donas sentencing hearing, at least he get ready to watch from home. She's gna watch on zoo because SHE yet degrade surgery two days ago, and she's been up for leaving the house. And before the hearing begins, i'm going to take a second to tell you about because alesha starts out sympathetic to dona.

I felt that whatever IT is that he was going through, you know, like IT clouded her judgment and SHE SHE had a lapse in judged. And if I know, like if he has a mental issue, I feel like SHE deserve a second chance.

But during the hearing, alesha will learn something about dona that will test the limits of her compassion and change the way he thinks about donas capability. The patients are still reckoning with what the pain DNA inflicted has caused them. Now a court will determine what I should cost her.

From serial productions in the new york times. I'm Susan burton and this is the retrieval. This is episode three, the sentence.

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After at least he found out her tubes were blocked. SHE was referred to the year clinic. Her treatment there had barely started when I was interrupted by the pandemic. The clinic closed down for a while for most procedures.

Her doctor invited her to join a zoom support group of other patients and SHE liked him so much that he said yes, even though that was the kind of thing SHE wouldn't usually say yes to. She's not a join her and hardly anyone knew he was doing. Ibf, that's part of why he asked me to call her alysha, which is her middle me.

So when I I was as a like us, because i'm very private when IT comes to stuff like this. But then I was everybody who was going through stuff like this. And you know, I was a little bit where that I was the only black, but so you know that like a new york, so there is more occasion people around than there is black people.

So I wanted to see like the weeks going by to see if others were join who look looked like me. But I never happened. So you know, I am very vocal, so I didn't want to be the vocal person in that group.

And then I found this girl who was way more vocal than mean, I was like, yeah so this is not got comfortable so IT was yet that was IT was leg. Okay, lag, I don't want to talk to strangers about my life, but they're going through the same thing. Who Better to talk than these people? yeah.

The clinic zoom group didn't last long and early in the pandemic thing, but before IT shut down alesha and a few wethers exchanged contact info so that they could keep meeting on their own. The women grew close to one another. They shared stories, tips, information, including information about the agreed val. The ones who gone through IT told the others, forget about what the clinic tells you. This is going to hurt.

So in my head, I felt like that was how was supposed to be, because even before I went to do my retrieval, they were prompting me and what i'm gonna feel and how i'm gonna feel you going, i'm saying. So in my head, all that pain and all of that was a part of the procedure.

Other patients experienced their treatments at deal in isolation. They went into the retrieval expecting to feel nothing, and then felt excruciating pain. This group of patients were expecting IT to be awful. They Normalize the pain for one another. So on the day of alley's retrieval, SHE wasn't surprised by what he felt.

But like I said, I wasn't sweating IT, because I was told by the girls of the group to be prepared .

for that well. And so tell me about what what you felt then, like, describe.

describe the pain to me. Like pressure, pressure. And you are you are bleeding a little bit too. So you know, it's that I first of all, I don't know what crams are. I never had them up on wood. So for me, I couldn't even tell you that, that was cramping or anything like that because I never plant on prior. Well, yeah, I all people always say that like I, like I I have really I know I just had never .

occurred to me that I was possible .

to not have craps and tell him I feel like my body just listened to me and was not physician to be making kids. Just assume that what IT yeah.

Her body didn't have cramps because her body wasn't meant to make babies, and SHE had only .

herself to blame for that.

After alesha had her agreement, al SHE reported her pain to her doctor.

So he asked about my experience. So IT was, and stuff like that my retrieve was done by him um and I told him like you know like you know I was up painful IT was and you know I was expecting IT because my girls got me prepared for IT and stuff like that. So and I like I said, I wasn't i'm a type person that I don't exaggerate so I wasn't like, oh my god, I was dying.

Like, no, so I just really cleared. I was very painful whatever. So we spoke on that and.

What was his reaction?

I think you had a look on his face of concern. Um I don't know what he did behind the scenes, but you would only be doing something if you have if you are permit to the fact of what IT is that we are going through if you have never been through IT, you hear pain. Pain can be anything you i'm saying. I'm assuming you've got expected to be painful.

After that retrieval, allissa had an embryo transfer and became pregnant, but one morning he woke up and he was bleeding. I knew he was no longer living, at least he said. I just felt IT and ultra sound confirmed the worst. Alesha was seventeen weeks in five days pregnant at the hospital. They told her that he could have surgery or he could push.

I gave birth to my baby. I chose to to bring her into this world so I could see her because he was dead inside me. And I couldn't done the opportunity to see her was low.

So because they think they, like, they told me they could break her apart, tried to get her, I said, no, I would. So they go through all of that, go through all of that, all the shots, everything else, all of that. And even being able to bring that chAllenge of this world is a lot. And we are into this world, but she's dead is a lot.

When alesha got a letter from yield, SHE put IT aside. I didn't totally kick in for her that he was a victim until a couple months later. When SHE got a breaking news's alert on her phone, yeller swapped file with sAiling and I shouldn't think sh'd ever met dona. Did, did you like, did you ever interacted with her at the clinic?

I don't think so. Even if I did, I don't remember her like I am not the friendly as person. So if I am very business, i'm doing business and then i'm leaving.

The girls in the group were angry at dona. Alesha was too, but what he felt was complicated. She's a manager at a forensic hospital, a psychiatric c hospital, for patients who've been charged with crimes, but in some cases found not to be responsible for what theyve done in her job there. She's worked with a lot of patients with addiction, and he told me that he saw on IT as a patient so her more that way than as her health care provider.

So I was the only person supporting this lady, the cause of the work that I do, you and I genuinely, you know, like M I A, I really intruding, have my heart in the judd. I do working with people, mental illness and and you know, in addition, isn't seen as bad. But IT IT IT is. So, you know, I, I, I felt for .

her now, on the morning of the hearing, a licious stares into her screen, waiting for the proceedings to start.

In downtown, knew haven layer arrives in the courtroom. Still not sure what he wants, but knowing he needs to be here to witness this. She's Donna upfront.

Her parents were there. They SAT. I think in the third row, I SAT in the back row. On the other side, I said on the the prosecution side and her parents were there, a friend was there. I think that's about IT for her.

The patients watching the hearing on zoom see that the room is almost empty down. And her lawyer are at a table up front donis, wearing a peach coloured top and a black mask. Many people on zoom turn off their cameras, but some don't.

Donas therapies is on there. And aunt of donas from LG island has log on multiple times one of her square shows or ceiling fan. And then the hearing starts.

Please be seated, everyone. The judge says at dan, you need to put your volume just a little thanks. No worries. The judge is judge Janet t.

Hall, seventy two years old, graduate amount holiday college appointed the venture in one hundred and ninety seven by president bill clinton, mother of three children, just like Donna. Obviously, I have the obligation of imposing a sentence on you. Judge hall says, basically, obviously, i've read a lot, but I haven't made a decision, and SHE really hasn't.

What will happen over the course of the hearing is that he will decide in real time, the judge will think out loud. SHE will grapple with what you will characterize as an unusually difficult case. The task before her is a narrow one to determine a sentence.

But in executing that task, SHE will engage some of the big questions at the heart of the story, dan's public defender stands. Her name is Allison, near forty six years old mother of two dollars, mary to a man who was a professor of ecology. Yeah, neither.

Here the judge agreed to speak with me for the story. Attorney nearer says she's been in contact with dona almost every day since they met in december and that as she's tried to help dona, quote, kind of unpacked the events from june, october of twenty twenty. I've learned so much Better, and i've been moved in, impressed by her insight into what when arrive.

And then attorney year begins to make her argument again. This isn't a trial. Dona has entered a guilty plea.

This is a sentencing hearing. The thing being decided today is not done as guilt or innocence, just the terms of her sentence. Dona faces a maximum sentence of just over five years in prison.

Attorney, here is here to argue that down to as little as possible. The trust of her argument is done as, quote, extraordinary family circumstances. That phrase has legal weight. The judge is obligated to consider down his family .

circumstances. Attorney.

near points out that i've done IT is sent to prison. Her x husband will almost certainly get custody. The judge must consider whether this is a good or even safe outcome for donors children.

In advance of the hearing, the judge has reviewed many documents like the character reference letters from dona's family and friends, and the police reports that contain accounts of her x husband's behavior. The judge has a lot of discretion to sentence below the guideline of five years. If he decides that don is family situation, warn IT attorney. Newer finishes her opening reMarks and calls a witness a friend of donors who said he fears for the safety of dawn is children if donas as husband gets custody and that don is children need her. When the friend is done, the judge begins to wrestle with her first big question .

of the morning, one about trust.

The judge says, quote, IT is just IT is a real serious offence IT is such a breach of trust, her relationship with the patients, the numbers who were impacted, the level of pain, I can only imagine. I don't have a lot of familiarity with the procedure, but I spoken to women who gone through IT. IT is physically and psychologically difficult to begin with.

Then you want to learn t on top that you do without pain management. IT isn't just the pain because that would diminish IT. IT is the breach of trust.

What many of the victims spoke about those letters about the sense of the breach of trust? I don't know. I don't know.

There's anything more. You can say a turney year, but I can't let you go down without asking. Attorney ear says that SHE anna have talked about this very thing a lot.

The dana has really tried to get out what was going on in her head. SHE mentioned that Donald appreciated the letter from the victim who talked about addiction in the brain, but the judge is asking a difficult question. And you know, I think your honour is right to guess. I probably don't have an answer to that question except to say that SHE more than accepts .

responsibility from .

the judge's perspective. There's a lot that's hard .

to answer here.

Here's a person, judge hall says now about who I have, how many letters and other things that tell me she's a wonderful person, a good citizen, clearly did something extremely bad and SHE cause harm to people, right? But how do you address that in a sentencing context when i'm also considering as and required to her history and characteristics which bring her family? So there's no as I said, you folks in a brief conference, we had there's no right.

There's no answer here. Forget about whether there's a good answer or a right answer. The judge style is not enduring her to layer.

I don't know what to do. I don't. How do I sentence like he had this whole thing?

I was like, kind of like a sign filled episode. I don't know. Should I don't know? I know, you know, I wrote a letter, many the women wrote letters, and the judge talks about how you'd read all the letters. And I was so hard, so hard for, I remember, as he was talking about, that was.

Blood anyway, says the judge, we're just repeating ourselves. Attorney, so you said your client was to speak. Yes, he does.

You're honor. Dona stands. Many people in my life have asked me various versions of the question. How did this happen? So dona, initially I was unable to answer that question with true in depth insight when I learned that my x husband had knowingly exposed my three minor children to his copy illness that later suffer an extended near death.

Hospitalization from IT created a fear and level of ananzi ety where my children are concerned they reach the holy level that I did not a process or handle. I ve sent the greater part of seven years working within the legal D, C, F and family court system to protect my children. I did all of this, buy the book and took pride in the same in june twenty twenty. I had a breaking point, and I think that, after all i've done to protect my children, that my actions have heard them so severely as devastating and a consequence .

that I will live with for .

the rest of my life in the back of the courtroom, lay licence .

intently. Dona, um you know, I don't think SHE IT was all about how you'd kind of like, oh, he needs to be with her children and SHE had failed her children. I don't know that I heard a lot of like remorse, but again, like what what could i've heard? What could any of us have heard that made us, you know, would make us feel Better?

Wooden acknowledgement of the pain the patients felt have done IT because danna leave that out. SHE doesn't say anything .

about pain at all.

And then danny is something that surprises layer, something that layer and others are learning in this courtroom for the very first time, dona says, I am a former fertility patient myself. And that interest is what drove me to my interest in fertility nursing. She's iv a patient too. Are you kidding me?

I mean, you could almost hear there were people on zoom. I could almost feel like the bomb drop like .

I everyone's on you.

but I am telling you like IT was like a moma was like I was like an audible gas.

The fact that .

he was an ibf patient herself, i'd like, I had to eta sketch my head. I was in a kind of profound shock. I was literally like a punch to the face, a punch to the gut. I took IT to a different kind of.

A different kind of what? right? This is exactly the question.

This levels IT up. But how and on what scale? scale? Emotional violence. We started on breach of trust. Now we are up to intimate betrayal. In our letter to the judge, donor rights, that he went through multiple rounds of fertility treatment and that her history is an ivf patient makes what he did that much more devastating. This is the moment thing shift for alysha.

When I heard that he went to, I was like, there is no way, there is no way I can ever look at this lady the same way. That's when I lost IT, because I said that there is no way me personally was gone through this, would even try to put any amount of other pain on a personal through that. And, you know, you went to adv of yourself, how could you possibly do this to somebody else? If IT was in that moment, I couldn't look at her the same way I looked at my patients anymore.

Donna had known how hard IT was to go through ibf. Not just the physical pain of the retrieval. SHE actually probably didn't know that pain at all.

She's probably gotten some kind of anesthesia. What was worse was that he knew the emotional pain. He knew about the special vulnerability of being a fertility patient.

SHE knew this in the intimate way. You can only know IT if you go through IT yourself. And still SHE had done this.

I I like I said, I am not a people's person, so nothing anyone does surprises me because people are who they are um so I just opened my eyes to say even when somebody has been through the exact same thing as you, they can still turn around and be a monster towards you.

In the front of the courtroom, dana apologizes to those SHE has hurt IT was never my intention to harm anyone in any way and then he winds up, thank you very much, says the judge. SHE dresses down as a tourney.

I guess I have one question I will ask you attorney near I I believe that I think in her statement, although i'm having trouble finding IT, I balling IT, but I think you argue IT in your brief about how and SHE just said IT again, never intended to hurt anyone. I struggle with that wherever IT is. When I read IT, I don't know I don't know how SHE wouldn't SHE didn't intend.

I guess in the sense she's an addict. She's doing something SHE doesn't control. Clearly he knew the consequences of depriving a patient undergoing this procedure of pain killer. Okay, another big question intent. Dana knew that her patients would suffer.

How do we deal with that? Attorney year explains that danna did not have malicious intent, but he continues, this is not any kind of ignorance about what the outcome is going to be. I guess I was separating IT out from somebody who is setting out to harm others.

IT is not an excuse. IT is not adjust fiction. I just think he is a fact. Okay, says the judge. A turning your ads. SHE continued to do this because he didn't think, because SHE didn't stop and tried to reconcile the fact in impact of what he was doing in the moment, side bar for a moment, my own side bar, my own reaction to attorney, near the idea that Donald didn't stop and think .

the way that plays .

out is more nuances isn't IT. Sometimes you do stop and think about the fact in impact, but you need is so great that you do IT anyway. Or sometimes you choose not to stop and think because you don't want to stop and think.

The whole point of your addiction is do not have to stop and think. IT is true that Donna had an opiate addiction. IT is also true that he made choices in that addiction.

Okay, i'm done with my side bar. Back to the proceedings. Judge hall turns to the prosecution.

You've been very patient, SHE says to assistant U. S. Attorney Raymond.

Er, he gets right to IT. I think there's another side to the story here, the U. S.

Attorney says, I think the first thing we need to think about is the first question we need to ask is, why are we all here today? Why are we here on tuesday morning in federal court? Well, i'll tell you why we're not here.

We're not here because the defendant decided to use drugs because of difficult family circumstances, were also not here, quite Frankly, because he still drugs. We are here today because he knowingly, intentionally, repeatedly replaced drug with saline and inflicted incredible physical and emotional suffering on the victims. As SHE did with a torney neer, the judge listens to a torney y.

Miller, and then he began to speak, SHE has another big question, one about institutional responsibility. I have a question, when narcotics are to spend to patients is a typical that one person is in charge and there's no other there's not a double check, somebody who also has access to look at someone other zoom tries in. Yes, great question.

Great question. I'm sorry, says the judge. Those of you on the zoom are not allowed IT as if you're in the courtroom. But anyway, again, I don't wish to take away from her. I'm not in any way asking and saying IT is somebody else is fault. I'm just curious, yields responsibility isn't the subject of this hearing, but this is the one moment it's eluded to, aside from this, the fact that there was an institutional failure here, a failure to prevent an employee from causing pain to patients for months on end doesn't come up at all.

The U. S.

Attorney mainly talks about why he's recommending the guideline sentence for dana again up to about five years. The judge tells him that is making an extremely compelling case. But you still got the same problem, which is essentially da harmed patients. But if SHE goes to prison, there's harm to her kids.

A torney y near has .

put a lot of stuff in front of me. That raises grave concerns, the judge says. I don't hear the government telling me, judge, that smoking mirror she's making IT up as long as bad as that I hold attorney year in the highest regard, attorney Miller says, I don't doubt the veracity of anything.

He says what I would urge the court to think about is that we're hearing one side of the story. I'm not prepared to litigate the viability of the x husband as a parent. I have no idea he might be terrible.

I have no idea he might have other counterpoints to what's being said. You don't have that perspective. So I think that you need to weigh that.

The judge is waiting that he knows multiple times during the hearing that there are gaps in what he knows. But she's red quote enough to raise red flags for me. IT is in total tension.

SHE notes the degree of capability and the degree of family circumstances that I need to consider. The judge explains that dawn's family circumstances don't make her any less culpable, but that the court is, quote, reluctant to reach extraordinary destruction on the family. I don't know that the victims would appreciate IT.

The judge says the victims can probably appreciate the legal requirement. That doesn't seem that hard to grasp, but the victims don't appreciate is the painful irony that isn't being acknowledged here. Donas status as a mother protects her and motherhood is why a lot of them are here in the first place. They wanted what he has.

I remember being like, why do you have to be a mom? This was an irony. Why does he get to be a mom that we can feel compassionate? When SHE decided that that's something that he could withhold from other people who are trying to be mothers.

you are talking about the fact that, oh, your family was falling apart. We were trying to have a family. You ve got to wear IT was, you could fall apart. We won't even very ads.

How dear, you.

Alysha had that miscarriage at seventeen weeks in five days. SHE sees herself as having been a mother .

for all of that time.

As a mom for seventeen weeks in five days, I would have been willing to die so my kid could live, SHE said. The cruelty here is not just the pain of the procedure, but the chance that Donna had had be a mother to continue to be a mother. And there's an essential, and which is that dona says that as a mother, he wants nothing more than to keep her children safe. But SHE made choices that endanger them.

the amount of fat and all he was having. And then returning to work, I just, but then he also had to let them pick up her kids and feed her kids. And he had this whole narrative about, oh, I was protecting them from this evil child father who didn't care about covered. And I thought, how did you take care of your kids?

What he was implying was SHE was doing everything in her power to be there for her children. And in my head, you were doing the total of as IT of everything you should be doing to be there for .

your kids to lisha.

There are a lot of things that just aren't adding up.

And and these good things, I was annoying me like they were making IT seem as though the reason he was doing drugs in the kind of her husband he was being a too much are, you know, he was whatever the reason that was to meet was just B. S. 不美。

The story seems like b as to a bunch of patients she's divorce. That doesn't sound very unusual to me. One of them said another one put in this way for her to blame all that on anxiety over a divorce with her husband and covered.

That doesn't make any sense. But the story doesn't have to make sense to the patients. They aren't the intended audience.

The purpose of the story is to keep down out of prison. The story has been constructed for the person who will decide her fate. The story is for the court, not for the victims.

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The hearing is almost over, but first there is a victim who wishes to speak good morning to you, and whenever you are ready to speak, please go ahead, says the judge. The victim speaks directly to dona, you hurt me. You hurt me on that day, and the pain was horrible, IT was excruciating and IT was awful.

For me. Specifically, what was really terrible was the psychological tool that judge hall has referenced, because i'm a physician and I know exactly what final does. And i've had the procedure before the extraction, and so I had fit now before.

So this time, at my second egg extraction, when they gave me the sAiling, I immediately said, hey, is the ceiling you didn't give me any final at all? And the nurse, I don't think IT was you actually, the nurse looked at me and said, I already gave you twenty five. And no, I said, you need to give me another because that was sAiling.

SHE gave me another one, and I said all that was sAiling also. I said, I know exactly this was sAiling. I can taste the sAiling in my mouth, and it's not the feeling of finnell.

I push funnel every day, all the time. I give moderate situation every day. This is not fennel. And I had a look at the doctor and look at the nurse and say, oh my god, i'm about to undergo this procedure with no sedation.

And, you know, I had to undergo IT because otherwise I was going to obvious ly and lose all of my eggs. The victim says that after the procedure, SHE was in so much pain that he ended up going to the E. R.

At the hospital where SHE herself was a trauma surgeon, there are, quote, the nurse I had worked with the day before. They even recognize me because I was in such a terrible shape. I was in such pain.

All I could do was moon. I could even communicate. I wasn't that much pain, and SHE thought I was a drug edit. SHE didn't even recognize me as her attending doctor that was working with her on the emergency department the day before .

when I was on call.

You know, the victim says to me, you are the big winner here. You weren't in pain. You have three children.

Nobody y's going to take anything. You still have three kids at this infertility clinic. There's hundreds of women who would rather be where you are, rather have the three kids.

It's been a really difficult time. And you kick us while we were down. That's all.

Dona's lawyer speaks.

I think IT is appropriate .

for the victims to have the last word. Today you're on our. If only that we're the case attn y near i'm afraid I have to have the last word here IT comes.

I'm still .

struggling, judge hall says. The judge seems to be trying to pull everything together SHE reflects on the patient suffering SHE tells dona, quote, you work such pain on these women. SHE reflects on all of the letters and on a support on her confession, her rehabilitation, her children.

The judge seems to have .

settled something for herself. SHE is ready to rule.

As I reach my decision.

I keep thinking of someone who was never my colleague, but for who I had a lot of respect, judge emc cLarry, whose that in hartford, he said the days when no one with a White coller went to jail. But his philosophy was, he was ahead of his time. Everyone should have a taste.

If you would please rise, i'm going to impose a sentence. The judge sentences dona to four weekends in prison, alternating weekends because of her custody arrangement. On sunday's, the martial will make sure he gets out in time to pick up her kids.

Obviously, I know from the victim's point of view, this is too little, the judge says, and i'm sure they think i've made a mistake. I don't know if I have myself, not, I do not see IT SHE adds immediately, the judge named some additional conditions, including a period of house arrest and three years of supervised release with Mandatory substance use treatment and drug testing. Anything further that the court should address, the judge asks, not from the government, says a tourney Miller, no, your on our done as lawyer says, alright, will stand in recess.

Thank you all very much. Someone on zoom on mute, do the world a favour and go overdose, you disgusting drug. We're upon the hearing adjourned at twelve seven pm.

What do you make of the judge's decision to sentence or the way you did? What do you make judge sentence?

Yeah, I think he was unfair. He is a kick her to a situation like this, unless you have been in a situation where you are going through infertility issues, you never understand IT.

The judge had heard the victim stories, but he hadn't experienced what they did. In aleshine's view, a story is not enough to understand the pain .

of another. I can tell you how I feel less than the average person, because I cannot go about with my husband, make up with him and make a child. That wasn't my way.

So my only way was the way that I chose to do, and even trying to do that. Someone else decided to bring more pain to one i'm already feeling. It's hard for somebody to see that unless the judge herself and going to I, V, F.

And by that logic, the logic of identification, you wonder about the inverse. The judge was a mother. Dona was a mother dana's attorney was also a mother. Was mother hood the decision of alliance? But ali thought there were probably other reasons for the sentence.

too, honestly, that I think IT would be that little amount of time now. Absolutely not. But I wasn't surprised.

Why weren't you surprised?

And I say it's a lot of things that does not surprise me in this country a whole lot and um you know like like he says, uh, he would get to stay home and should be there for her kids. And every accommodation was made for this woman. This one cares so many pain to so many different people.

And he was accommodated SHE to in my mind, SHE was accommodated to the full extent. No, I don't believe that would have been everybody else much for her. IT worked out. And when you look around in this country, nothing surprises me anymore.

Honestly.

do you think that the fact that she's White had something to do with her?

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. If you are doing time for vote, for registering to vote, and someone can take that amount of medication for herself, then that tells me is something. And and everything is not a boat race, but a lot of things are a lot of things are.

The sentence invited questions about privilege. IT wasn't just said I was so late. IT was so convenient. IT was designed to fit dona's needs. IT was a spoke sentencing Taylor or to fit her needs as a mother down.

I got to say, oh, but i'm now rehabilitating and I want to be with my kids and the judge said, you know what? Yes, really, you've had a really hard, this really hard. That sounds really hard. Let's make sure you can just go to president the weekends where you don't have to see your kids and then will let you out in time to go pick up your kids. I mean, that is that White ness in america. I don't know what is that that and and I I and I thought the entire time I was like, black women have had their children taken away for a tenth of an centimeter of what done is done. And she's now she's she's being protected because SHE represented herself as an injury mother and she's the last line of defense for her kids and that's okay even though she's a drug addict whose are putting other people's lives at risk.

Lay went into the hearing not knowing what he wanted. SHE came in, torn between her misgivings about the system in her outrage at dona, in a way, the sentence capture in that place. Kd, the addiction researcher, went into the hearing knowing what he believed. It's not exactly what you wanted, but seeing IT all play out did not feel good. I cried .

the whole time. I mean, I found IT really, really sad all around. Just the nurses circumstances, the victims who testified so emotional, and all of us who experience these horrible procedures and pregNancy losses, the poor system in place, the criminal justice system, the whole thing I remember and I remember, you know, despite my letter and my my belief and absence to treat men, I I was I felt and still feel really deeply that that many women were probably really hurt by the late sentence that he received. I remember texting a friend like something like I was complicated, but A A good outcome, but complicated.

Angela, the patient who works as a public defender, learned about the sentence after the fact he chose not to attend the hearing.

At that point, I had a new borne son, and the thought of reliving in in those moments was too much for me.

Yeah, what do you make of her sentence?

Kudos to her public fender. Honestly.

when Angela learned of down his crime, he struggled to identify as a victim. Now her dual identities were colliding again.

I think the worst conversation I had was a family member was like, well, you know, what would you have like to see happen? And honest, I don't know. And this feeling member asked me if I wanted her to have to go through an agreed val without pain medication. If that would have been enough.

Like, would you want .

her to suffer like you suffer?

And I dead face that .

I would never want someone to go through what I went through. I don't care if she's the reason why IT happened. I would never wish this on her. Yeah and just having to then .

explain how traumatic IT was.

but how I had to be OK with her, I think, is a light sentence. You have to jail .

on .

the weekends and .

go to a .

drug program. But the defensive .

tuning and .

me also kind of kicked in to hide gear and was like, well, this is somebody who has a drug addiction and they need help, and concerting them isn't going to help. They need to be able to function and society beyond beyond this. And SHE SHE obviously lost her nursing license, so SHE can't do IT again in radially.

At the end of the hearing, the few people inside the courthouse stepped out into a Sparkling spring afternoon. Local news cameras follow dona her attack y put a protective hand on her back. Donna held a chief of papers and adverted her gaze as he left the scene. Her case was over. But for Angela and other patients, dona was not the only one, or even the main one who had something to explain.

Honestly, get my angers. Not at her. IT probably should more be at her, but it's not because she's one person and SHE wasn't the nurse in my room. So what were the rest of them doing?

In front of the course is the new haven Green. On the other side of IT, up a little hill is yellow, a long wall of stone towers along college street.

The yale fertility clinic is not, you know, a brand new setting, is not one doctor in a back ali, this is an entire set up, is an entire you know, institution that's behind its about this reputation. How do they not see .

that .

this is happening now?

The patients had done a story. IT may have been incomplete or unsatisfying, but IT had been laid out. There was another story the patient still didn't have. They didn't have yellow story. What we know about what happened at the clinic that's in two weeks, tilly, twenty seven, on the next episode .

of the retrieval.

The retrieval is produced by me in law star cheskin. Laura edited the series with editing in producing help from july snider, additional editing by Kitty mingle and irag lass research in fact checking by then fAiling and k and love music supervision, sound design and mixing by feb way, original music by color alone and music mixing by in tubes is the supervising producer for serial productions at the new york times. Our standard editor Susan whistling legal review by dana Green, our direction from public delcote, producing help from jeffrey maranda, Kelly do, ron beri, desert avoca and initial money sam donor is the assistant managing another special thanks to Vincents thread and kindly silver. The retrieval is a production of serial productions in the new york times.