Mr. Morgan,

If you should happen to come across this site of mine, I hope you will take the time to read the following letter I wrote. I did not send it directly to you because at the time it was written, you still claimed no accountability or remorse for your actions and you stated to the press you had no intentions of doing so either. So this letter is being placed here for all to see and acts as a healing mechanism for me. I only hope some day that God is as forgiving as I am for your sake!!

February 26, 2000

Dear Mr. Morgan,

I am writing this letter as a last ditch effort of getting an apology from you even if you still feel there is not a need for one. But maybe after what has transpired recently, you may have a change of heart. Be thankful that your license is the only thing you lost on February 24, 2000. Maybe you now may be more apt to listen to what I have to say. I want to let you know that I have never been out to punish you as a person, just the act you committed, just as you would punish a child when they did something that was unacceptable. I don't know why I felt I needed to write this letter other than as a healing mechanism for me in finding closure or the capacity for love, understanding and forgiveness I have no trouble displaying to others except you, but on the other hand I do not feel hatred toward you either as you may think. I have had to relive this nightmare over and over without any real relief for any length of time and the least I can do now is to help you to recall what truly transpired on October 11, 1989 (the facts) and events leading up to that. That still remains to be acknowledged by you as you seem to only recall what you believe transpired...so in hopes of ever having complete closure or just a smidge of closure of this long chapter, I thought it only right you have it relayed again to you so this matter can be cleared up once and for all. My story has never changed because I never felt a need to lie..I lived it. I was initially referred to you by Planned Parenthood in October 1985 when I felt I might be pregnant as I had not had a cycle since the beginning of August. I entered your office and my pregnancy was confirmed, but something wasn't right about it. Your examination did not match my dates and I was not really feeling all that well at that time either. It wasn't until I started becoming really nauceous that I knew something was definitely wrong and you came to the conclusion I was miscarrying...which did become that reality. A sonogram showed a pregnancy but no fetus and was sent home to rest, where I ended up doing nothing other than passing clots and endured a pain I had never felt before then. My husband was out of town and I was left to endure this basically on my own with no real relief until my body completed the termination of it on its own following a D & C by you that concluded there was really nothing more to clean out anyway. It was the lack of concern by you at that time that made me hesitate in coming back to you when I became pregnant with my son, Kyle. At this time, though, I was running a daycare in my home where 3 children I cared for had all been delivered by you, so it was basically the mothers of these children that felt my hesitation was not substantiated and that I should not be fearful. They highly recommended me to return to you for this pregnancy which seemed to be very different than my miscarriage but similar to how I felt when I was pregnant with my daughter, Leslie whom I gave birth to in Virginia (where I moved shortly after I had miscarried).

You were not very receiving of me then as I recall and treated my previous c-section as an unnecessary one. I was trying hard to believe that at that time. But your insults didn't really start to become more frequent until I started getting bladder infections that was bringing on contractions in my 5th month of pregnancy. I chocked it up as an overreaction of your insults due to raging hormones.

There was a reason I delayed in filing my claim (2 months later) and the reason for that was because my sister, Elaine McDowell, who was in your care at the same time of Kyle's birth, had yet to deliver. I waited until her daughter, Andrea was born before I took action as I did not want to upset her or make the mistake of you finding out she was family as you found out Lisa Utter (a neo-natal nurse at Community East) was.

That's where you came up with the acknowlegement of that..but not the real truth to how you were referred to me. I did not know Lisa Utter before 1987 and my miscarriage was in 1985. You didn't come to know Lisa as related to me until after Kyle's birth since she didn't have the same last name as me...nor did my sister..for that matter. I had requested that Lisa check my baby long before he was born (never once anticipating harmful damages..but to help me introduce him to the world as a healthy infant that wouldn't be placed in the same nursery as she worked). She's the one who also suggested I demand a c-section when problems started occurring early on as an indication he may not be able to survive a vaginal birth after all without harmful repercussions, but I left that decision in your hands to make for me.

The remainder of the pregnancy , followed by the tragic delivery need not be relived in this letter. You already know the result. It is one thing to lose a child. It is quite another to find out it could have been prevented and if it weren't for the unprofessional behavior and lack of empathy you displayed throughout the pregnancy, during the delivery and immediately after the birth, I may never have gone through with my complaint against you, but because of that, I needed to know what went so wrong and knew I wouldn't find out unless I did file, because you never admitted that a mistake had occurred. What I came to find out was much more than I ever anticipated or imagined. I had already concluded in my mind that something definitely did go wrong but never imagined it was the result of malpractice on your part. In my heart I do know that Kyle could not have lived through 2 bouts of meningitis and pneumonia on top of the severe brain damage if he had not been healthy to begin with. That is why the peer review had a hard time in finding the causation factor . They said it was a possibility that his death was a result of his injuries from birth but that they really couldn't say it was a definite cause. So basically it was left open...there was not a yes or a no on this portion of the unannymous vote of malpractice, but definitely that I, nor my child, received the acceptable standard of care.

Now to clear up another matter of importance...my request for a vaginal birth. I have never denied I didn't want another c-section. After you presented the option of V-Bac, I was very relieved this could be performed without bringing harm to my baby or myself. What I was most adamant about was I did not want to endure yet another long drawn-out labor with it resulting in another c-section if it could be avoided at all possible. You assured me further by performing a pelvemetry when I started having doubts later on whether it was still safe to do this when you discovered I would be delivering a rather huge baby. I was quite elated when you told me he was going to be big..which to me meant he was going to be healthy but then you squashed that joy with an uncalled-for and unprofessional remark, "Have you ever tried pushing one of these out?" (evidently I hadn't which you already knew too). You never waited for an answer and I didn't feel you required one anyway at that point...as you didn't give the impression you really cared to receive one...but still I continued to trust your expertise if it ever became necessary for early intervention of a c-section rather than make me push a baby out that was not going to fit without harming him and/or me. I trusted you to be there for me when troubles did in fact occur, but you were no where in site at that time nor felt a need to come back in time to physically check on our well-being...but that is neither here nor there, now is it?

Go now and hug those two gorgeous daughters of yours and tell them how much they are truly loved by you because if there was nothing else I wished to see on Feb. 23-24th, I did see the love, care and support they bestowed upon you. Be thankful they were present to share that with you now and years to come. Without that deep love and affection to hold onto, life would be such a lonely and bitter existence.

I do want to thank you for bringing my niece, Andrea safely into this world. She is such a joy and breath of fresh air!!!

I know that any changes you make to absolve you from all these past incidences will not bring my baby back, but maybe, just maybe the love you feel for your children will give you the courage to apologize to those of us who were stripped of giving to our dead and injured children, and to our spouses and our babies' siblings. If you cannot bring yourself to do that, I will respect that as I know it would take every ounce of courage to do so. If this is not to be, I only pray that God is as forgiving to you as I am willing to be.

Know you are loved and nothing can break that bond if you believe love, compassion and everything you eventually will come to know again, can still exist after all that you've accomplished and endured yourself! Only you can make that happen along with a strong faith in God and love. You are a very intellegent person who has a lot to offer your community, just not in the field you had most difficulty holding on to!!

If this letter has not accomplished anything for you if you should happen to find it some day, it has for me.

Regretfully but with hopes of forgiveness some day,
Joni Anderson & family