13 weeks! 13 weeks is how long it took me to come out of the constant back pain I was in after my delivery. My story really began at 36 weeks with my 2nd daughter. My blood pressure started to elevate and nothing I seemed to do could get it down. Skip 2 weeks later at my 38 weeks appointment. Doctor looked at my bp and said those magical words, "let's have a baby!" Checked in, they hooked me up, gave me something to thin out my cervix, everything was great. Next morning, they checked me, 60% effaced, started pitocin, came back a few hours later, checked me, 6 cm dilated, started epidural, broke my water, again, everything was great. Then everything wasn't so great anymore. Nurses had a hard time finding my baby's heart rate on the monitor so they decided to do internal monitors. They found a heartbeat but her heart rate would go from 140 to 60 every time I contracted. Then from there, it would get lower and lower and at one point, her heart rate got to 32. That's when everything went crazy. The next thing I knew, I was being wheeled out of the delivery room and in to the OR. I was laid on my back, arms stretched out, doctors and nurses surrounding me. For some reason, it didn't click with me that I was going to be having an emergency c section. I was actually quite calm until I looked up and the anesthesiologist looked down at me and said, "Everything is going to be ok. When you wake up, your baby will be here." The tears came falling down my cheeks as I came to realize that something was wrong with my baby and they needed to get her out as soon as possible. The mask was placed on my face and I felt myself struggling to take deep breaths through the tears, but I fell asleep. When I came to, I can remember seeing the nurse beside me on one side, and my husband on the other. He explained to me what had happened, and that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my baby's body twice and that every time I contracted, it would squeeze her. But in the end, we had a beautiful, healthy, 6lb 2oz baby girl. A few days later, while in the hospital, I noticed that my body was crooked. I didn't have to have a c section with my first so I thought it was just normal to be crooked. Boy was I wrong! Night number 2 at home! All of us were sound as sleep when all of a sudden I screamed out in the most extrusiating pain I've ever felt in my lower back. It made me fall out of bed and on to the floor. I've never experienced a pain like that in my life. It felt like a knife was jabbed into my spine and twisted. It took a good 5 to 8 minutes for the pain to go down enough for me to get out of the floor. The next day, I couldn't stand. I couldn't sit, walk or even nurse my baby. The pinching in my lower back, reached to my toes and I found that I was even more crooked than I was b4. A week later we decided to see a chiropractor. The pain didn't go away and I was desperate to find relief and get back to my normal life. Fast forward 6 weeks to a different chiropractor and still in the exact same boat. Still crooked, leaning to one side, had every pain pill known to man in my body, constant pinching pain from my lower back, all the way down my leg to my toes. Still couldn't walk, stand, sit, nurse or even hold my new baby. The new chiropractor worked on me for 4 weeks when one day he looked at me and said "I don't know why you're still crooked." It then hit me that he wasn't going to fix it. That I was going to have to see a back doctor. 10 weeks of pleading with God, confined to my bed, doped up on pain pills, watching my newborn being taken care of by others instead of me, watching my 4 year old yearning to be with her mommy. It was all for nothing. I felt like I wasted everyone's lives by going to these chiropractors but I felt in the very core of my soul, that they would fix my back. At my next OB visit, he ordered me an MRI. The next week I had my scan done, and during my scan, the medical technician informed my husband that I was going to have to have surgery. When I got the results back, it was shown that I had 2 bulging discs, and a ruptured disc that was on my nerve root. I was referred to the best back doctor in my area and a week later, I had surgery to remove the ruptured part of the disc. It's been 3 weeks since my surgery. My pain is gone! I'm no longer crooked. I'm left with 2 scars, one from my c section and one from my back surgery but also left with emotional scars. The emotional scars of having to give up nursing, scars of a defeated mother, scars of losing precious moments with my family, scars of feeling like a failure. Those scars will take time to heal. But knowing I can hold both of my girls makes things easier. I'm moving forward with my life and making up for lost time. I couldn't have gone this far without God, my family, and friends! Every story is different. Every situation has a purpose. I hope and pray that my story can encourage anyone who is fighting their own battle.