Sweet baby Oliver was born 9/25/18 weighing 7 pounds 9 ounces! I never thought I would be one to share my birth story but you guys, it was nothing that I was prepared for.

I went in for an induction Tuesday morning at 7am. My Dr broke my water right away and started pitocin. I was shocked that they broke my water so soon because I thought maybe it would break on my own or I would have it broken later in the labor process.

Pitocin makes the contractions crazy! So close together and really strong. I walked the halls for what seemed like forever and used the birthing ball for positioning in the room. The nurse I had wasn’t a believer in checking my cervix very often so when she didn’t want to check me but offered the epidural I decided I wasn’t ready. After about 20 more minutes and a rate change on my pitocin I changed my mind. The nurse told me it could be an hour from when I ask for it before the anesthesiologist could make it. Even though my original plan was to try to wait as long as possible. At this point my pain level was about a 9 and I am so glad I requested one when I did because the anesthesiologist came in and had me lay on my side to insert the epidural. Once I laid down my contraction pain level went from a 9 to a 15. I didn’t even really feel the epidural because I was in so much pain with the contractions.

After I was numb my nurse decided to check me. I was only at a 4. I felt a little defeated that I ended up getting the epidural at only a 4 but let me tell you, ladies, it is so worth it!!! I went from a 4-6 in an hour and once I was able to fully relax I went from a 6 to a 9.5 in 45 minutes. However the nurse said I was stuck at a 9 for hours. No progression. I kind of think this was inaccurate though because my nurse was really bitchy and seemed checked out. She was 37 weeks pregnant herself and had a scheduled c section in 13 days. It was almost end of her shift and I just think she didn’t want to deal with me pushing since it was my first baby or stay and deliver my baby and do the charting afterwards. I was starting to have fevers, high blood pressure, and high heart rate.

The new night nurse came on shift and she was AMAZING!! She checked me after 30 minutes of being there and I was miraculously at a 10. Pushed for an hour and a half and my sweet boy was here!! Only one tiny tear and a couple stitches. He was born with a fever as well so they were watching to see if he needed to go to NICU for antibiotics. He ended up not needing them and got to stay with mom and dad.

I, however, started hemorrhaging. Passing huge clots, some as big as 10 cm, and lots of blood. They kept pushing on my stomach and clots and blood would just shoot out of me. They ended up having to manually clean out my uterus several times. This was the worst thing to ever happen to me. My epidural was shut off for sometime before this happened so I felt everything. Screaming as the dr put her hand inside me and dug around as well as pushed so hard on my

sore belly/uterus. They almost had to take me to the OR and preform surgery if this didn’t work. Luckily it worked and she didn’t have to go in again. I was going to refuse to let her. She had already done it 5 times and I couldn’t handle the pain anymore.

I didn’t get up to my room (non labor and delivery) until about 430am. Everything seemed to be going well, baby was doing fine and both of our fevers had subsided. The next day I was feeling really light headed, throwing up, extremely weak. My hemoglobin levels were at 5.6. Severely anemic. I ended up accepting 2 units of blood and felt so much better the next day they let me go home.

I should have stayed. My dr went out of town for a conference and that night I passed another 5cm blood clot in the shower. Called the dr on call and told them, they just said watch it. The next day (Saturday) I passed 4 more smaller clots. Felt extremely terrible, hot and cold sweats, short of breath, just over all felt like I was dying. Called the dr on call again, they said just watch it. Sunday was more of the same. My dr was finally back in town on Monday so I called her office and demanded to be seen. The nurse was really rude and trying to refuse to let me have an appointment but she finally let me see my dr.

They did another lab draw at this appointment and while my hemoglobin rose some my white blood cell count was very high at 24. I was admitted to the hospital right away and started on iv antibiotics. A sonogram of the uterus showed a large clot or retained placenta and I was scheduled for a D&C the following day. Surgery went really well and it turns out that I had an extra lobe of placenta that was detached from the placenta my baby was using.

After almost 2 weeks in the hospital from birth till now my sweet boy and I are finally home to stay. It was the scariest experience in my life but I would do it a million times over just to be this little mans mom.