I have never been one to see the doctor often/without cause, and try to keep my complaining to a minimum. However, I feel like maybe posting about this might give me some comfort. Here’s my birth story.

I was having contractions from 4:30 PM - 11:30 PM that were increasing in strength and frequency. My hubby and I decide we should go to hospital.

Walk into hospital lobby. Woman is being wheeled in by security officer, and that woman is SCREAMING bloody murder. Her husband is following 50 feet behind. I think her baby might come out in the lobby. My husband and I walk in together and I am even more terrified.

We go to triage, and I don’t know how I can follow that woman. I had an appointment earlier in the day, and they’re like “you were only 1 cm dilated earlier. Why are you here?”.

They take me back and check me out. I am now 4 cm dilated. It’s go time, baby!

Except it’s not. They take me to labor and delivery. The nurse is like “so......want an epidural?” And I was like “well...does it make sense to get it now???” She’s like “oh yeah definitely!”. Enter anesthesiologist. Enter epidural. Nurse: “why don’t you and hubby get some sleep?” (It’s like midnight)

...7 hours later.

Nurse decides it’s time for me to start pitocin and using a peanut ball to get the labor thing going. Then the doc breaks my water.

This is when it gets bad. My hubby is my “support person” and him and the nurse help me through majority of pushing.

Doctor comes in and says “so, do you think we’ll be out of here by 5?” 😫

I pushed for 2 hours and she ended up flipping and getting stuck. I pushed and pushed and tore in 2 spots. Finally I pushed out my beautiful baby girl.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

I have 9 people in my room because I was hemorrhaging so badly. I lost 900 cc’s of blood. I was sitting on that hospital bed and all I kept thinking was “I am going to die”. The doctor thought they lost the gauze pads inside of me.

The doctor takes me off the epidural and then starts stitching me back up. When I winced he goes “oh. You can feel that?”

I had low platelets that meant my blood didn’t clot well. I felt like I got hit by a train for the next 2 weeks, and my parents were terrified for me when they saw me in the hospital.

I love my beautiful daughter more than words. But how do you let go of such a traumatic experience?

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.