My traumatic birth story

Baby girl was one month yesterday! I’ve had quite the month and I’m ready to share my severely traumatic birth story if anyone is interested. It is LONG.

Trigger warning for some

Part 1: induction/labor

At 40w6d I went in on 10/10/19 to be induced. I started the induction process at 2pm at Salem Hospital. 1:45am my water broke. They wanted to keep the monitor on me for baby heart rate so I wasn’t able to move around or labor in a tub or use any type of ball. I had to stay in a specific position so the monitor wouldn’t fall off. I had to wait until I was 3cm at 3am to get an epidural. First scare was immediately after my epidural I had a reaction and my blood pressure dropped to 70/30. I was given medicine to increase my BP and all was well. My contractions had slowed down from my Epidural so I was given pitocin and they increased my dose every 20 mins throughout the day. I progressed to fully effaced and 7cm rather quickly, but baby was still high up. They kept trying to increase my contractions strength, and had to use a catheter on my uterus to measure the strength to see if they were strong enough. Baby also needed a transducer placed on her scalp to monitor her heart rate. My epidural kept wearing off on my left side, and had to be increased 3 times. By 430pm I was 10cm and baby had moved down a little. The doctor said time to push and I labored for over an hour with no progress. That meant time for a c-section.

Part 2- csection/recovery

My c-section wasn’t an emergency. It was very relaxed. Me and baby were both perfect and no distress at all. I changed into scrubs and was wheeled in while Adam changed outside the operating room. C-sections just use more epidural to numb you, and I let them know my left side had not been working. They decided to go ahead and give me more epidural and see. The epidural did not work and they decided to give me a spinal tap. Something started to feel wrong. I was losing all feeling in my arms and chest and then I couldn’t get air from the oxygen mask. I had to ask if it was on and they said it was. I then told them i couldn’t take any breaths and I overheard the anesthesiologist say to a nurse that it was nothing, I just had anxiety. I then could no longer breath, I start mouthing the words “help me” a few times, until I could no longer even move my mouth. This all happened over what felt like forever, but was probably 20 seconds. I was aware of everything but was frozen and numb from head to toe and could not breath. By this point I was intubated and put under general anesthesia all while Adam was outside waiting for them to come let him in to see the birth of our daughter. Someone came out to tell Adam that he cannot come in because I wasn’t breathing, and left it like that. He had to run to the nurses station and ask if we were alive and what was going on. Thankfully a nurse grabbed his phone and went into the OR and snapped a picture of Mackenzie for him so he knew she was alive. During the c-section I had a very bad hemorrhage. I was taken to recovery when I stabilized. When I started to wake up, I was so weak I couldn’t open my eyes for many hours. I couldn’t even look at my daughter yet. I couldn’t lift my arms or move my legs or body still. I was in recovery for hours. I had an fever/infection and also had tachycardia the whole time where my heart rate didn’t get below a 150. Whatever they did over the course of those hours worked and I finally was able to open my eyes. At this point it had been over 10 hours from my c-section. I was able to be moved into a regular room and had to get blood transfusions after my bloodwork came back that I had lost more blood than they thought and it was super low.

So what happened during my c-section? Apparently I had something super super rare called a “high spinal”. My epidural mixed in with the spinal tap and it numbed my body up instead of just below my chest. I lost all function and feeling of everything. Those 20 seconds were unreal.

Being in a normal post delivery room was amazing. I still couldn’t get up and had circulation cuffs on my legs to make sure i didn’t have blood clots. I was able to breastfeed as long as someone positioned my arms and helped me, I couldn’t hold Mackenzie on my own yet.

10/13! I was finally able to stand on my own. I changed my first diaper. I was getting my strength back and could hold her myself. breastfeeding became my main concern as due to all the blood loss my body wasn’t producing real milk yet and Mack was so hungry. Fed is best, always, so we started supplementing with formula.

10/17- a week after my induction started, 6 transfusions later, being awake for days trying to breastfeed using every method(syringe, sns nursing system, pumping every 3/4 hours after each feed and honestly this alone could be pages to describe), My blood levels were high enough where they said I could go home! But, surprise! Power is out at my condo. First day home and we crash at my cousin Adrienne’s house for a few hours with our pack and play. That night we go to my aunt’s until we learn power has been restored at midnight. 12am we pack up with our newborn and go home for the first time in over a week where we all live happily ever after.

JK

Next day 10/18

I get my staples out. Apparently staples aren’t a common way to close c sections any longer, and I still have no idea why this was the chosen method. Staples out, but it turns out part of my wound never closed. I now need a visiting nurse to come to my home EVERY DAY and clean it and pack it with gauze until it closes.

10/24 we made it almost full week without anything happening. Yay! 7pm I start having uncontrollable chills and shaking to the point where my whole body looked like it was convulsing. Grabbed a thermometer thinking my temp was low, but turns out I have a fever. I call OB and am told to go to the ER. Go to the ER and I have a double kidney infection.

10/29 Adam’s 2nd day back at work and Mackenzie had a newborn photo shoot scheduled in Wilmington. I still can’t lift more than 5-10 pounds so my cousin came with me to help with the car seat and everything and then she had a an apt for her daughter and my other cousin was coming to relieve her and come for the second half. In the 20 mins of overlap between cousins(my first time alone without a family member) the photographer finally got Mack to fall asleep and she started taking some photos for like 5 mins. (Newborn photo shoots can last up to 5 hours in case you’re going to get some). At this point it had been about 3 weeks since my c section and I had only been minimally bleeding, like spotting. I was sitting down making sure Mack’s head wasn’t in a bad position etc... and I started bleeding a bit. And then it bled a little more and I was like, I think I might bleed on your floor do you have a towel. And then she’s like, is this normal? I said no. She said do you want me to call 911. I said yes. Then that’s when it got bad. I started GUSHING blood. Like pouring pouring out of me. It was so bad and she’s on the phone with 911 and grabbed the baby and I have a huge pool of blood and blood won’t stop gushing out. I start passing out and she lays me down. When I wake up the EMts are there and I can’t speak and it’s still gushing out and I’m vomiting and can’t even see. They transport me to Winchester hospital and I immediately get 4 IVs and they give me 9 bags of blood and platelets. It’s really bad and they cut off all my clothes and I’m barely alive. My blood pressure is 60/30. I am in and out and Adam and my mom are there and I’m naked with 15 doctors around me. They tell me I need a surgery ASAP to clean my uterus out from clots and tissue once I’m stable enough. I get a lot of blood and finally have an okay blood pressure and they give me anesthesia and do the procure. Once they are done I’m in ICU and they tell me they need me to go to MGH. So I get transported to MGH tues night and I was there until Halloween night. No more bleeding thank god. Somehow i lived even though i don’t think a lot of them thought I would. The last day leaving MGH I had terrible pains on my side and turns out unrelated I just had a huge kidney stone.

10/31-now

I still have a nurse coming to do my wound care but now it’s 3-4 times a week instead of daily. I’ve had some instances of high blood pressure and had to go to urgent care. I do have another infection but treating with antibiotics. Other than that I am great and baby is absolute perfection. Im still at risk for another hemorrhage for 2 more weeks, but hopefully these weeks will be very uneventful.

We did get one photo of my beautiful baby girl.