My Scary Birth Story

Hello everyone and welcome to my little blog!

Today I am going to share my birth story with you all and before I do, I’d like to add in a little disclaimer. All births are different and all babies are different, so your birth may not be as spooky and complicated as mine. We knew from about 20 weeks we would be having a preemie who would need to go to the NICU, we knew I would be induced, and we knew it might end in a c-section. I was diagnosed with preeclampsia and our baby had severe IUGR so she wasn’t growing normally.

If you want to know more about my pregnancy, you can check out these links below where I go into more detail about our complications.

First Trimester Recap

My Unlucky Second Trimester

My Complicated Third Trimester

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Ok let’s begin.

I had a routine biophysical exam to measure our baby’s growth and doplers scheduled on Valentine’s day.

Since we had been going in twice a week for roughly the last 4 months, we all knew what her usual dopplers looked like. But sure enough that day they were even more abnormal than usual and showed that our baby had stoped progressing and was now regressing.

We were taken immediately to labor and delivery where we filled out paperwork, got settled in, and had our last meals.

The plan was to give me medication to soften my cervix, then give me patocin and hope the baby showed no signs of distress.

I was given one dose of misprocin and baby Holly was doing great for about 4 hours. When they checked me for dialation, I was 1 cm so they didn’t give me a second dose. Instead they started me on pitocin.

Here is when everything went from not great to pretty scary.

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After I was given the pitocin, our baby’s heartbeat started to crash when a contraction would start and rebound back to the normal range when the contraction was over, so the labor team decided to take me off pitocin to see if Holly would recover and be able to tolerate labor.

Long story short, she wasn’t getting better and at 8 am after 18 hours of unmedicated labor, it was strongly recommended that baby be delivered via c-section.

Since my husband and I already knew this would be a possibility, we immediately decided to have the surgery. After that we filled out the consent forms and other last minute paperwork and were walked through the procedure.

We were told I would have one bag of antibiotics before the surgery to help prevent infections in baby and I. Then I would be taken to get preped for surgery and my husband would get dressed in scrubs so he could be in the room with me.

Unfortunately I am allergic to normal antibiotics, so the doctor had to specially order them and there was a mixup at the lab so I wouldn’t be able to have any before the surgery.

So away I went to get my spinal so I wouldn’t feel anything and my husband got dressed into his scrubs.

I had just gotten up onto the table when a nurse asked if my heartbeat or the baby’s heartbeat was on the moniter. Another nurse said it wasn’t mine because I didn’t have my moniter on.

After that it went from an unplanned c-section to a Code 1 emergant situation.

Aparently the baby’s heartbeat had dropped to 54 beats per minute. Normally babies have a heartbeat of around 150 beats per minute.

Everyone in the room started to panic. I still hadn’t had my spinal yet, my heartbeat monitor wasn’t on, the curtain wasn’t up but the doctor started to put the iodine on my belly anyway. I was still sitting up receiving my spinal when they started the surgery and I felt everything.

Shortly after the first cut, the surgen said “Oh sh**” and he and the anesthesiologist shared a worried look. I thought our daughter had passed away so I gave myself a little pep-talk that no matter what happened my husband and I would be able to get through it together.

Every time I gasped in pain the anesthesiologist would give me another dose of pain medication. Finally he asked if I was okay or if I needed anything. Of course I said I was fine but it would be nice if my husband was able to be there with me. After all I thought I was in the process of giving birth to a dead baby and I needed someone to hold my hand so I would be brave enough to get through the day.

The anesthesiologist yelled out “Oh my God! We forgot the husband. Somebody go get that guy!”

At that point I knew my suspicions were right and something was terribly wrong.

I could barely breath. I wasn’t sure if it was the medication or if it was because I was living through my worst nightmare alone in a room full of strangers.

Finally I felt someone squeeze my hand and when I looked over my shoulder it was my husband and I knew I would be able to get through it.

Suddenly I was overcome with nausea. The anesthesiologist gave my husband a small bowl for me to throw up into if I needed to. And I needed to. But before I could the anesthesiologist said “She’s here! Dad would you like to see her?”

Of course since I thought our baby hadn’t made it, I was apauled they had offered to show her to us.

I looked at my husband and both of us shook our heads no. A nurse behind me lifted my husband up above the curtain anyway to show him our baby.

He gasped the nurse pulled him back down.

I didnt know it at the time, but NICU Response Team immediately took our baby and started their resecitation efforts because she was not in good condition.

At this point I started throwing up. No matter how hard I tried, it just kept coming. But I was finally starting to get numb which was a huge relief because it made everything so much more bearable.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was overdosing on morphine. I’m glad I didn’t know how bad my condition was and I’m so incredibly thankful my husband was there to hold my hand through it all. Aside from my daughter, he honestly is the biggest blessing of my life.

Eventually I was able to contain myself and hold in my vomit. I mustered up all my courage and asked the anesthesiologist if our baby was okay because I hadn’t heard her cry yet. Even though I desperately hoped she was, I knew in my heart she wasn’t. But I still needed someone to tell me what was going on because I was going crazy.

Thank the Lord he said she was fine.

Then I heard it.

The tiniest little mouse squeak of a cry.

She made it!

I could finally relax.

Suddenly I was overcome with nausea again and so I just started throwing up a lot. Again.

I was also so exhausted. I could barely keep my eyes open and I desperately wanted the surgery to be over so I could go take a nap.

A faint voice said “Would you like to see your baby? She’s beautiful! Congratupations!”

Somehow I got the strength to stop throwing up for a second and caught a glimpse of the tiniest baby I had ever seen in my life.

I was so thankful to meet her and overcome with so much joy that she had made it! I found myself exclaiming “Aw! I made her from scratch!”

Then everything was kind of a blur.

I heard someone ask if my husband wanted to go to the NICU with the baby.

He said he would like to make sure I was okay before he went.

Obviously I didn’t know something was wrong with me yet, so when I got another break from throwing up I asked if he would go check on her. I just needed to know she was still doing well, since she had just barely made it out alive.

So a nurse took him to check on the baby and I was alone on the table again.

I heard the suction which I knew was normal from all the c-section birth vlogs I had watched to prepare myself just incase it was part of my birth story.

Then I heard the suction again.

Then I heard it again.

Then it dawned on me… Maybe I wasn’t okay. After all three buckets of blood and fluid were a lot.

But I was too exhausted to ask someone if I was or not and for some reason I thought if I wasn’t someone would let me know.

Suddenly it was all over and I was being pushed to a recovery room.

A new nurse was trying to give me some antibiotics but my IV had blown out my vein during the surgery.

Long story short, she blew out another vein and called in a trauma nurse to try to redo my IV.

The trauma nurse blew out another vein and called in the Life Flight team who were able to get a smaller IV to hold.

I kept being asked of I was cold, which I didn’t understand because I was burning up.

Someone kept putting hot blankets on me and I hated it. I learned later that my body temperature was actually 92 degrees.

I heard the door open and a voice say “Make sure she doesn’t go to sleep. I’m going to go get another blanket.”

Who was she talking to? And why couldn’t I sleep? I was completely exhausted.

Then it hit me. Something was obviously not right. And it wasn’t our baby, it was me.

So in a drug induced haze I had a little conversation with myself. I told myself to pull it together. Our daughter needed a Mom and I was not going to alow myself to pass away. I was going to stay awake until someone told me it was okay to take a nap.

After a few hours I was finally stabilized enough to go to a post-partum room.

I realized my husband had been right next to me holding my hand the entire time and I was so glad he was there because it meant that our little girl was still okay.

On the way to our room, we stoped at the NICU and I got to re-meet our little Valentine. We took a couple of pictures and then finally went to our post-partum room.

I was shown how to pump breast milk and we got settled in.

Finally it was quiet and I was incredibly exhausted.

Fearing the worst, but desperately needing some sleep I mustered up all my courage again and asked my nurse if I could finally take a nap.

She said of course so I zonked out.

When I woke up I was introduced to my night nurse and I overheard her say that my placenta had abrupted during the surgery.

If you don’t know, a placental abruption is where your placenta separates from the uterine wall and the Mom can bleed out very quickly without medical attention.

I was overcome with so much gratitude and thankfulness.

Holly and I had both had made it through my worst nightmare and we were alive!

Phew!

And that is the doozy of a story that was my birth.

Thank you so much for joining me today!

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