Posted: Jul 23, 08
8:53am
5 years ago today my youngest son was born.
That, in and of itself is enough to thank God for. But our story goes a bit deeper than the birth of a fabulous little boy.
I was put on bed rest early with Carter due to placenta previa and preterm labor – not a good combination. For those of you who don’t know the condition, placenta previa is when the placenta covers the cervix. It can be very dangerous, and you are NOT supposed to go into labor, and can NOT deliver the baby vaginally, your only option is a c-section (that was fine with me, my first had been an emergency c-section, so I was o.k. with that part of the situation). At just about 7 months along I was put in the hospital to be kept on STRICT bed rest and a constant drip of Mag Sulfate to stop contractions. I was given steroid injections to hasten the development of Carter’s little lungs. And they had to do multiple amniocentesis tests to determine his lung progress. We scheduled the c-section for July 24th, and I crossed my legs and prayed he’d stay in that long.
He didn’t.
At midnight 5 years ago I began to hemorrhage. Every nurse on the ward came swarming into my room. More IV fluids, portable ultrasound machine, internal monitors, external monitors, nurses running (literally running) in and out, I was scared . . . and then terrified when they couldn’t find his little heartbeat. I will never forget the very kind nurse who was apparently there solely to keep me calm, stroking my hair as I was crying, and telling me everything would be alright. I liked her words, but I didn’t believe her at that moment. Then, miracle of all miracles . . . or perhaps just better placement of the monitors and u/s . . . A HEARTBEAT. Soooooo soft . . . but it was there. And I began sobbing.
The Doctor on call came to check on me and decided that, based on recent tests, we were pushing it even to take him out on July 24th (his due date was August 26th), one day earlier could be even more tricky for him. So she wanted full emergency staff for both of us. Which meant we had to wait. There weren’t enough people to do the surgery in the middle of the night. 9:00. We had to wait until 9:00. I was now in FULL ON labor, and they couldn’t give me any meds for the pain. How unamused was I. But we made it to 9:00, they got me into surgery and began to move me onto the table . . . when I began to hemorrhage again. They didn’t even have time to let the spinal block take full effect. With my first c-section I never felt a thing. With Carter’s . . . no ‘pain’ . . . but I FELT it . . . the tugging, the moving around of ‘stuff’ . . . it was not pleasant. But they got him out and he was still alive. He couldn’t breath on his own, but he was still alive. I got to peek at him briefly as they took him to a waiting ambulance to take him to a level 1 nursery on the other side of town, and then they began to work on me.
At first all seemed normal. I went to ‘recovery’, began to feel my feet again, so they moved me to my room . . . but something wasn’t right. The pain around the incision was not normal. Thank GOD I had been through one before so I knew the difference. When I mentioned it to the nurse, she began to press on my stomach lightly and then called an emergency code for the Doctor. Again, all hell broke loose. I’ll spare you the gory details, but over the course of the next 2 hours I ended up losing approximately half my blood and experiencing pain unlike anything I had ever felt before. I would happily go through a completely UNmedicated c-section before ever going through those two hours again. I will never forget the blood drained, fear stricken look on my husband’s face, or the sound of my mother crying and screaming in the hallway, convinced (and rightfully so), that her daughter was dying at that very moment.
But when it was all said and done, transfusions had been started, and the morphine had finally kicked in, I was still alive.
Carter was given additional meds to develop his lungs, and was on a ventilator for 36 hours. I was well enough to be given a day pass the next day to visit him at the other hospital. Then, he was well enough to come back to me (he still had to be in the level 2 nursery, but he was closer). I stayed in an extra room at the hospital after my release so I could be near him. Just a little over one week we stayed. All of that drama, all of that pain, all of that fear . . . but just a little over one week later, we left, the whole family together, and went to our brand new house in a city very appropriately called New Hope.
So today I am thankful for his birthday, and for all the miracles that happened that have allowed us to be here 5 years later to celebrate this wonderful day.
Happy Birthday, Carter!
