Birth Story

This past Monday morning, I posted to this blog that I was so happy that I had reached 37 weeks.  I hadn't bled in 2 weeks and was feeling pretty good (other than being super pregnant).  I knew that I could wait another 2 weeks for the C-section that was scheduled on May 9, for when I was 39 weeks.  I did what I had done for the past 4 weeks - I reclined on my couch with my feet up and worked with my laptop on my lap.  Around 1:15 pm, I felt myself having a Braxton-Hicks contraction.  This, in itself, was not unusual.  I'd been having them for 3-4 weeks at that point.  But in the middle of the contraction, I felt a trickle of...something coming out of me.

I grabbed the phone and pretty quickly got myself off the couch and to the toilet.  I saw there was blood on the small pad that I had been wearing and could hear liquid pouring into the toilet.  When I looked, I was scared to see that the toilet was filling up with blood.  It was gushing out of me.  This was way more blood than I had ever seen and way more blood than had come out of me the last 5 times I bled during the pregnancy.  I immediately called my husband to come home from work and then called the doctor.  The receptionist at the doctor's office took down my details and even after I told her "Blood is pouring out of me," she told me that she would send a message to the nurse and someone would get back to me.  Really?  Okay.  So for the next 5 minutes, I gathered some belongings and stuck them in a bag and shut down my work computer (after diligently informing my boss that something was up and turning on my out-of-office assistant).

When no one from the doctor's office called me back, I phoned again and basically said "WTF?" except without swearing.  I reiterated that blood continued to gush out of me and the nurse came on the line.  She apologized for the fact that I wasn't put through right away the first time.  She told me to go to the hospital immediately and to call 911 for an ambulance if I was actually bleeding as much as I said I was.  I told her that I would check on my husband's ETA and if he was still too far away, I would call 911.  When I called my husband, it turned out that he was already on his way up our street.  Thank god he works close to the house!  He helped me to the car and we headed to the hospital.  On the way, I could feel the baby moving, which was reassuring despite the fact that I could still feel that I was bleeding.

When I got to labor and delivery, they got me into a room and onto a monitor pretty quickly.  It took the nurse over 1 minute to find the baby's heartbeat and during this time, I started quietly freaking out in my head.  Why was it taking this long to find the heartbeat?  I was 37 weeks pregnant.  The heartbeat should  have been obvious to find.  My husband and I both let out big sighs of relief when we finally heard that strong heartbeat on the monitor.

The doctor came in to talk to us.  She said that because I didn't have complete placenta previa, she could give me the option of delivering that day or, if the bleeding stopped, I could go home and try to make it to my scheduled C-section date.  I wouldn't have had this option if I had complete placenta previa.  I didn't know what to do.  I asked for more facts.  The doctor told me that, in general, babies born electively at 39 weeks had fewer issues than those born electively at 37 weeks.  They were bigger, stronger and had fewer breathing and feeding issues.  But she also said that in my situation (marginal placenta previa with lots of bleeding), she didn't consider a C-section that day to be "elective."  She also said that if she was in my situation, she would be having the baby that day.

My husband and I took some time to discuss the situation and make a decision.  After talking it through, I realized that my biggest concern with delivering at 37 weeks was the baby's ability to breastfeed.  I had a wonderful breastfeeding relationship with my son and wanted that again with my daughter.  While I know the placenta previa wasn't my fault, I wanted to be able to do something right and I knew that I could breastfeed with the best of them.  But I also knew that each child is different and that even if my daughter was born at 40 weeks, she might not latch or suck well.

And it seemed like the list of cons of continuing with the pregnancy grew and grew the more we talked about it.  If I went home, the next episode of bleeding could be even worse.  It could be even more blood and could happen in the middle of the night, which wouldn't be good because someone would need to babysit our toddler at that point.  The placenta could detach, which could kill the baby.  Next time, the C-section might be an emergency and I would have to undergo general anesthesia instead of just having a spinal.  And I just couldn't bring myself to relive those moments when the nurse couldn't easily find the heartbeat on the monitor.

So we decided to do it.  I called my parents and started sobbing.  Until that point, I had held it together pretty well.  And with the force of the sobbing came more gushes of blood, which confirmed to me that we had made the right decision to move forward with the C-section that day.  My mom agreed to hop a flight the next morning and my dad would follow a couple of days later in the car.  We informed the doctor of our decision and they started prepping me and gathering the operating team.

3 hours after I first started bleeding, the doctors delivered my little girl.  It was all so quick.  As she was operating, the doctor leaned over the curtain and told me that it was a good thing we decided to deliver that day.  It turns out that I had bled more than they thought and there was a big pool of blood clotting right on top of my cervix.  It just hadn't made its way out of me yet.

And now, roughly 60 hours after my baby girl was delivered, I know that we made the right decision.  The baby is breathing and feeding well.  She knew what to do at the nipple just like her brother and latched and sucked right away.  My milk is coming in and after going down to 5 pounds, 14 ounces, she gained 2 ounces last night and is 6 pounds even now.  Relief relief relief.  I'm so happy that everything turned out okay.

Welcome to the world, Samantha Grace.  You are loved very very much.