Sweet "Lamby" was due on January 7, 2014. Our third child and
first BOY, much to our surprise! This pregnancy just felt… different. I
couldn’t explain the difference, but I felt myself uttering those words over
and over. Everything was going smoothly, as far as the doctor could tell, until
one day in mid October. I was babysitting that day when I felt (Get ready for
it, I told you not for the faint of heart!) a surge of warm fluid… every
expectant mother’s worst nightmare! I ran to the restroom praying “No, this
couldn’t be!”. Yet, it was true. Bleeding immensely, I quickly text (I just
wasn’t ready to utter the words of what was happening) the parents of the
kiddos I was watching. Next I called my husband. He was working over 45 minutes
away that day. I called my mom, brother and dad… Everything was a blur. When
the second mom came to pick up her baby, she could see all over my face that I
was freaking out. Thankfully, she drove me to the closest hospital where my
brother’s girlfriend met us to help watch “Bells” and “Tangled”. I spent the
next 24 hours in the hospital (not the hospital I was to deliver in, but the
closest hospital to home). I learned that I was experiencing a placenta
abruption. Placenta abruptions happen when the placenta prematurely separates.
It should separate after delivery as it is the baby’s life source. Placenta
abruption only happens in about 1% of pregnancies. I did not fit into any of
the typical reasons for this happening.
At this point, I was 28 weeks pregnant. To say I was
terrified was an understatement. After lots of testing, and a very impersonal
on staff OB, I was released 24 hours later with a contraction stopping
medication and told to follow up with my OB. I spent the next week (still
bleeding) on strict bed rest. [Bed rest is definitely NOT what I had always
imagined it to be! I had visions of laying around in my jammies, watching all
the Jane Austen movies my heart could handle and eating bon bons (to be quite
honest, I have not a clue what bon bons are, but they sound quite magical!)...
Oh, that was not the case! Watching people take care of my children and clean
my house was incredibly hard! I'm ever so thankful for my amazing family (my
mom especially) and friends who babysat, cleaned and cooked for us] After a
visit with my OB, she sent me to a specialist, a perinatologist. The (quirky)
specialist said that I had a large blood clot in the uterus from the bleeding.
She sent me across the hospital to have my first steroid shot to help develop
Lamby’s lungs. I was also told to immediately STOP taking the contraction
stopping medication. She said that I needed to feel the contractions, as they
could be a sign of severe internal bleeding that I would need to know about.
That night, I don’t even remember jumping out of bed and going into the
bathroom. I screamed for my husband. My bathroom and the trail leading to it
looked as if someone had been severely wounded! Blood was everywhere! We
gathered our two girls and headed straight for the hospital, a thirty minute
drive in perfect traffic. This time, to the hospital I was to deliver at, the
hospital with a Level 3 NICU.
Arriving at the hospital, I was rushed to Labor and
delivery. At this point I was 29 weeks. I could tell by the look on the nurses
faces and the amount of staff coming in and out of the room, that things were
not good. Thankfully, Lamby’s heart rate was stable. It was about 1AM when the
OB on call came in to check me. We were attempting to hold off delivery as long
as possible to give the steroids time to do it’s job. Instead of the usual 24
hours, I was given my second steroid shot 12 hours after the first. Things
stabilized until the following day when Lamby’s heart rate started to dip. An
anesthesiologist was sent in to prepare me for the fact that I was to have a
cesarean and that I would not be awake for the delivery because of the
circumstances. I was terrified, yet oddly comforted by the fact that I would
not be awake. Lamby’s heart rate came back up, so we decided to hold off on the
cesarean as we were still trying to give his lungs as much time as possible to
mature. We were stabilized and moved to the antepartum area.
Monday, four days later, my husband had returned to work. I
was wheeled over for another in-depth ultrasound with the perinatologist, my
first “outing” in a week! I was so happy to be out of that hospital room! I
couldn’t care less that I was being rolled through the hospital in a gown
looking like a mess. I was that girl that no one in the perinatologist office
wanted to be… the one being wheeled over from the antepartum area of the
hospital… the girl that I had seen and felt so sorry for the week before while
sitting in that same office. We learned from that visit that the clot had grown
even larger. Lamby looked good though.
My aunt and cousin were visiting me in the hospital room
that same day when that all too familiar feeling came back. I had started
bleeding again. This time the OB arrived with a worried look on her face. As
she paced back and forth, I waited impatiently for her decision hoping they
would deliver my sweet boy before the unspeakable happened. She spoke up “We
will do this as organized as possible. Unless something happens, prepare for
delivery in 3 hours.”. Those were the longest three hours!Through bleeding and
contractions I called my husband and mother to inform them that today would be
the day, hurry and get to the hospital, but PLEASE don’t tell the girls!! I had
never had a C-section before. The pregnancies with my daughters were very
uneventful, “normal” pregnancies and births. Everything was so terrifying to
me… Would my baby be ok? Will I be ok? After all, I had a hemorrhage cart
outside of my room for a good amount of my stay as well as an extra IV line as
a “just in case you need a transfusion”.
While prepping for surgery my water broke. Let me just be
real and say, I did not handle the C-section as well as all those beautiful,
make-up clad, perfect hair mommas out there that I see pictures of with their
babies in the OR room! I was a sweaty, anxiety-ridden, numb handed, trying not
to vomit mess. It didn’t help any that my OB was yelling at the nurse “Why
isn’t Dr—– here? I’m not comfortable with this situation… Call Dr—– from my
practice!”. Those aren’t very comforting words to hear coming out of your very
experienced OB’s mouth, especially while laying 29weeks 6days pregnant on an
operating table! The good news is, our prayers were answered and everything
went well! Lamby was born at a whopping 3lbs 3oz! He was whisked away to the
NICU with daddy, but he was ALIVE, thank God! I’ll save the NICU story for
another day…
