*Disclaimer: This story isn't completely pleasant, and it will get a little gory w/ the details. The actual birth was fine, but it is what happened after that will blow your mind (for lack of a better way to say it) I'm also still fairly out of it, and I don't remember a lot of the birth. I'm sure I'll leave some minor details out.*
Sunday Jan 9 2011: I woke up around 5 or 6 am w/ horrible pain that wouldn't stop. I called Carlos through it thinking that it was just gas pains. I ended up being able to go to the bathroom, and I felt better. I got off the phone w/ Carlos, and I tried to go back to sleep. (I had only had about 2 hrs of sleep) The pains started becoming regular. I knew that I was starting to go into labor. My contractions were still fairly sporadic, 7 min then 10 min then 4 min apart. I timed them for an hr, and even though they were sporadic, they were close enough together that I felt I wasn't having false labor. I called my Doula, Brandie Mercer (who rocked!!), and she told me to wait about an hr, and she would call back to see how things were still going. I woke up my mom, by this time it was about 7-8. I sat on the couch and timed everything until Brandie called. They were still somewhat sporadic, but I could tell that it was really happening. Brandie and I decided for her to wait another hr before she came over. I took a shower and sat back on the couch until she got here.
Once Brandie got here she had me up walking around the house, it was much too cold to walk outside. The walking wasn't really helping too much. I tried to rest some knowing that I was about to go through the marathon that is called birthing. I'm not sure how long I laid in bed, but I do know that around 230 pm we headed to GWU track so I could walk better than here at home. I took a tylenol before we left b/c my back wouldn't stop hurting.
After an hr of walking at GWU my contractions became 5 min apart :-) This is what we were hoping for. To get some nourishment in me we ran by Italian Garden before going home. I ate 2 slices of pizza through contractions. We went home and waited until it had been a full hr of my contractions being 5 min apart.
Around 530 we headed to the hospital. On the way there we started calling everyone we could think of. I had to get antibiotics b/c I had tested positive for group b strep, so I was stuck in the small room where they check the babies heart beat for a little while. They checked me while I was in there and I was already at 7 cm. I was still feeling good at this point mind you.
I guess it was around 7 when I went to the labor & delivery room. There were a couple family members in the room which I didn't want, but since I was still feeling well & my contractions weren't coming more I was ok w/ them being there for a short while. Finally they kicked everyone out that I didn't want to stay there, and checked me again. I was at 9 cm. I'm not sure about the times starting at this point everything starts to mesh together.
I ended up getting stuck at 9 cm. The Dr's wanted to break my water, but I told them I didn't want that to happen. Not long after they asked to, my water broke on it's on. They had thought I was already at 10 cm, but after my water broke they could tell that I was still stuck at 9. I started getting worried that I might have to get pitocin or something to get me to 10 cm. Thankfully I got to 10 on my own. I think that this is when I went into Jan 10.
Monday Jan 10 2011: I had a hard time trying to push. I think that it had a lot to do w/ what happened later though. I believe that I pushed around 1.5 hrs, but I'm not really sure. I was finally able to get Luna's head out, and after a couple more pushes I got her all the way out. At this point my mom said that I was already starting to turn very white. I remember getting Luna in my arms. I remember pushing out the placenta, and I remember how it exploded out. I also remember the look on the Dr's face when that happened. I knew that something was wrong. I don't remember anything after this. It was about 10-15 min from the time that Luna came out until the time that I passed out. I had her at 220 am, and it was about 630 am when I left the recovery room.
Ok so here is what happened. When the placenta came out it was partially attached to my uterus. When I pushed it out it pulled my uterus w/ it and caused it to become inverted. Imagine my uterus being a circle and after the placenta came out it was a U shape instead of an O shape. I started loosing a lot of blood. My mom said they had a big trash bag under me and it was full of blood. The Dr tried to fix me in the deliver room, but he wasn't able to push it back up so they took me to surgery. I don't know any details about all of this except that the Dr told momma he would be back in an hr to tell her how I was doing and about 2 hrs passed before she found him. He told her that he thought I would be ok. They couldn't get my heart rate, and when they finally did it was 60/30. I vaguely remember being in the recovery room, and trying to talk and ask questions about Luna and myself. When I finally left the recovery room they kept me in the delivery room instead of a regular room b/c they needed to monitor me. It was good they did that b/c I had 2 more faint spells while trying to sit up in bed. I finally ended up having to get 2 blood transfusions, and I believe that the next day I still needed 2 more, but they didn't.
My blood count is normally above 12. Now it is down to 7.2 (still as I type this). I have no color to my face, and I constantly feel like crap. My hormones are going crazy, and I feel like I can't do anything. To add onto it b/c of Luna's feeding getting delayed she ended up getting Jaundice. We had to stay an extra night in the hospital so that she could stay under a bili light. We had to bring a small bili light home to keep Luna on, and it has made taking care of her a lot harder. The first night home was horrible. I hadn't had any sleep hardly since Sat night, and that was only 2 hrs before I started going into labor. Momma was nice enough to keep Luna all day Fri so that I could get some sleep. Although it still wasn't good sleep b/c I was up every hr peeing. My whole body is sore not only from birth, but from being stuck so many times and from being given so much fluid. I had 2 IV's, 1 in each hand. I got blood taken a zillion times. I almost died, and apparently it's really hard to bounce back from near death. Add on to that taking care of a newborn, and I feel like I'm going to go crazy.
Well anyway that's what all happened to me during my birth. Needless to say I'm scared to get pregnant again. Also, I know there is a lot more that I wanted to put on here, but my brain is shot all to pieces. I do want to say that I accomplished having a completely natural and drug free labor. I wouldn't have made it through everything had it not been for Brandie. She was absolutely amazing. She had me up walking, laboring on my hands and knees, and all sorts of other things that I wouldn't have done otherwise.
I hope that my pregnant friends that read this don't get freaked out about something like this happening to them. We talked to everyone at the hospital about what happened to me. One of the nurses said she had been working there for 30 yrs and had only seen an inverted uterus happen 3 times. So it's pretty uncommon. I had never heard of it, and I had been researching everything that could possibly happen.
Well I need to go shower and get clean. I might think of somethings to add to this later in a new blog when I have my brain back.
