Charlotte's Birth

In my last post I said my next entry would be Charlotte's Birth Story. I was right about that. What I wasn't expecting was the type of story I would be writing. My pregnancy had been completely normal, in fact, easier than normal. I felt great the entire way through; never had a single problem. We were expecting a beautiful, natural, easy delivery to go along with the easy pregnancy; we got the exact opposite! Now, over a week later, I am ready to write the story, get it out of my system, and move forward. With my beautiful, perfectly healthy baby sleeping in my arms, I am able to look back on that day with positive memories and see God's hand of protection through the entire thing.
As most of you read in the previous post, I had been dilated to 4 cm since 36 weeks. My OB kept telling me that she should come any day. Each day that went by and Charlotte was still inside me I became more anxious. I described myself as a ticking hand grenade waiting to explode. I felt on edge at all times. On Friday, the 22nd, I went into the hospital to film a little video as a favor to my boss. While I was there, I was hooked up to a monitor and checked. I was 5 cm, but not really contracting. I went home and proceeded to contract that entire night, but they never escalated to the point where I felt it was actual labor. By the morning they had fizzled out. That day, Saturday the 23rd, Jeremy had to work because he had a big deadline he needed to meet. It was pouring rain so I decided to go walk around Target. I walked for over an hour hoping the contractions would come back, but no luck. When I got home, it had stopped raining, so I took Abbey out for a walk in the neighborhood. When I got home, the contractions came back, but still not painful at all. At this point, it was about 5:45 and Jeremy had just gotten home. I told him I was contracting a little bit, but didn't think it was really labor. About 20 minutes later, I went to the bathroom, and my water broke. Still not in any pain, we packed up our stuff and headed to the hospital. So far, everything felt very surreal, but very normal. It was all going exactly how it was supposed to go. We got to the hospital, I got out of the car and felt a big gush. As I continued to walk the toward the labor unit, I continued to feel gushes of fluid. Thinking it was not right, when we got in the elevator, I checked to make sure it was clear fluid, but it wasn't; it was blood. And lots of it. Overwhelmed with fear, we hurried into the labor room and my incredible nurse Ali got me hooked up to the monitor immediately. The first sound I heard was Charlotte's little heart beating fast and strong. This provided a tinge of relief, but I still knew something was wrong. At this point the contractions had picked up incredibly. With each contraction, I would pass a large clot or gush of blood. I was so scared and anxious, I was unable to concentrate on breathing or pain control. I just knew something was horribly wrong. The contractions started piling on top of each other, with hardly 60 seconds in between. It was change of shift, Ali headed home, and my dear friend and incredible nurse Tracy took over. The thought crossed my mind that I would need an emergency C-Section so I decided that an epidural would be a good idea.That way, I wouldn't need general anesthesia. I also thought it might help my anxiety to be able to focus on something other than the pain. Because of the bleeding, I was convinced that the pain was abnormal and therefor was not able to mentally work through it like I wanted to. Tracy got the anesthesiologist and he put the epidural in, which provided some welcome relief. As soon as the epidural was in, I was complete. In less than an hour I had dilated from 5 to complete and was ready to push. It was all so fast, a complete blur. Once complete, the bleeding had stopped, my family was all there, and we were waiting on the OB to arrive so I could start pushing. Those 30 minutes were the best 30 minutes of the entire experience. When the OB arrived, I began pushing, and in less than 20 minutes, Miss Charlotte made her entrance into the world. The entire event lasted less than two hours. It was the most out of body experience. She was put up on my tummy and Jeremy and I looked at her in total shock and disbelief. I held her for about 3 minutes and then she was taken by another incredible friend, Michelle, over to the warmer to be dried off and assessed. I had a tear that the OB was repairing, but I also continued to hemorrhage. I was holding Charlotte again when he called for some tools I had never heard of. Again, I knew something was wrong. I passed the baby off to my mom and within a minute or two was being whisked back to the OR. Again, everything is very blurry, but I remember being told I was going under general anesthesia and being so incredibly scarred. The next thing I know, I am in the recovery room with all my family, and incredible nurses surrounding me. I only remember tiny bits of being in there as I woke up from the general. Apparently, I was quite comical. I was talking a mile a minute asking 10,000 million questions. After I was in my right mind, I was told what had happened. When my water broke, Charlotte's head dropped and caused 2 cervical lacerations, which started the bleeding. The cervix is extremely vascular and bleeds at an incredible rate. When I was completely dilated, her head blocked off the bleeding, but after she was born, there was nothing stopping it. I had lost so much blood at the point, when I delivered the baby, my uterus was unable to clamp down as it should have and my body went into DIC. In the OR, my OB repaired the lacerations, but I continued to bleed due to the DIC. He asked the nurse to open the hysterectomy tray and call for a second surgeon to come assist with my hysterectomy. They started pouring blood and platelets into me, and by God's incredible grace, by the time the second surgeon arrived, the bleeding was under control and I did not have to have my uterus removed. After over an hour in the OR, I was still alive and I was still able to have more children. What an incredible miracle. Praise God.
I got back to my room at about 2 AM and was completely shell shocked. I continued to flash back on the events of the night, the emotions were overwhelming. I looked at my beautiful baby and thought about how close I was to never knowing her. There was no way I would be closing my eyes that night. My incredible nurse Tracy sensed my state of mind and offered to sit with my for a while. This was the most therapeutic thing she could have done and it meant the world to me. While Jeremy tried to close his eyes for a few hours, Tracy and I whispered about the events of the night. It was so healing for me to be able to sit and decompress with her.
Sunday morning our first visitor arrived at about 8:30 and the stream of visitors continued until after 7 that night. We felt so loved and blessed by our incredible community. Physically, I felt horrible, like I had been hit by a train, but emotionally, I was feeling so blessed. Over the following week, my recovery was incredibly fast. Physically, I felt better and better each day. Emotionally, I had lapses of anxiety and sadness, but overall focused on how lucky I was to be here and be able to raise my sweet baby girl.
There are some things I learned through this experience that I want to make sure get said publicly. First, I work with the most incredible group of women on the planet. Not only are the talented and knowledgeable, they are compassionate and loving. That Saturday night, Charlotte and I had every nurse in tears. We felt so loved and supported by them. On Sunday, so many nurses came in to check on us. We received the best care I could have ever asked for. Even my manager came to help and support us. The labor, post partum and NICU nurses at Mercy are angels and I couldn't feel more blessed to be a part of that extended family. A huge extra special thank you to Tracy and Ali for being there for us during the most scary/happy day of our lives. And to my dear friend Michelle who took care of Charlotte for her first 4 hours of life. I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to be there for her. It was so comforting knowing she was in skilled and loving hands while I was unable to care for her.
Second, Dr. Skipitis saved my life and my ability to have more children. I don't know how you could ever thank someone for that, but I will be forever grateful.
Third, our cousin Justine Wildauer was at the birth to take pictures, and the images she captured are absolutely priceless. Now, instead of bad memories, we have beautiful pictures to remember that day by. Those images help me to remember the good parts of the experience. With the entire event being so blurry, those images will forever help remind me of the miracles that happened that day. Justine, you are incredibly talented. We love you and feel so blessed to have you as family.
Finally, Jeremy and I moved back to Redding to be around friends and family, and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. We have been showered with love and support. Charlotte had an entire waiting room full of friends and family waiting to meet her. Our meals have been provided, gifts and cards are showing up every day, phone calls and emails are never ending. I sometimes can't help but cry tears of joy and thankfulness when I think about the community in which we live. We are so fortunate and love all of you so much! I don't know what we would do without you.
So, overall, not the birth story I would ever want to tell, but in the end, I am healthy, I can have more children, and I have the most beautiful, precious, little angel that I get to love and raise for the rest of my life.
This took me all week to write. I am sure I left out important details, but this is the best I could do. I am excited to have this experience behind me and focus on the most important thing in the world, my new baby girl.