Taylor's Story

Birth trauma is often accompanied with a wide range of emotions.  It is essential that providers, friends, and family offer time and space for the individual to express both positive and negative emotions, and for them not to triage someone else’s emotional experience based on how we think they should feel.

Dr. Tracey Vogel

---

I can still remember the range of emotions I felt when I suspected my water broke on November 15th. I was excited, I was scared, I was in denial. My anxiety kept me up for a majority of the night while I laid awake and did a fair share of Googling. The hospital was an hour and fifteen minutes away and I felt as though I would be an inconvenience if I showed up for bodily fluids or a leaky bladder, so I waited until morning. We stopped for our last coffee as a family of two before heading to (hopefully) meet our baby. Upon arrival to the hospital, they checked us into a small room and I was quickly greeted by a nurse from my small town. She was SO excited to be able to be there to deliver our baby! What are the chances that a nurse from my small hometown, over an hour away, would be there to help welcome our little bundle of joy?! To our surprise, I was already 3cm dilated and 70% effaced. Woohoo! I had labored at home on my own with my water broken, I felt like a rockstar!

I can still remember the sheer excitement of getting settled into the birthing suite. It felt surreal. I could not believe that the time was finally here after 9 long months. My mom quickly made it to the hospital, followed by my dad, then my brother. My husband, Luke, was beside me and we were so ready. The nerves started to subside. I opted for an epidural rather quickly. I remember them asking if I had a birthing plan and I laughed and said, “Just keep me and the baby alive!” Boy, if that wasn’t some foreshadowing, I don’t know what is. We began Pitocin around noon and I was moving along nicely. The catheter was placed, I was nice and numb, now the hard part… waiting.

The moment I was waiting for, “You are 10 cm. It is go time!” It was around 5:30 pm. In rolled the adorable little baby cot. The party lights were getting ready to be turned on. Trays and trays of instruments arrived. My mom held one leg and Luke held the other. I began to push. 1..2..3… I was so numb I wasn’t even sure I was pushing, but they assured me I was doing a great job. Finally they could see our baby's hair! He was right there, or so we thought. After two hours of pushing and two inversions, the doctor said, “If you were my daughter, I would recommend a c-section at this point. You are at risk for infection now that it has been around 18 hours.” I agreed because let’s be honest, pushing for 2 solid hours is a lot of work.. And I am so ready to meet this tiny human. We put on our party hats and off to the OR we went. My mom went to join my dad in the waiting room, so excited for the hour to pass when she could finally meet her first grandbaby.

The OR was so bright. I felt so vulnerable. I started shaking from the nerves. Flopping my body onto the narrow, metal table was a team effort from the numbness. Luke had waited outside the OR for me to be prepped, but now it was time for him to join me. He got seated at the left of my head. An assistant Anesthesiologist was to the right of my head. They began the c-section pretty quickly. I began trying to side track myself and my husband by talking about our dog that we had just re-homed a few days prior..that is a traumatic story for a different day. Before I could even count to 10 I heard “It’s a boy!” We did not know what we were having, and I found it odd that my husband did not get the chance to announce the gender like we had planned just hours prior. That also reminds me… something no one talks about is how social media is so misleading. I always imagined Luke going out to the waiting room with the proudest, biggest smile on his face and announcing the gender that we had waited 9 long months to find out, but I guess that is how the universe works..not all things go as planned. Our baby boy was quickly whisked away and I began to feel the tension in the room. I suppose 20 minutes or so had passed, but in the OR time is so warped. They brought over our baby, Noah, 7lb 11oz, 20.25” long. Luke got to hold him by my head. He was healthy, although I did not hear an immediate cry and did ask if he was okay. I did not get the skin to skin that I wanted, and didn’t realize I would miss so badly until a few days later.

I believe this is when things really started to go south. They called for a hemorrhage kit. Everyone told me c-sections were a breeze, so should I start panicking I asked myself? I did not want my husband to worry so I kept trying to talk through it until I felt too sick. There was no hiding it anymore. I was getting stabbed left and right, vomiting, stabbed again. Needing to throw up while you are laid open is a weird feeling. I was convulsing at this point. I thought for sure I wouldn’t have any teeth left afterwards because of how badly my jaw was quivering. I started to hear the doctor call for trauma. They were calling an on-call doctor.. Another red flag. They would no sooner hang up the phone and then call him right back asking where he was. On the elevator.. Coming down the hallway.. It felt like a ticking time bomb. I watched bags of bloody rags go by my head to be weighed. The doctor began calling for a bigger needle. The nurses were rummaging through a cabinet to my left but no needle was big enough. Finally they did find a needle that must have been the appropriate size, but the procedure failed. I was still hemorrhaging. Next up, the hysterectomy tray. I think I said out loud “holy shit,” but I was quickly assured from the other side of the drape that it was preventative, they just needed a few tools off of the tray.

I have truly never felt so many emotions at once. How could this be happening to me? I had such a healthy pregnancy, my labor was going great aside from my baby being sunny side up, now all of the sudden I need a hysterectomy? I am 27 years old. I have so many plans for my future family. This surely cannot be real. What felt like 30 seconds later (again, time in the OR does not equal time that passes by while you sit on your couch) I heard the words, “I am so sorry honey, but this is life or death. I am going to have to do a hysterectomy.” I can hear those words replaying in my head every single day. I can see the doctor's face. I quickly agreed without even a second thought. As a matter of fact, I agreed so quickly that you would’ve thought she offered me a million dollars. My husband was hesitant, but I assured him it would be okay and that he needed to go. I was terrified, but also in shock. I am sure a childbirth that goes textbook perfect has you facing a lot of emotions, but WOW is all I have to say when you get this earth shattering news. About 30 seconds later, lights out, I did not even have time to truly process what was happening. I was getting a cesarean hysterectomy at 27 years old, moments after birthing my first and only child. 

Around 4 hours later I woke up. The first face I saw was a doctor that I had seen a few times throughout my pregnancy. He was the on-call doctor that joined the team for my cesarean hysterectomy. I must have faded back out on the way to my ICU room, but I woke back up quickly after they had got me all hooked up. I immediately asked for my parents and Luke.They literally could not have gotten there quick enough. They were gathering our belongings from L&D and were quickly shuffling downstairs to see me. To my surprise, my moms best friend who is a Gynecologist was also there. My mom had texted her the rundown on what was happening and she immediately drove to the hospital to be with my family. I remember one of the first questions I had asked was if there was anything left in me that could bleed. The doctor came down to debrief and explain what had happened. Apparently I had a boggy uterus that would not contract back down. A b-lynch stitch and all of the hemorrhaging drugs failed. It felt like my body had failed me. Sure, I had a healthy baby, but what should have been the best day of my life quickly became the worst. I am extremely empathetic and immediately felt like a fawn. I tried to comfort the doctor. I never wanted/want her to think this was her fault. I know that we are human and that sometimes things don’t go our way, but man I sure was having a hard time figuring out how this happened to ME. She told me I was her third case in 20 years. She assured me she never would’ve done this if it weren’t a life saving measure. We all repeatedly thanked her for saving my life and my baby. 

Not long after, a nurse had arrived with Noah. I finally felt like I was getting to meet him for real! They pulled some strings and brought him down from the nursery to meet his momma. What I did not know was that Luke and my mom were loving on him for the last few hours, which I will get to later because that was traumatic for everyone as well. I remember taking off my bra and plopping him on my chest for that first skin to skin moment. It was about 1 am but I finally felt somewhat at peace. I was able to enjoy him for 3 hours before he had to return to the nursery, or else his alarm on his umbilical stump would sound. It was 4 am, everyone was emotionally drained, so my parents were ready to head to my postpartum room for a few minutes of sleep. To our surprise, they were not allowed to stay there. I had told my ICU nurse this, and without hesitation she told me that she was hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and pulling in 2 more recliners for my parents to sleep in. She assured me that I was already through hell and back and she did not work for HR. If you know Melissa McCarthy, just picture her as an ICU nurse. She was a literal angel on this earth. In her words, not mine, “If my fat ass can fit between these two chairs then we are fine.” She turned off monitors so that we could hopefully close our eyes and within minutes my dad was snoring away at my feet. 

The next morning (so really only a few hours later..maybe 3?) they told me my vitals were stable enough for me to move to l&d. Talk about another wave of emotions. I was so ready to get my baby to keep, but processing all of those emotions was a lot. They wheeled me up to my room and then in wheeled Noah. I couldn’t get out of bed for a while. I felt scared to move for the first day or so. Luke changed Noah’s diapers, swaddled him, and helped me feed him. You could say he was basically a professional at this point, after being tossed a baby only hours old while his wife was in emergency surgery. I had so many nurses and doctors stop by the next few days, whether they were just there to check on me or they were assigned to me. I can imagine I was probably the talk of the floor, and not in a good way either! I mustered up the courage to let a nurse and my mom bathe me. I went through so many emotions yet again. I was confused, after all it is a very weird feeling being so grateful yet so utterly pissed off and sad. I did not leave the room because I couldn’t take the heartache of seeing other new mothers out walking on the floor after I felt so robbed and empty. To my surprise, everyone commended me on how well I was doing, but I did feel like I was dying inside. I remember waking up one night just sobbing because I was so heartbroken for my future.

 Looking back now, it truly has already made me a better mother.