Readers Discretion Advised. There aren't many details I'll be leaving out, so if you don't want to hear the whole story now would be a good time to close this browser window :-)
I'm hoping that by writing this I'll be able to answer some of my own questions about what exactly happened and fill in the holes that I don't remember fully.
The Birth of Hudson
For as easy and great of a pregnancy I had, I should have known to expect a bit of a roller coaster ride for the labor and delivery of our first child. On Thursday, September 13th (our due date!) I woke up about 4am with a wet spot on the bed pad below me (thank goodness I had one of these- sure would have been a mess to try to clean the mattress). I wasn't sure at that time if it was my water since there was very little fluid. I obviously couldn't sleep anymore (too anxious) so I came downstairs and had some cereal and toast and jelly. I stayed up until about 5:30 and went to the bathroom before getting back in bed. I noticed then that my mucous plug had come out and decided that's what the fluid was from before.
About 9:30 I woke up again for the day and that is when the fluid started pouring out. I wasn't having any cramping or contractions so I just decided to call Thomas at work and update him- but told him not to come home. Around lunchtime I tried to lay down and take a nap- but couldn't (again too anxious). So I decided I would take a shower and then head out for a pedicure and to have a braid put in my hair :-) since I knew at some point very soon I would be heading to the hospital.
About 3:00 I decided it would probably be a good idea to call and let my doctor know what was going on. I had hesitated to call up to this point because I still wasn't contracting (so I was contracting every 8-10 minutes- but they were very mild) and I didn't want to be told to go to the hospital. I wanted to be able to spend as much time at home where I am most comfortable. So, the doctors office wanted me to come in right away so they could confirm my water had broken. I called Thomas and told him to meet me there. Once they confirmed the rupture of membranes, they put me on the monitor so they could check out baby's heart rate and check to see if I was contracting. Baby was pretty "flat" as we like to call it and so we had to stay on the monitor a bit longer until the heart rate was reassuring. Again, I was contracting every 8-10 minutes, but no true pain to speak of. Dr G. told us to go home, get our bags and have dinner and then to be at the hospital by 9:00pm.
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| One last picture at home! |
I chose to deliver at Methodist, which is also where I work. I had been debating on where I should deliver and looking back now, I am so glad I chose Methodist. For as bad as things would get for me- there is no other group of nurses, doctors and support people that I would trust my life with. When we arrived, Susan L. & Jodi R. began the admission process. This included asking me one million and one questions, starting an iv and putting me on the monitor. Soon after, Thomas and I started walking the halls in hopes of getting contractions going. Around 1:00am it became apparent that things just were not going to move along fast enough. My water had been broken for over 16 hours and this increased my chance of getting an infection- so the doctor wanted to begin pitocin in order to (hopefully) move things along. So here we are- two things I didn't want...my water to break before contractions and having to be augmented with pitocin...blah!
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| Hydrotherapy Time! |
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| Yep, that's me pushing turned around in bed about to go to hands and knees WITH an epidural :) |
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| Just about to meet our little BOY! |
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| Hudson Thomas |
The next several hours are somewhat of a blur. I remember going back into our labor room and bringing our moms and my bff back into the room to introduce them to Hudson. He got his first bath and at some point we all went to sleep. I woke up twice to breastfeed the little guy (and snuggle!) and the pediatricians made their rounds and said Hudson looked great.
That afternoon a couple of my friends arrived to visit and meet the newest Haulter. I was feeling good- had already been up to the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Once they left I ordered some lunch, ate and then decided to lay back and take a nap. As I did, I felt a couple of gushes of blood. I obviously had no idea how much those gushes actually were because Thomas was in the process of helping me get out of bed so I could clean up in the bathroom. That's when Sam walked in (one of the nurses on the unit). It was 2:38pm She came in to see Hudson but while there I told her that I thought I was having some heavy bleeding. She checked it out and then laid me back and pressed on my belly- that's when the fountain started.
-When you are hemorrhaging the first thing they do is to massage your uterus by rubbing on your lower stomach very hard (remember mom's when they rubbed your belly right after delivery? same thing- just 10 times worse) this will hopefully firm up your uterus and stop the bleeding.
-Secondly they will inspect the uterus (using their hand) to make sure there are no clots or pieces of placenta left unintentionally that could be causing the bleeding.
-Thirdly there is a piece of equipment called a "Bakri Balloon" that they can insert into the uterus. This is the last hope before a hysterectomy. The balloon is just that...it is inserted deflated into the uterus and then blown up with saline to give support to the uterus and keep it firm.
So back to Sam...she began to rub on my belly and then called in the resident (my doctor was at home). She began to rub on my belly and then was "inspecting" my uterus. Let me tell you that this pain was absolutely unbearable. When I say "rub my belly" what I really mean is they were mashing on it trying so very hard to get the bleeding to stop. This is where things get blurry for me. I know that soon there were a lot more people in my room (nurses and doctors). They called one of the OB doctors out of surgery to come into my room and also called another doctor in from home and my doctor in from home. I was given several types of medication to try and get the bleeding controlled that way (oxytocin, cytotec, methergine and hemabate- none of which really did the job. As far as pain goes- I remember one of the doctors calling out to give me a small dose of morphine. However, that did nothing and more was given. At some point during all of this unbearable pain and in between my in and out bouts of consciousness, I remember begging for more pain medicine and they must have agreed because soon the pain was much better. My blood pressure was dropping and Thomas says at one point it was 40/20 ish or something ridiculous like that. There were nurses on either side of me scrambling to get another IV started so that I could receive more medication (to stop the bleeding) and I think blood as well. I believe my blood transfusions were started in that room. Let's stop there...
Thomas had been on the right side of me holding my hand this entire time. I was fading in and out of consciousness and would hear Thomas tell me every so often "breathe". He held it together so well. About two weeks ago (yes it took me that long to get the nerve up to ask him) I asked him what he thought was going to happen to me and his response was he "Thought he was going to lose me". I apparently was terrified as well because at one point I had my eyes closed and all of a sudden sensed this huge bright light and thought to myself..."This is the light they all talk about! I'm dying" but it was then that I opened my eyes and realized they had just turned on the big, bright lights over the bed. Shew!
It became apparent that the attempts to stop the bleeding were unsuccessful and my doctor decided I needed to go to the operating room. it was about 4:30pm. I have no idea what she thought she may have to do- and I probably don't want to know. I was apparently swept of the room in a hurry and on the way remember asking the nurse who was pushing the head of my bed if they were going to take my uterus out...when she wouldn't answer me that was my first clue that oh crap...this is serious! Then as the operating room doors opened, the anesthesiologist (Dr R.) came out of one of the rooms and loudly proclaimed that I had to go down to the main OR...that was my second clue that oh crap...this was serious! I know from working on that unit that anyone that we take to the main OR is a serious case. I forget what exactly was said but I was kept in our operating rooms.
In the operating room things became even more blurry for me. I remember Lori A. holding my hand (sorry if I broke any of your fingers!) and several nurses (Jody and Kim) again working on my left arm trying to get more IV's going. Two anesthesiologists came in (Dr R and Dr K). Dr Lund (my doctor) continued to mash all over my stomach and manually inspect my uterus. One of the anesthesiologists told me he was going to give me fentanyl and versed to help with the pain and he may have. But I also ended up with general anesthesia at some point during this and I've heard that it was because one of the nurses spoke up and said I was in too much pain and he had to do something more (I have no idea if this is true- but if it is THANKS!). One of the last things I remember is Dr Lund pushing out what felt to me like a couple of very, very large clots. Eventually the decision was made to insert the Bakri balloon. An arterial line was also placed (The arterial line is usually used to obtain accurate blood pressure readings every few seconds. This is especially important in monitoring the hemodynamic status of a critical patient). By the end of my hospital trips (I was readmitted 6 days after I went home from all of this) we counted at least 27 puncture sites- places where IV's, Art lines and Blood draws were attempted.
When I woke up, I was asking lots of questions. "Did I still have my uterus?" (answer: yes), "What happened" (answer: post-partum hemorrhage) and many more. I think I heard someone say I lost 4 liters of blood. I was given 7 units of blood in total to replenish my supply. Someone told me later that the doctors wanted me to go to the ICU but that my fellow nurses encouraged them to keep me on the unit and let the most critical care trained nurses take care of me. So my first evening I got Tammy as my nurse and she was great- I don't remember a whole lot other than asking her for some throat lozenges because my throat was sore from the breathing tube...but thank you for taking such great care of me! The next morning Kim was my nurse and most of what I remember from that shift was that she was soooo diligent about giving me my pain medication around the clock and as soon as it could be given- I never once had to ask for it! Thank you so much for making sure I stayed as comfortable as possible. I spent most of that day sleeping (being woken up to feed Hudson as I was adamant I didn't want him to get formula). That evening, my awesome labor/delivery nurse took care of me and the following morning I had my first visitors post-hemorrhage (other than our moms).
I'm not exactly sure which day, but I think Sunday or Monday the Bakri balloon was taken out. I was pretty nervous about this because I wasn't sure if I would start bleeding again or not. However, all went well. I spent the next few days in bed and sleeping a lot. We had to get creative with breastfeeding because my milk was not coming in as quickly as normal because my body was still recovering from the shock of the hemorrhage. So I was using a system called S&S which basically is giving the baby formula through a tiny tube while they are latched onto the breast. My next feat was to get out of bed and into a chair...then up to the bathroom...and then a shower. My last goal to accomplish was to get up and walk the halls around the unit. Soon enough I was ready to go home! Total I spent 6 nights in the hospital (which should have only been 3) on this admission. You know that things were scary for all involved when:1) One of the nurses taking care of you tells you she didn't think you were "going to make it"
2) Another nurse thanks you for "not dying"
3) Staff members that were not even there but heard about it come by to check on you and say hi and have tears in their eyes
My time at home was spent pretty much in one of two places- the green recliner that we brought up from the basement or my couch). I did a lot of resting and we had a lot of help from our moms and my bff. A few days after coming home I woke up at night with severe pain in my right side- I couldn't take deep breaths and I could barely move until the episode ended. That next day (Saturday) is when I started running fevers. My fever started out 99-100 and then each day increased by a degree. The pain in my left side was still there every night. Saturday evening my doctor called in some antibiotics thinking it was a UTI. On Monday I had a doctors appointment and because of my symptoms they did an ultrasound and found a mass on my uterus. A CT scan was ordered for Tuesday evening to figure out what the mass was. I was also given stronger antibiotics to take. Once I got home from having the CT scan my fever kicked in and got up to 103.7...Thomas called the doctor and they said I needed to go back to the hospital and be admitted. Neither of the antibiotics had done anything for me- my fevers just kept increasing. GEESH! Can't a girl catch a break?
So we all piled in the car (Hudson and my mother in law included) and headed back to the hospital. I would spend the next 4 nights in the hospital as they tried to figure out what was causing the fevers. I had a procedure done on the first day there. They thought the masses (now 3) on my uterus were abscesses and took me down to cat scan where they tried to drain them (this involved more needles being stuck through my belly into where the masses were). They found out that these were actually hematoma's and no fluid was able to be taken off. Supposedly the fevers should not have been from the hematoma's but I guess that is what they finally decided on (I had an infectious disease consult, too). At one point I also had a small amount of fluid on my lungs and was given Lasix to get rid of it. After 3 days in the hospital, my fevers finally stopped. I had to stay 48 hours to make sure the fever did not come back and then late Sunday evening we were released home!!
It was most definitely a wild ride! It took nearly 7 weeks for the pain from where they tried to aspirate the abscesses to go away. It has been almost 9 weeks now since Hudson was born and I am finally back to feeling (somewhat) normal again. Throughout it all- I am still so lucky to have such a sweet little boy and a husband who took the best care of me. My entire life all I can remember is wanting to be a mommy and having lots of kids. So glad that I reached my goal of motherhood (and am here to enjoy it) but not so sure that I want to ever take the chance of experiencing any of this again. Sorry sweet boy- but you may be it for us!
