June 19, 2023 is the day that everything changed, for the better. And here is the story.
I got up to pee that Monday morning at 6am (and was hoping to go back to bed lol) but I stood up and my water broke. I called my midwives and they said that I could wait at home and see what happened in the next few hours as long as I could feel the baby move and then go in at 10am and they would assess me.
By 8:30am, I was having some contractions and they went from 20 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart by the time we were leaving for the hospital. They hooked me up to monitors but didn't think I was in pain enough to be in active labor so they said I could go home and labor from there for a bit. (Said "just try to distract yourself!" - yeah right...) We went home but the contractions were 2.5 to 3 minutes apart and I couldn't do anything else to distract myself. (Tried lying down to rest, bounced on the yoga ball while watching Cake Boss.) I finally decided to go back to the hospital because they felt strong and I was having the urge to push. We arrived around 4:30pm.
They brought me into a delivery room and the midwife did a vaginal exam and I was almost 10cm. I labored a bit more, they checked me again around 6:30pm and I was at 10. Since I didn't have any meds, I could push in any position so tried out some different ones. Pushed for an hour and then Nathan came out!
I was cuddling with him and I knew that the placenta had to come but I thought it could be a little while. The midwife seemed to be waiting for it though and it wasn't coming. Instead, all this blood was coming out in waves. Eventually, they called in the OB and he manually took it out and stitched up my 3rd degree tear.
I was feeling okay but I was also just lying in the bed and not moving much. Supposedly, I was very pale. Turns out that I lost 2600ml of blood (500ml is normal for vaginal birth). The team at the hospital recommended a blood transfusion and after considering the benefits and risks, we agreed that a blood transfusion would be the best course of action and it reallyyy helped me regain strength and energy.
Recovery was slow as was starting to breastfeed and we ended up staying an extra day in the hospital so they could monitor us.
I learned that even smooth, unmedicated births can have complications. A retained placenta was not even on my radar beforehand. As a mom, and especially a first time mom, there is only so much you are capable of knowing about birth and what could go wrong. You don't want to go down rabbit holes of all the possible complications but you also want to be somewhat prepared for anything.
At the end of the day, I'm grateful to God that Nathan was healthy and we had the necessary interventions to ensure we were all taken care of.
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