After 31 hours of active labor and not sleeping for 44 hours, Kaitlyn was born. She was on my chest, I got stitched up, and all was right with the world.
Then the midwife starting talking about how the placenta should have come already. The umbilical cord had detached, so she couldn't pull it to try to pull the placenta. She had me try to push it out, but that wasn't working.
They called in the OB because the midwives are only trained for "normal" birth situations and call the OBs in when there is something going wrong. Basically the OB was either going to have to reach into my uterus to try to pull out the placenta, or I was going to have to have a D & C. A D & C did not fit into my plans for our hour of family time after birth, so I opted to have her reach in.
They sprayed nitro glycerin under my tongue, which was supposed to help the placenta detach.
I pushed while she tried to pull several times. I asked the nurse to take Kaitlyn so I could focus on giving everything I had on pushing without worrying about dropping or squishing her. One of the times the OB was pulling, I felt the placenta start to rip off the wall, but it just wouldn't come.
I could feel the blood pumping out, kind of like the feeling of my water breaking, but thicker and warmer liquid that was pulsing out instead of just flowing. I started to get light headed and told them I was going to pass out.
The last thing I remember is the OB asking if I was still with them and I said yes.
At this point, I don't have any memory of what happened, so my account of the situation is just what I've been told. If/when Stephen writes a post about what happened, I will link to it here because his account will be more accurate.
I did not pass out, but the OB said we had to do the D & C, so the anesthesiologist (who was standing ready to go) put the "twilight" medicine in my IV block. Which is why I don't remember anything else. I guess she did get the placenta out, but she couldn't be sure she had gotten it all.
They took me back to do the D & C, leaving Stephen standing alone in the room holding our newborn and surrounded by bloody aftermath. Knowing how strongly I wanted to be there when our families met Kaitlyn for the first time, he didn't want to go get any of our family. And thinking it was just a D&C and wouldn't take too long, he just sat alone in the room for a while.
Eventually my mom wanted to find out how things were going (it had been several hours since we started pushing and she wanted to check with the nurses to see where we were at). The room looked empty to her, but Stephen called her in.
Meanwhile, the D&C went as planned, but I had lost so much blood they gave me a massive blood transfusion. From what we heard, 4 units of blood, a unit of plasma (or platelets, we aren't sure which), and a unit of pitocin.
I started coughing up fluid and had foamy liquid coming out of my mouth. This is when Stephen saw me for the first time. He had told the doctors that I don't come out of anesthesia (or the twilight drug) unless he or my mom are there when I wake up. Which is very true. They had said I would be fine, that there were several anesthesiologists there, etc. But now that I needed to be calmed down, they brought him in.
When they couldn't get me stabilized, I was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. They could not figure out what was wrong exactly, but my lungs had filled with fluid, my heart rate was over 200, my temperature was at 102/103, my blood pressure dropped into the 60's, and they were just trying to get my stabilized. They intubated me, but from what they said had trouble doing that. They had cardiologists taking scans of my heart to see if there was a heart condition that was causing the problem.
First priority was to keep me breathing, which they did with the intubation. Then they needed to get my heart rate down. They tried medicine through my IV and had Stephen hold my arm up in the air to try to get the medicine to my heart more quickly. Then they put in a PICC line, which is a catheter inserted in my upper arm that goes directly to your heart. They could put more powerful medicine in there to slow my heart rate down. Whatever the powerful medicine was, it would have damaged my arteries if they'd put it through the regular IV, but the heart is a stronger muscle and could handle it.
They had called in a pulmonary specialist, and he took the lead. He met with Stephen and the rest of our family and friends that had gathered at that point to give everyone an update. They had let everyone stay in the labor room we had started in and brought in a cart with coffee and snacks. There were social workers around and they offered to have a chaplain come. Our pastor and his wife were there, and Stephen's dad is a pastor, so Stephen turned down the chaplain. Not knowing what was going on or getting information was hard on my family, but from what I heard, communication improved throughout the day.
The ICU team had Stephen stay with me to try to keep me calm. He says there were people completely surrounding my bed, all doing different things. In my right arm I had an art line, 2 IVs, and the PICC line. In my left arm I think there were a couple of IVs.
My first memory starts out in a kind of dream like state. It was like I was a fly on the wall, looking at the room which was really bright with lights. Then I started to be part of the dream and it felt like someone was covering my nose and mouth with their hand and I was suffocating. I tried to wake up out of the "dream" and slowly realized it was not a dream.
All these people were around me, and as far as I was concerned I was suffocating and no one was doing anything about it. They had restrained my arms because I was trying to pull out the intubation tube. It was actually multiple tubes, one to pull out fluid, one to pump in air. They had the machine putting a huge amount of pressure into my lungs to try to force the fluid into the tissue around my lungs.
I could tell nothing was blocking my nose, but I still couldn't breath through it. When I would swallow, my gag reflex would kick in and I would try to gag up the tubes, which obviously wasn't going to happen. I remember Stephen talking to me, and I remember my dad standing next to me. Stephen said through the whole thing, he had one hand on my forehead and one on my shoulder. He kept reminding me that those were his hands. I would struggle to get the tubes out, he would explain why I needed them, I would understand and accept it. Then a few minutes later I would struggle again, he would explain, I would relax. And this continued for a long time.
I also remember being really hot and sweat dripping down my face. Being restrained, there was nothing I could do about it. And my hair was down on my neck and making me even hotter. I remember getting turned, I think for an x-ray plate to get put behind my back so they could x-ray my lungs. There were a lot of people around, but I still tried to take the hand of one of the nurses to help pull myself over, which surprised them. My eyes were closed (I think) most of them time.
I remember hearing someone saying something about being in the ICU. My thought was ICU?? The last thing I remembered was a worst case scenario of doing a D&C. It did not register for another day or so that I was close to not making it.
I remember someone saying they were going to bring the baby in. I actually didn't want them to because I was afraid I would cry, and crying makes it even harder to breath. Now that I understand the intubation, it wouldn't have mattered if I was crying or not, but my logic at the time was that crying = harder breathing and I was having a hard enough time.
I'm glad I couldn't communicate not to bring Kaitlyn in because I am grateful that they did now. The nurse was our first labor nurse, who took a special interest in us and trying to help. The ICU team was initially not happy about having a newborn brought in because of everything she could be exposed to. But they warmed up to the idea and looked forward to when she would come to breastfeed.
When they first brought Kaitlyn in, they put her up against my cheek and took the first picture of the 3 of us.
They also had her breastfeed for the first time. I couldn't hold her or do anything, but I could feel it and they very excitedly told me she was swallowing. I am so grateful she was able to get that colostrum, even when I couldn't really help give it to her. The nurse took a couple of pictures because Stephen was being updated by the doctor and wasn't in the room. I remember her saying "Stephen's going to want a picture of this." Apparently she then went and asked him if he minded if she took pictures of me with her phone. When he said it was fine, she said that was good because she already had. She handed him her phone and had him text himself the pictures and delete them off her phone. She said if he hadn't wanted her to take pictures, she would have just deleted them off her phone.
There is no picture that isn't full on boob, so I won't post those here, but I'm glad we have them. :)
I remember the nurse being right next to me. I was still pleading to have the intubation tube taken out. I must have gestured to her because I remember her asking me what I needed. Then she sympathetically said she knew I wanted the tube out but it was going to have to be in for a few more days, which is what the pulmonary specialist expected. At some point I asked for something to write on and wrote "can't breath. panic." I still felt like no one understood how awful this machine was and if they did they would do something to make it better. Unfortunately, they knew it was bad, but it was the only thing keeping me breathing.
By this point it was Sunday night. My parents had been at the hospital since 5:30am Saturday morning, and our family and the nurses finally convinced them to go home and sleep for the night. My mother in law stayed with me in ICU and my father in law stayed with Stephen and the baby in the labor room.
They moved me into a different ICU room that was close to a side entrance so the baby could be brought through that door and not wheeled through all of ICU. I remember being moved and still struggling with the intubation. The only thing they could tell me was to relax. Which would have been useful if every fiber of my being wasn't fighting the feeling of being suffocated. At some point I figured out that the machine was clicking to my left. If I breathed in sync with the clicks (so in when the machine was pushing air in and out when the machine was pushing out), I could mostly stay calm. But the timing was short breaths, so eventually I would have to take a deep breath, which would get my out of sync. A lot of times this would make me gag, too. And there was fluid coming up that they would have to pump out every once in a while, which was pretty awful.
It was pretty late Sunday when they moved me, but I was the most aware and calm that I'd been since everything started. I asked for something to write on and started talking (writing) to my mother in law. The first thing I asked was what had happened, because I still had no idea. Obviously this was not the D&C, but I didn't know what happened or how serious things had been. It's probably a good thing that a hysterectomy hadn't crossed my mind (and didn't until after we were home), because that would have freaked me out.
The nurses were really great through all of this. Very patient and sympathetic to my constant pleading to get the tube out. They brought a little fan in from someone's office because I was so hot. I had to think about every breath I took, and remember thinking how nice it was going to be when the tube was out and I could just breathe. I kept getting out of sync with the machine and struggling to stay calm and get back. The nurse I had overnight finally sedated me more so that I could get some sleep. She felt bad that I had to stay restrained, but I knew that if I wasn't restrained, I would try to pull the tube out. Especially in those first moments after waking up when I wasn't thinking consciously about needing the tube to breath. When you wake up and can't breath and there is something blocking your mouth, it is very hard not to try to pull it out.
In the morning they were surprised at how well I was doing and decided to test my lungs. They left the breathing tube in but turned the ventilator off and the sedation off, so I had to breathe on my own. I don't remember how long I had to do it, but I closed my eyes and focused on passing this test. I wanted that tube out. Stephen said he thinks it was around 20 minutes. Towards the end I asked if it was going to be harder to breathe without the tubes because I wasn't sure I could do it if it was going to be harder. The nurse said it would be easier and what I was doing was like breathing through a straw, which was a very good description.
The pulmonary specialist came in and was very surprised at how well I was doing. He had expected me to need the breathing tubes for several days, but cleared them to come out. They pumped up as much fluid as they could before pulling it out, and a whole bunch more came up when they pulled up the tubes. I spent the next week coughing up the rest of the fluid. Having just given birth, coughing was very unpleasant. The doctors told me to "splint" myself by holding a pillow across my stomach while I coughed, which helped.
After pulling out the tubes, they put an oxygen mask on me for a little while. I was finally able to have the restraints taken off my hands. They took off the mask and put on one of the oxygen tubes that go in your nose, which I had for a while.
Not long after the intubation came out, they brought Kaitlyn up so I could actually hold her for the first time since she was on my chest right after birth. Having been restrained, I couldn't hold her before even when she was breastfeeding. My parents and in-laws were in the room when they brought her, and my dad took this video:
Everyone left so we finally had our family time with the 3 of us and decided on her name. Up until then, she had been "Baby Girl Washburn," or BG as my brother in law called her, because we hadn't had time to look at her and decide between the two names we had.
They took Kaitlyn back down and had me sit in a chair for a little while, but that was very taxing. They finally moved me down to the mother baby unit that night. All the doctors and nurses were amazed that I was out of ICU so quickly, we had become pretty famous. We had doctors and nurses coming in the rest of the week to see how we were doing. Sometimes Stephen recognized them, I usually didn't. God was definitely with us during the recovery because every single one of them could not believe how fast I was recovering.
Here's some pictures from the room
Blurry, but you can see my aunt who drove down from Truckee and my brother and sister in law who had been at the hospital through most of this and were really helpful with the baby.
My mom still being my mom and helping me put up my hair. I was still really hot and having my hair on my neck was driving me nuts.
My brother in law trying to stay out of the way :)
My dad and sister had waited to hold Kaitlyn until I could be there to see them hold her for the first time.
Why is he drinking a Diet Coke? My dad loves Diet Coke, like he would hook up an IV if he could. When my sister or I would go through something difficult, my dad would (and does) fast and pray for us while the difficult thing is happening. When Stephen and I had trouble getting pregnant, he obviously couldn't fast meals indefinitely because it could be (and was) years. So he decided to fast from the item he loved most, Diet Coke, until he held his grandchild. This is his first Coke in a long time.
We were in the hospital the rest of the week, but sill got discharged much sooner than any of the doctors or nurses expected. To be honest, it's been hard not to be angry at God that we had to go through all of this. I was lucky that I didn't know what was going on or how serious it was, but my family had to go through several hours where they didn't know if I would make it or not.
We had hundreds of people praying for us over approximately 8 states and my recovery was nothing short of miraculous at every step. We were blessed with a perfect, healthy, beautiful little girl. But we are still (4 weeks later) dealing with the effects of the trauma to my body. I started doing a "Re-fall in love with Jesus" devotional, because I feel like that's where I'm at. I'm not doubting God's existence, I just don't like Him very much sometimes. Which sounds bad and pretty juvenile, but I know God can handle it and would know that's how I felt whether I acknowledged it or not. I don't know why we had to go through all this trauma, but I trust that there was/is/will be a reason, whether or not I ever understand it. I still choose to believe there is a God who loves us and has a plan for our lives, even if it means going through hard times.
