Almost One Year Later...

...here's Andy's birth story.  I can't tell you how many times I have started this and just get too emotional and have to walk away.  However, the last two times I have told the story...no tears fell.  So I am hoping this time I can get down and close the chapter on one of the best and worst days of my life.

The {much abbreviated} story goes something like this...

Leave house before the rooster crowed...our nanny at the time spent the night with us to be there when P and C woke up. 
Pick up Gigi (Tootie and the time...she has since has a grandma name change.)
First to arrive at hospital...sit and wait. 
Called back...got the show instantly on the road.
Signed the forms.
Got a little sick from the epidural...blech.
Off to the OR.
Super friendly OR team...before we know it...Andy was here.
Nick says to me OMG Babe...he's huge.
He was...and he is perfect.  Perfect cry.  Perfect color. Perfect fingers and toes...all 10 lbs of him.

In recovery I felt great all things considered.  Andy nursed successfully. Smiles all around. 
Time to go to post-partum floor...

Got a great room.  Family was there.  The charge nurse brought Andy in...and I fell even more in love. Pictures were being taken and all of a sudden...I started to fade....just didn't feel good.  Thought maybe I just need rest.

I tell Nick I want everyone out but him and my mom.  My heart began to race...I told my nurse I just didn't feel good.  I could tell something wasn't right. 

My blood pressure was low...but that is "normal" after an epidural.  I passed out.  Nick thought I was having a seizure.  Nurse tells Nick to take the baby to the nursery.

Fast foward...after a series of low bp and high heart rate...rapid response team is called.  My epidural is turned off.  The doctors are pushing on my stomach feeling for bleeding.  I am crying out in pain. It was awful.  They couldn't find any bleeding. I fade in and out...my blood pressure was 56/35...my heart rate in the 140s...something was not right.  I could see the look on Nick's face.  Something was very wrong.

My doctor is there and decides to transfuse me since I was so anemic before delivery. Back to the labor and delivery floor.  I don't even remember the trip.

What I do remember is I wasn't there long and I hear a nurse call out...she is bleeding somewhere...we just can't see it.  We are taking her back. I had probably 20 people in that room....all working to save my life.

I remember an oxygen mask being put over my face...and being taken back to the OR.  Nick and my mom were escorted back to the surgery waiting room.  Before they could get there they heard a commotion running down the hall...doctors and nurses were pushing a gourney and yelling for them to get out of the way...move...stat.  When they looked over to the gourney...it was me.

I can remember being raced down the hallway...someone carrying an oxygen tank and then having to wait for the damn elevator. Seriously? 

I was praying out loud...Please God...Please make it okay.  I prayed for them to save my life...to do a hysterectomy....whatever it took to bring me back to Nick and these three little babies.

I remember being moved from the gourney to the operating table and hearing someone say cut her panties off (which was really the mesh crap they put on you after surgery...but sure panties).

In the transition for gourney to table the oxygen in the mask stopped flowing (at least I think) and I started fussing to get it off my face if nothing was coming out...I felt like I couldn't breathe. They took it off and replaced it with the gas mask....

About an hour later I woke up in recovery...Nick was there.  I think another nurse was there.  I don't really remember much.  I do remember talking to one of the anesthesiologists that was a part of the rapid response team and to my post-partum nurse that had come down to basically make sure I had not died. 

Apparently I began hemmoraging from a hematoma that burst on my uterus near the incision.  I had to have four units of blood transfused.  My blood pressure dropped so low that it was making me black out.  My heart was tachycardiac...apparently the phase right before arrest.  My skin was sweating and lost all color. 
The nurse kept checking my urine output all night very closely to make sure my kidneys were still functioning properly.

I am not sure how close to death I came...but I never want to experience that again.  It was beyond awful.  The feelings that overcame me thinking about leaving my husband alone with three babies still put a pit in my stomach to this day.

I spent the next 24 hours or so on the high-risk floor...with a nurse from nursery coming down in the middle of the night telling me the were moving Andy to the NICU because his oxygen level was decreasing too much during feedings. I was overwhelmed with emotion.

It turns out Andy just liked to eat so much that he would forget to breathe.  It was almost embarrasing sitting with him on the NICU floor...he was the giant 10 pounder surrounded by preemies.

Eventually we both were moved into a regular room and I couldn't wait to get home.  The day of discharge came...but we didn't go home.  I had a fever and had to do a round of antibiotics and had to be fever free before I could go. 

But...we made it.  Praise God. 

If I had it all to do over again I would probably press my doctor's more for a VBAC.  I had asked about it at one of my visits and they assured me that the safer way to go would be to do the repeat c-section.  Ha. Not this time.

But...we made it.  OnceI was home I recovered quickly...my iron levels returned to normal.  They told me I must have gotten the blood of an athlete...now I am just waiting for that to turn into motivation to exercise.

Andy has been such a blessing to our family.  It is hard to imagine life without him. He is such a sweet little momma's boy...such an easy going little boy.  Hard to believe he is almost a year old.

I am so incredibly blessed to be his Momma ( Parker and Caroline's too). For so long I prayed for these children, for this family...my cup runneth over.