How a routine C-section turned into the most traumatic event of my life
Nothing about having babies has been easy for me. After struggling with unexplained infertility for a year and a half, my first pregnancy ended in an unplanned cesarean section.
So, the second time around, that was the plan, too. Thankfully, my son was born healthy, but immediately after my routine C-section, things started to take a turn.
Rather than feeling overwhelmed with joy, I felt disoriented and lightheaded. I struggled to keep my eyes open. I'd been up at 4 a.m. that day and had just given birth, so I thought it was normal. I was vaguely aware nurses had taken my newborn to be cleaned and weighed. I closed my eyes to rest while they stitched me back up.
Looking back, I should’ve known something was wrong. When my first son was born, I couldn’t stop staring at him. I was alert in the operating room, even though I had been in labor for 30+ hours beforehand. This time, I felt an overwhelming urge to sleep.
The medical staff was discussing my blood pressure, which had dropped alarmingly low. I was given IV fluids, and I started to wake up a bit. Minutes later, I experienced the lightheaded sensation again and started dry heaving. My husband and baby were quickly shuttled out of the OR, and it became clear to me that something was wrong.
As I was lying on the table, my doctor’s face appeared above mine.
“I am going to feel around in your uterus for a clot,” she said, one hand inside me and the other pushing on my belly. “If I can’t feel anything, I will have to go back in.”
Her search was futile. She couldn’t determine what was going on and my blood pressure continued to drop. The team quickly decided to send me back into surgery.
“A lot of people are going to come in the room now. They are all here to help. Try to stay calm,” my doctor said.
“I’m scared. I have two babies now,” I said. My doctor replied that they would do everything they could to keep me safe.
“If we need to, we will perform a life-saving hysterectomy,” she said.
I thought to myself: Is my life in danger?
I was terrified, but the next thing I knew I had a mask over my mouth for anesthesia.
Later, I learned that the surgery was about two hours long, and that I suffered from uterine atony, a condition in which the uterus muscles do not contract after birth, leading to massive blood loss. I hemorrhaged three liters of blood (about half the blood in the body) during the surgery. The doctors had to stitch my uterus up to force it to contract.
“Hemorrhages occur in approximately 1% to 6% of births according to the National Institutes of Health,” says Dr. Jill Purdie, board-certified OB-GYN and medical director at Pediatrix Medical Group in Atlanta. She adds that excessive blood loss is more common during a C-section since the uterus has to be cut open to deliver the baby.
I can’t imagine what my poor husband was going through, holding our newborn baby and seeing the worried look on the doctors’ faces.
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it,” he said to me after the surgery.
When I woke up, an orthopedist stood over me and told me that my arm would be OK.
My arm? “I’m confused,” I said.
During the surgery, an IV had slipped out of my vein and filled my arm with fluid. It’s a rare accident called an IV infiltration. My arm was so swollen that I could not close my hand. My entire arm, from wrist to elbow, was purple for a month. Luckily, it was mostly cosmetic, but another thing to add to my medical history.
I was wheeled to the recovery room, where I finally held my new baby. I stayed there all day for monitoring and eventually headed to the labor and delivery floor that night.
The next day, I had an abdominal CT scan to check on the internal bleeding. After, the physician’s assistant visited my room.
“The CT scan of the abdomen was normal, but the image showed something in the lower portion of the lungs,” she said. “How are you feeling? Any shortness of breath?”
“No,” I responded. I felt like I had had a C-section — so, not great — but I wasn't experiencing any severe pain, bleeding or alarming symptoms.
“The doctors suspect you have a pulmonary embolism, but we won’t be sure until we do another CT scan,” the PA said.
I was rushed to imaging while my husband stayed behind with the baby. The results returned quickly, and the PA told me the suspicions were correct.
“You have blood clots in both lungs. Strangely, you seem to be asymptomatic,” she said.
“I’m sorry, what?” I thought I was going home soon and now, on top of almost bleeding out, I had a new serious health complication — one that kills people.
According to Dr. Danielle Wright-Terrell, an OB-GYN for the U.S. Air Force and CEO of HONEY, a postpartum support platform, “Venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots, is a serious complication after birth (that) accounts for 9.3% of all maternal deaths.” She says that those who have a C-section are four times more likely to have a blood clot.
I’m lucky they caught mine when they did. Rather than going home to my 2-year-old, I was hooked up to an IV blood thinner. These meds don't break up the clot, but they prevent it from getting bigger and stop new clots from forming. The doctors were worried that the blood thinners could cause another bleeding event, so I was moved to a different floor for 24-hour monitoring.
To put the icing on the incredibly crappy cake, with the trauma of my delivery, my breast milk hadn’t come in yet, so my baby stayed behind in the nursery to be fed. I was incredibly thankful to the nurses caring for him during that time. My new room didn’t have a chair for my husband to sleep in, so I sent him home to sleep for the night.
Hooked up to a bunch of machines, I tried to sleep. I woke at 4 a.m. and burst into tears. The whole experience was such a whirlwind that I didn’t even have time to process it.
I was scared, sad and confused about why this was happening to me. I was healthy and didn’t have a high-risk pregnancy. I even kept running until I was 6 months pregnant, and I went to the gym most days until a week before birth.
After the 24-hour observation, the pulmonologist said I was doing well and could go home on blood thinners.
“You can’t breastfeed on these medications though,” he said.
I didn’t care. I just wanted to go home and see my 2-year-old, but I was also terrified that something else would happen to me.
What if the blood clots traveled somewhere else in my body? What if I started to bleed internally again? The doctors assured me those things were highly unlikely.
My total hospital stay was five days. After hemorrhaging and developing blood clots in the lungs, I went home and started my postpartum life.
Coping with a traumatic birth
Between the little sleep and learning to manage two under two, I didn’t have time to think about the events of those few days. But now, five months later, the birth replays in my head like a movie.
“A birth experience that does not go according to plan can make you feel like things are out of your control,” says Dr. Nina E. Ross, Section Chief of Reproductive Psychiatry at Jersey Shore University Medical Center.
Dr. Kara Kushnir, psychotherapist and the founder of A Work of Heart Counseling, adds: “Following a traumatic birth, many individuals experience dissociation and struggle to feel present and connect with their baby, and they are more susceptible to postpartum anxiety, depression, OCD or postpartum PTSD."
Therapy is beneficial to process trauma, but Ross also recommends focusing on small everyday decisions, like choosing what clothes to wear, to help regain that sense of control. “It may be helpful to share your birth story with others, such as with loved ones, therapists or a support group … to validate your own experience, process the event and feel supported by others,” says Ross.
A few months after giving birth, I started therapy to process my trauma. My therapist says we are working to put words to the movie that plays in my head. She assures me this will help manage my residual anxiety.
As for my physical health, I’m still on blood thinners, but my cardiologist thinks I can come off the medication soon. At six months postpartum, I'll have an echocardiogram to see if the clots have dissipated.
I also started running again, and I have been amazed at my progress. I’m signed up for two half marathons this spring and can’t wait to cross those finish lines.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
