Not very many people know about Malachi's birth story. This is because it's long and sort of complicated. I kept trying to figure out how to write it....quick, or detailed but without the gore...Well I've come to the decision to just write it quickly and let you all know the basics.
I had been having contractions between 5-15 minutes varying in strength for 3-4 days when Monday the 21st (June) they started to really bother me. That day they never were over 10 minutes apart. Around 10pm we decided to try and go to bed. But then around 12am I decided I couldn't sleep through them anymore. We called my mother-in-law to come over to watch Brandon and we went to the hospital.
They checked me in and everything and around 1:30am I was dilated to a 4. I told them I would likely want an epidural so to call the anesthesiologist. When I got my epidural it was about 3am and I was 5-6 cm dilated. Then nothing. I dilated to a 7 but my doctor wouldn't be coming in until 7 to do rounds and I wasn't going anywhere. I told the nurse that if I could just have my water broken this baby would be here. Well a little before 7 he came in and broke my water. I was dilated to a 10 at 8:20am. I had Brian put the video tape on the ledge of the window sill so that we could have the birth taped. (Brian was standing in the way of the camera so technically it's really only PG). The video is only 7 minutes long and I was not even pushing the whole time! Malachi was born and everything was great!
Well...sort of. I got to nurse Malachi and after they took him away to do their thing Brian noticed there was some blood soaking through my blanket. We called the nurses to check it out. I can't go into detail the rest of the story because it is graphic and pretty darn terrible. Simply, I kept bleeding and they couldn't get it to stop. I passed out, puked
everywhere, and lost 4 units of blood (you only have 7). After trying two transfusions and getting nowhere, my doctor rushed me to the OR because I was losing too much too fast. Brian didn't have time to give me a priesthood blessing, but they did let me see Malachi before they rushed me off. I had to close my eyes when they were wheeling me down because they were running down the hall and it was making me dizzy and nauseous. They didn't know what was wrong but Brian had to give them permission to do a hysterectomy if they couldn't get the bleeding to stop.
I was in the OR for less than an hour, but they had trouble keeping my blood pressure up so I remember coming in and out in the recovery room. Fortunately, no hysterectomy was needed. I stayed in the hospital all that night, but I was determined to nurse Malachi. I had three IVs in (one in each hand and one in my left elbow-pit). I was able to nurse him! The hospital pediatrician was shocked and amazed that I was able to keep it up and keep him satisfied without formula. Go me!
It has been a long recovery because my body had to build my blood supply back up. However, now I am at 100%. I am doing P90X and on my 7
th week. I am coaching cross country with Brian at the high school and am just crazy busy (the reason this blog post is 3 months late). I am so grateful that my doctor has cleared me and we should be able to have more kids. I will need some blood work done to make sure everything is okay, but my uterus is fine!
The Lord has truly blessed our family.
