shards of my heart

Kris and I talk about a lot of things.  I can proudly say we are very transparent in our relationship, and we talk about everything, from past relationships to naughty dreams. :)  He always makes me feel like I can talk to him about whatever I want and need without being afraid of what may happen, or what he may think/say.  It's always been that way, from day 1 with him...  And I love him dearly for it.

But one thing that is really hard to talk about for both of us, is what happened to me.  Not to be overly dramatic, but ever since the birth, it's been so easy for me to dwell on "what if"s.  What if I had died?  Then what would have happened?  It's hard to talk about it, maybe because of how close we really did come to that possibility.  I hate to seem like I'm dwelling on it - but I can't really help it (not yet, anyway)...  A ton of the emotions & thoughts these days are tied to it.  (I can't believe it's only been two months.)

A thought that broke my heart into a million pieces is the fact that if I had died, I was going to leave Alaise.  My little girl who is only a year old.  My little girl whom I love so dearly.  My little girl whose needs I've attended to since the moment she was born.  What is worse, is to think that this little person whom I loved so much every second of her life would not remember me.  In my selfishness, (and unnecessary thoughts) it made me so sad that my baby would not remember the person who loved her most.  (well, aside from her daddy, of course...)  That all the love I had for her wouldn't really exist in her memories.

One of Kris' friends, L, got married several years ago, to a really nice guy who had a little boy.  His wife died of cancer, so I was really glad to hear that he had found L.  I don't know them well, and most of what I hear is from other people (mostly Kris' mom) and Facebook, but one thing I see is that she really accepted him and loves him as her child.  He is 9 years old, so chances are, he really loves L as his mom, as it should be.  But it is also sad to me to think that he most likely doesn't have many memories of his birth mom, who probably loved him to bits.

It's life, I know.  Humans grow and it's natural for all of us not to remember our days as infants.  And of course, if I really had died, I wouldn't care that Alaise wouldn't remember me, cuz, well, I would be dead.  But it's still a heartbreaking thought - that the greatest love I had for someone wouldn't be remembered.

baby. life. death. love.

(This post was written over the course of 2 weeks or so...  Which explains the tense changes and such.)

Exactly a week ago today, I was lying in a hospital bed, disappointed that my nurse's prediction hadn't come true.  She thought I'd have a baby by midnight, but she was wrong.  Oh well.

My contractions started around 5 o'clock on Nov. 21st, Sunday.  I had had mild contractions all night long the previous night, and I thought for sure I'd be going to the hospital in the morning.  But they slowed down, and we spent the day doing normal stuff - watching CBS Morning, eating, shopping at Sam's.  Then we went to the doctor's for Kris' cough that wasn't going away.  I'm pretty sure my contractions started while we were sitting there waiting for his steroid shot.  They started coming pretty regularly and painfully, which was good news!  We got home, I told my parents what was up (they freaked out and thought I should be going to the hospital pronto).  I really wanted to put Alaise to bed before going, so we packed the hospital bag, Kris tried to fix the porch lock, we ate dinner, and I gave Alaise a bath.  But around 7:30pm, my contractions were so painful, I thought I needed to get to the hospital...  So we said our good byes, and took off.
(Right before leaving, Alaise gave us a treat - she pretended to answer the phone with my phone, putting it on her ear.  Freakin' adorable.)

We get to the hospital.  My contractions are almost exactly 5 minutes apart.  I get placed in the triage, and I get hooked up with all the familiar stuff - pressure cuff, two belly bands, with the rhythmic heartbeat going, going, going.  They check and I'm 5+cm dilated, so I won't be going home.  (yay!)  They move me to our room, and Kris and I get ourselves comfortable.  (Contractions are really painful at this point though, I don't know how comfortable you can get on the hospital bed with them coming regularly...)  I get hooked up to an IV, and our nurse, Christina, asks if I want an epidural.  YES!  (*I know some people thumb their noses at epidurals.  I don't understand why, as it makes the whole labor & delivery process so much more pleasant!!  Also, we wanted the epidural, just in case of complications like last time.)  I sign a bunch of papers, while waiting for the anesthesiologist.  Once I get the epidural (Kris could stay in the room with me this time), I think it's around 9pm.  I'm 6-7cm dilated.  We try to get some rest.  My water breaks on its own (quite a bizarre feeling with epidural) during one of the stronger contractions - I hope that it will speed up my labor.

I doze on and off.  Christina thinks that I might have the baby by midnight, which is fantastic - that will be a short labor!  But around 10-11pm, my contractions slow down, so they put me on pitocin.  Also, the baby is turned sideways, so I lay for a while on my side, hoping he'll turn.  Midnight comes and goes, and around 1:30am, Christina checks me - 10cm!  I think I probably had been dilated that much for a while, but whatever...  They start prepping the room, Christina calls Dr. Eisenhauer, and gets me to give a couple of trial pushes.  Dr. Eisenhauer arrives a little bit before 2am, and after about 4 sets of pushes, my little boy is born!!  2:17am, 9lb 9oz, 21 inches long.  Considering how big he is, the delivery doesn't seem all that bad.  They put him on my chest, and I spend a few moments caressing him - I don't remember much from Alaise's birth, and I want to remember this clearly with him.  They whisk him away to clean him (and how he cried!  His big sister hardly cried...), and the doctor delivers my placenta.  (Good sign, as it didn't with Alaise.)  I have a 2nd degree tear, which is much better than last time.

So everything seems to be going SO much better than the first.  But we're all nervous about what might happen next.  We all hope nothing will happen, but because of the severe bleeding from last delivery, the doctor orders a full pitocin drip & mega dose of (I think) Cytotec.  Christina told me that they usually insert a quarter of a pill in the vagina to stimulate labor...  They put 6 whole pills in me to get my uterus to contract and stop bleeding.  With the precautions taken, we're hopeful that that will be the end of our birth story.  I get to breastfeed our little boy, have some family time until they take him to the nursery.  I think it's around 3:30am...  Kris and I are new parents again, and we're happy & exhausted.  We discuss baby boy's name for a while, and then to bed we go!
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I had drunk a bunch of cranberry juice right after the delivery, and I woke up needing to throw up really bad.  Kris will tell you, I HATE throwing up.  I'd rather lay sick for two hours, rather than throw up and feel better.  But in this case, I couldn't hold it in...  Felt much better afterwards.  Dozing on and off, the nurse came in once in a while to check up on me, massaging my abdomen, assessing how much I was bleeding.  She said that I was still bleeding more than normal (which was a little disconcerting, since I was full of do-not-bleed medication), but it was okay.

I woke up once again, around 6:15am, feeling like I had to throw up.  All I had had after my first episode was a couple sips of water...  But this time, it wasn't just needing to throw up.  I felt SO sick...  I was hot, sweaty, my stomach was turning and I was dry heaving.  I felt claustrophobic, and I was disoriented.  My blanket was soaked in blood. (which felt like dejavu from the first delivery...  blood soaked blankets are never good.)  I was in the middle of trying to wake Kris up, when the nurses came in panicked.  (Later I found out that they had gotten results from my latest blood draw, and my platelet level had plummeted.)  They started looking me over...  Discovered that my epidural site was also bleeding.  (they had left my catheter in there, just in case I needed to go into surgery.)  Which was a bad bad sign...  I was bleeding from places I wasn't supposed to bleed from.  (Later I found out that my urine also had blood in it, which they were extremely alarmed about.)  And I heard nurses mumble something about baseball sized clots.  (SHIT.)

While they are doing Lord knows what, Kris started calling people - my parents (who didn't answer), his parents (who also didn't answer), my brother (guess what, yep, he didn't answer either).  My thoughts at this point was, "Oh my gosh. I'm gonna bleed to death and I'm not gonna be able to talk to my parents... If my brother doesn't answer, who's going to tell my parents what's happening??"

My dad did call back, although I'm unsure about the passage of time from this point forward.  I told him that things were't looking good, and that I may be heading into surgery for a hysterectomy.  (I think that was what the nurses told me was probably going to happen.)  I didn't tell him just how serious the situation was...  I didn't have the words to really tell him what was happening.  I mean, how do you tell your parents that you may be dying?
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At this point, I think they gave me Stadol for pain relief.  And things get real fuzzy.  Stadol had an interesting affect on me...  I got real sleepy, and even though I think I had my eyes open, I don't remember actually seeing anything.  So maybe I was talking with my eyes closed?  Also, I had to concentrate really hard to say anything.  I'm sure I drifted in and out of sleep the entire time.

**Stadol got rid of my "filter".  You know, how you think certain things, but you (obviously) don't say it to people around you?  Or you only say it to your spouse?  Well, all of that came out without that (oh-so-important) filter.

• Example:  During the upcoming (extremely painful) procedure, Kris says I kept complaining why they weren't giving me something in my epidural.  I think I complained and complained about this.
• Example:  When (according to Kris, a very very nice) a lab technician came in to draw my blood, I apparently looked down at it, and said, "Ow.  That hurts.  This stuff isn't working."  (at which point, my nurse went to get me a dose of morphine.)  Sounds like something a little child would say, no?
• Example:  You know, how you don't yell or scream even if you have a bit of pain?  Or, even if it's a lot of pain, you control it to a certain extent?  Yep.  Stadol got rid of that too.  In the aforemetioned procedure, I apparently screamed so loud that it made my (not squeamish) husband sick, he almost threw up.   All the pain I was feeling, came out as blood curdling screams.  (I hope nobody was close and in labor - it probably would have freaked them out.)
• Example:  "Could I die?"  I kept asking the nurse.  I guess it was definitely something that was going through my head, but something I would not have verbalized under normal condition.  But Stadol?  It helped me really "be myself".  I asked whatever I wanted.  The nurse's answer?  "Yes, you could.

**Stadol also messed with my perception of time.  When Kris finally told me that our families were on the way to the hospital, I kept asking him if they were here yet.  "No, but they'll be here shortly."  "You said that 30 minutes ago!"  When in fact, it had only been 8 minutes.  I did that over and over again.

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Anyway.  My OB got to the hospital, and I am sure they started discussing what to do with me.  I don't remember hardly anything during this time.  (Thanks, Stadol!)  Kris told me that they  had the entire area prepped with sterile stuff, and since they didn't know what they were going to do yet, they apparently had everything under the sun ready.  My OB and her partner decided to use the intrauterine balloon.  I think by this point, they did not want to take me into surgery, for fear of me bleeding out on the table from surgery sites, as my blood wasn't clotting anywhere.  So they wanted to do everything they could without taking me into surgery first.  

This is the previously mentioned procedure that made me scream and my husband sick.  I don't remember much, except for the excruciating pain (I thought they were killing me... seriously.) and the (Stadol-induced) thought, "Why (the &@!*) aren't they getting me numb with the epidural?!"  (In their defense, they didn't have the time to call the anesthesiologist and get me numb or anything.)  I don't ever remember being in that much pain in my life, and I am sure I let the entire hospital floor know it.

Anyway.  They did their thing, the nurse gave me morphine, and I was in and out.  Kris kept telling me to rest, that I should sleep, but my thought was, "I don't want to close my eyes yet - I HAVE to see my daughter.  What if I don't wake up??"  I was going to stay awake and see Alaise if it killed me.  And I did.  Our parents and Alaise got to the hospital shortly (I swear, it was like, two hours later, but it was only 30 minutes at most in reality.).  I asked Kris to get my mom and Alaise.  Mom came in the room, and I could hardly talk...  Who knows what I looked like.  (Later, the nurses and doctors all told me how I didn't look Asian at all, because I was so pale from all the blood loss.)  I'm sure I was completely bloated as well.  She just caressed my face, and started massaging my feet.  Kris brought Alaise in, and I wanted to hold her so dearly, but of course I couldn't...  But it was good enough that I touched her, and saw her.

From there, for several hours, they just monitored me closely to make sure my bleeding had stopped and things were progressing as they should.  Kris got some much needed sleep, and me... well, feeling claustrophobic in the bed and in a lot of pain, I just tried to get through.  I had the following things all hooked up to my body:  two IV's, one in each arm, a catheter, a tube from the balloon, a pressure cuff, and compression stockings (to prevent thrombosis, due to all the clotting factors I was getting), one on each leg.  Seven things, permanently attached...  It's a wonder I got any sleep that first night.  I received:  4 units of red blood cells, 2 bags of platelets, 2 bags of plasma, over 6 bags of pitocin, and tons and tons of saline.

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Recovery was...  Rough.  Physically and emotionally.  I thought I felt pretty good when I got discharged from the hospital - I was surprised at the speed of my recovery.  I felt much better than the first time, although the situation this time around was more serious.  I'm still recovering...  physically and emotionally.  The implications of what happened (more on that later) gets me crying at the drop of a hat.

I had had what's called DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation).  From what I can tell, it's where your body's clotting factors go haywire so your body starts bleeding out.  It's pretty dang serious, and as much as I keep thinking, "Oh, you're being dramatic... You didn't REALLY almost die...", talking to the doctors (and even Kai's pediatrician, who came to talk to us while all hell was breaking loose, was telling me how serious DIC is on his visit) and reading up on the internet (oh, internet.  How you provide me with too much information sometimes.), I realize that God has been so gracious to let us return home as a family.


So that's the "short" story.  Kris and I still talk about it, find out new things, go over old things...  As much as it's scary and painful to go through the story over and over again, it helps with healing.  For both of us.  For everyone who prayed for us in our time of dire need - thank you.  I appreciate it more than I can say.  God's been so good to our family...  I hope this new life we brought to this world will always remind me of that.


Baby.  Life.  Death.  Love.  All the things that matter in life.  It seems I have experienced almost all of it in less than 24 hours.