Caroline & Holland
A Third Pregnancy, a Different Plan
I’ve given birth three times. My first baby was a C-section due to breech position at 38w 3d when my water broke and she was still feet first. My second was a successful VBAC in the hospital with a midwife at 40w 3d. The plan for this pregnancy was a home birth with midwives.
This pregnancy was delightfully uneventful. Baby girl grew perfectly and moved all the time. Starting at about 37 weeks she had dropped very low. Just before 38 weeks I asked to be checked and confirmed what I was feeling – she was already at a 0 fetal station. I continued on having several periods of prodromal labor for the next couple of weeks.
When Labor Began and Something Felt Different
On March 3rd (40w 3d) I woke up at 2am to contractions, which wasn’t out of the ordinary, so I tried to sleep through them. By 4am, the contractions were keeping me awake, plus they were getting stronger and closer together. At 6am I woke my husband up and he began to prep the house for labor.
While this was all happening, I noticed a pain in the front of my belly. I tried position changes and a heat pack to relieve that sensation, but it never went away. At around 7am my sisters and mom arrived because the contractions had gotten strong enough that I needed counter pressure. By 9am, the midwives had arrived and things started to pick up.
Escalation and the Moment Everything Changed
Contractions continued to increase in intensity and frequency all morning. Around 9am, I was finally able to move into the tub while it was being filled which felt very comforting. The contractions built in strength and at about 9:45am I had a few contractions that felt very pushy. At this point, the pain in the front of my belly was very prevalent.
At one point during a strong contraction I felt something kind of move or pop and it made my whole body jolt. It didn’t feel like my water breaking even though we all assumed that’s what had happened. I thought maybe baby moved in a really weird way that my body didn’t like.
By 10:45am, things had slowed a bit so we moved out of the tub and the midwife checked me. Baby was still very low and I was at a 5. We tried side-lying release on my right for a few contractions, then tried my left which I wasn’t able to do because it made that front belly pain even worse. We did a few contractions on the toilet, then I labored on the ball some more.
I slowly made my way back into the tub at about 11:45am because I was feeling so uncomfortable and couldn’t stand up straight. By now, I wasn’t getting a break between contractions because of the intense pain in my belly. I tried lunging in the tub, holding my belly with my hands, side-lying, and leaning back but none of it seemed to help.
Suddenly, at 12:45pm we saw blood in the water. The midwife looked with a mirror to see if baby was about to make her appearance but that wasn’t the case. We did the next contraction in the tub and went back to the bed to get checked again. I was unchanged and the midwife said something felt off or kind of wrong. Baby’s heart rate was still very steady but the midwives discussed and ultimately made the decision to call an ambulance and transfer to a hospital quickly.
The midwife communicated this to me very calmly yet directly, and my birth team quickly started gathering our things to get me ready for the ambulance.
Acting Quickly
I didn’t know what exactly was happening yet but I knew we needed to act quickly and calmly. The nurse continued to monitor baby while the ambulance arrived and EMTs got ready. The pain in my belly continued to increase, and I was encouraged to breathe through contractions instead of bearing down.
I was quickly loaded into the ambulance and transported to the hospital where a surgical team was ready and waiting because the midwife had called and briefed them on the situation. The OBGYN assessed the situation upon arrival, she performed a cervical check, and made the call to get me into the OR for an emergency C-section.
A Matter of Minutes
From arrival at the hospital to birth was less than 10 minutes. My baby did have to be resuscitated but she bounced back very quickly because the midwives made the call early on and before it was too late. She spent a little less than 24 hours in the NICU where she had skin-to-skin time with my husband and was able to be fed with colostrum I had pumped.
I was told my uterus was a complete rupture with subsequent placental abruption and that baby girl was entirely in my abdomen at the time she was delivered. My uterus tore horizontally where my previous scar was, plus it extended to the side in both directions severing my left uterine artery. Then it tore on my left side from the tear all the way down to my cervix. There was no damage to any other organs.
I did have to have a blood transfusion as I had lost over 2 liters of blood, the exact amount is unknown because the bleeding started at home.
Grateful
I’ve had a much slower healing after this baby than either previous birth. I had soreness and cramps that lasted longer than 6 weeks postpartum. Baby girl has really continued with minimal complications and grown very well.
I am 9 weeks postpartum and feel like I’m finally returning to my usual activity without causing more bleeding or cramping/abdominal pain. I feel extremely lucky that my baby and I both survived.