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I Almost Died During Childbirth

My PPH Story

By Milcah kellyPublished 4 years ago 13 min read
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Firstly, let me just start off by saying that I'm the most atrocious writer in the history of man. EVER EVER LOL, so bare with me lovelies!

Birthing Partners—boyfriend, mum, mum in law.

So as it goes, "I was neglected by the NHS", during my last trimester. I was very sickly through my entire pregnancy and suffered hyperemesis (for those that don't know what it is, it's extreme morning sickness). I couldn't even keep down water, and because my health was suffering, I was admitted into hospital and I had undergone multiple iron infusions.


Four or five hours before I gave birth, I attended the birthing unit in the hospital, complaining about excruciating pain in my lower abdomen, and I could barely stand. It was around 9 or 10 PM, and I was sent home because my contractions weren't intense enough.

Girls, only you know how you feel! Only you can feel what is going on in your body, so please don't let them turn you away when you're in need of help!

They turnt me away, and told me that I wasn't dilated enough (keep in mind I was a week overdue, so the baby was expected to come at any time)!

When I was turnt away from the hospital, I took an Uber home. My house was a 10 minute drive from the hospital! At this point, I actually had two houses due to a transition that was happening. I had one close to my birthing hospital, and I had one all the way on the other side of London, but close to another hospital. When my Uber had got back to my house I was having contractions like crazy, but I felt discouraged to go back to the hospital as I knew that they would send me away again. 
I was picked up from my home to go to my other house by my boyfriend and mum in law a couple minutes after I got home. The whole Uber journey there was miserable! My contractions were getting worse by the minute, but we eventually got me home.

I changed into some pajamas and got into bed. By this time it had probably just passed 11 PM. I couldn't sleep that whole night, I was crying and grunting. I knew that I was going into labour soon, but I wasn't not trying to get sent back home from the hospital.

I felt a pop down below after a couple contractions and let out a couple screams. My water had broke!


My boyfriend was running up and down throughout the whole house on the phone with the ambulance. My waters were GREEN! Don't say eww LOL, it happens.. it just means that the baby has pood in your stomach, so it's more of an alert that they are ready to come now!

Because it was my first child, I had a water birth, and everything planned out, but sadly when your waters are a different colour, you're not allowed a water birth.


So I was put in the ambulance and rushed to the hospital around the corner with all of my purple hospital notes and my hospital bag. I had been given gas and air in the ambulance, so I was in pain, but I was on a high as well (so many people like to downplay the hospitals gas and air, but it really works)! Too much of it does cause you to throw up though..
.

When we got to the hospital, they rolled me into hospital on the ambulance bed, and put me straight into a birthing room. My birthing partners were all with me! They examined me and I was 4 cm if I can recall, then that four didn't take long to get to 7 cm then to 10 cm. Bubba was ready to come! LOL, ladies if it's your first child and you're about to give birth, do try and use the toilet prior, because it's inevitable that you will crap yourself. Upside to that is the midwives will clean your ass for you. But you will never hear the end of it when you come out of hospital!

So I'd been laying down on the hospital bed with loads of scanning things on my stomach, hooked up to a machine that tells you when you're having a contraction. My legs were up in the stirrups, and I was being told to push. You don't have to worry about pushing, you kind of have to go with the flow of the moment. So whenever you're having a contraction, just push with the contraction. I was pushing for three hours, it was very intense, and painful and you do get to the point when you're like " I can't push anymore." Thinking about it now I just feel like crying. But in the end it's all worth it.


Pushing again and again and again. I was so lucky that I had such supportive birthing partners, because I really don't know what I would do without them! When I was laid on the hospital bed I was just hearing things like, "you've got to push when I say push and stop when I say stop," "only three more big pushes to go," "one more push to go," "he's nearly there," "I can see the head, keep going." When you're laying down on that hospital bed just pushing, trying to get the baby out, it's so encouraging to hear that the baby is coming.
 Since when I was pushing I was getting so tired, the baby was getting tired too, so the midwives had to hurry up the process. A red alarm was pushed as they thought that the baby's shoulders were stuck, and they couldn't get him out. All I heard was a loud alarm noise, and a whole load of nurses and midwives came rushing in. I and felt my whole body get flipped over and my legs get pushed all the way back. I could feel intense burning while the baby was getting twisted and pulled out. The ring of fire that everyone talks about is real! As soon as he came out I felt a sign of relief.

I had forgotten that you're supposed to push the placenta out as well. I kept feeling the umbilical cord twisting, and could feel the midwives tugging on it.
 My baby was given to me after he was cleaned off and weighed. He weighed 9 lbs and was 60cm. A very big baby! They came to put the baby in my arms, and I was laying there, holding him and crying. Weirdly enough I didn't feel anything, I felt like I was dreaming, and that I'd wake up soon and would still be pregnant. I gave my baby back to my boyfriend and continued to lay down. I felt a big lump of something come out from my vagina. It was the babies placenta!! But following the placenta I started bleeding out like a water fountain. I had hemorrhaged! The midwife injected oxytocin into my thigh to stop the bleeding, but it kept going, she injected me again, but the bleeding wouldn't stop, and she had to shout to another midwife to get another injection, so that she could inject me again. The injections were finally wearing in and at this point everything just felt blurred like I'd gone into a state of euphoria. I had lost more than 1.3 Litres of blood!

As I was laying there, getting pricked by needles, I felt like everyone's voices were fading in and out. Remember, I was still very high from the gas and air too! I'm also anaemic, so losing that amount of blood was making me hallucinate occasionally. When the placenta came out I was just looking around at the ceiling, and I closed my eyes and felt trapped. I felt like I was trying to scream and nothing came out. I opened my eyes and saw one of my birthing partners crying. The midwives were looking at me, asking if I was okay and how I felt. At that time I couldn't even put a sentence together. I started to feel really cold and like I couldn't move. My legs were shaking from being in the same position for hours and I was tired, but I couldn't sleep. I had a spin off of emotions.


I remember when I was laying on the bed, I had told my mother when pregnant that I felt that I might not make it through my childbirth. And as I could feel myself drowning in every emotion you could possibly think of, that could've been the end of my life. When you feel yourself going, your body gets really cold, but your head feels really hot. I literally was in a mental panic, but I was too high to panic. I was in so much pain. The doctors were running around trying to sort out a blood transfusion for me (which I didn't end up having). I was so confused to what just happened, and my vision was getting really bad by the second. I couldn't hear anything at one point or see anything, even though my eyes were open. During my pregnancy I used to have really bad nightmares, and I used to see people that were close to me that had passed away and they would talk to me. You might think I sound crazy, but this stuff really happens! When you're pregnant, you go through all types of things, and they say it is because you're carrying a child.


My great grandma died a couple of years ago. She was in the hospital with me, as I could feel my body giving up. She was standing right in front of me and smiling at me. I remember that during my pregnancy she kept asking me if I was married, and said she was watching over me, and asked what I would name my child. She also said to me that I would be a good mother, I just need to have patience or something along them lines. It really got to me. From when I started pushing in the hospital, I could feel her presence just as I felt it when I closed my eyes at night during my pregnancy and she began talking to me. It is a scary thought, however, since I was around seven to eight years old I did have some issues with seeing people that weren't physically there.


I feel like I did die in the hospital for a millisecond, not physically but mentally. Because at one point there was nothing. Then there was something again. When your body is giving up on you, you feel nothing. You see nothing. It's just really light and blurry, but you can hear voices.

Straight after I'd given birth, they wanted to keep me and the baby in the hospital (for my blood transfusion and monitoring), because they also suspected me of having Sepsis.


Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to an infection. 
It happens when your immune system overreacts to an infection and starts to damage your body's own tissues and organs. 


Me and the baby had to both be on antibiotics throughout the day. We were in hospital for three days. I could barely sleep. We were put in the Mary Ward with other people that had just given birth. It hadn't settled in my mind that I have a baby until we left the hospital.

Every day I was in hospital, I had multiple visitors throughout the day, bringing food and gifts. I had nurses coming at every four to six hours to check up on me, take some blood, and give me medication. I couldn't really walk after giving birth either, it's like your legs are just stuck in a wide position, and it feels like there's a big weight on the bottom of your stomach. Your first pee after giving birth stings. Your first poo hurts. Your back feels like it's broken, so you can't really stand up. You look like absolute shit, you can't shower without assistance. You're literally a baby for a couple of days. It does make you feel broken.
When I was in the ward I used to cry a lot, because I personally hate hospitals. Being in a hospital for three days feels like three months. They kept getting doctors coming to me, telling me that they think that they're going to give me an iron infusion and blood transfusion. Then I wouldn't see the doctor for maybe five hours... we literally had to run the doctor up as it was quite understaffed.


Your first meal after giving birth... expect to feel sick, and barely be able to eat. It was only on the second day that I was able to eat properly. When you're exhausted, you don't really think about food. When I was finally able to rest up a bit, I was having nightmares every night. I think my whole hospital experience did cause mental trauma. I was my happiest during the day, and in pain every night. On the third day when I finally got cleared to go home, I was happy. I'd had enough of being in hospital, and not being able to get any fresh air. I needed to feel like a human again.
 In my experience, I think that it's only when you get home with the baby that it feels real. When you're in hospital and you've just given birth, everyone around you knows it's real, but you think you're dreaming.


I was in a lot of pain for weeks after I finally got discharged to go home. They'd given me antibiotics to go home with, and I had to book my GP appointments for my check ups, and the baby's postnatal. I had to bathe in salt water at night to help the healing process. I was still getting used to everything. I had been told that I only had a little graze in my cervix, no tears. I was getting bad pain in my stomach, because my uterus was still contracting. And the obvious bleeding period after pregnancy which lasts around six weeks.


Going home after I'd been in hospital, there was no one there when me and bubba first got in for like 30 minutes. Being a first time mum, I was so confused, and I was panicking in my head. I don't know how to sterilise bottles or make formula!! And my breast milk hadn't properly come in yet. But my baby was crying.


The newborn stage is probably the best stage. They don't really cry that much. They sleep a lot, only waking for food and nappy changes. It's like they're still processing the world. Then when they get older to like two months, and have their immunisations, they become very colicky, they start wanting to play, and are up all day, it is quite overwhelming, because you are still very tired.


Well, that's the end.

pregnancy
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