Where have you been Samantha? Well I have been living, birthing, dying, living, and loving. Sitting at home fresh from my roller coaster ride of a week I thought I’d share my birth story, while it is still fresh not that I will ever forget it.

The end of my pregnancy was becoming miserable, being in the early stages of labor for weeks will piss a mama off let me tell you. After bed rest, false alarms, more bed rest, and more false alarms, I won’t mention the random illnesses I picked up at the end we made it to our induction week. Yes it was a week.

I’ll skip over the insane amount of time it took me to get to 10cm and start at Wednesday morning November 14th around 10:00 am. My epidural had finally kicked in after a long morning of half my body being numb. I was high and fuzzy all over. I had noticed my bottom felt heavy. I had realized it was time, Matt wanted to know if I needed to call a nurse. I opted to try to go back to sleep. I know rational response to a head coming out of your vagina.

The nurse came and checked me at 10:20. She told me not to cough and she was getting my doctor. By 10:34 I had little Conrad in my arms. I don’t even think I pushed. He laid on my chest while my doctor attempted to deliver my placenta. It became very clear within minutes that something was wrong. My doctor started asking for strange instruments to try to scrape out my placenta. She asked me if I was okay with a hysterectomy if it came to that. I was confused but said yes.

My body started to shake, my teeth were chattering, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. My doctor was packing my body with towels and still asking for these strange instruments that apparently come in every size but no one had the one she needed. I kept telling them I was cold, they were holding me down. By this time they took Conrad from my arms and handed him to Matt. My doctor was going to get an OR ready, I was having a hysterectomy, I was losing too much blood. She left.

Two nurses hovered over me, covering me with blankets, one was attempting to draw blood, the other was trying to put in another IV. I was so cold and Matt was a hazy blur in the corner of the room. Something bad was happening, the nurse was in the hall yelling for a doctor. The man who put in my epidural enters the room, more like runs. He was yelling and pulling at my bed. He’s telling the nurses to stop touching me. He needs blood, we need to go. The bed starts to move and I tell Matt I love him as they wheel me away.

The trip to the OR was a blur, there was more screaming. He needed blood, no one would give him blood. Who is this dick that won’t give him blood was all I could think. He kept telling me I was going to be fine, to stay with him. I didn’t feel fine, nothing felt fine.

I must have nodded off I woke to men rolling me onto a table, I was still shaking. I had never been so cold. My doctor was there telling me she wouldn’t leave me. She was wearing a goofy plastic face mask. A man named Ellis told me he was going to take care of me. Where did the other man go? This man named Ellis put a mask over my face. He told me I would feel pressure. Someone cut my throat, okay that is what it felt like was happening. I could taste blood. I was suffocating.

The next few hours would be a blur. I imagined I was on Hollywood Squares with my Grandmother, Phyllis Diller, and Paul Lynde. It was warm and bright. Paul kept making me laugh. Someone was waking me, I was still cold. I was told to cough, it was violent, it hurt, they pulled something out of my thoat. I wanted my husband. I couldn’t see, I needed my glasses. I was throwing up. I was asleep again. I would wake two more times. My doctor came in, she was crying. She wanted to know if I knew what happened. I did I think. I have no uterus.

I sat in the recovery room while they gave me more blood, the blood was cold. Why was every thing so cold? Where was Matt? How was my baby? Where were my glasses?

I was ready for the ICU.

The next 24 hours was really a blur of pain, awkwardness, and more pain. Thank goodness for morpapheine. I would be poked, prodded, poked, and prodded some more. Over the next 24 hours I would learn the torture my body went through, they called it trauma. I wouldn’t get to see my baby and the anguish on my husbands face was worse than that damn cold.

My placenta invaded the muscle of my uterus no matter what I would have walked away with no uterus. I haven’t wrapped my head around it really. I can’t look at the 8 inch incision across my stomach without crying.

But I’m thankful. I’m thankful to those nurses and doctors who saved me. I’m thankful to have a family that loves me. I’m thankful for Matt. I’m thankful for that doctor who yelled and screamed for me. Funny enough I was mega pissed at him for giving me a crappy epidural just hours earlier. He made up for it, haha.

My care once out of the ICU was shoddy at best. One day every nurse thought I had just a vaginal delivery, one came in to check the uterus I no longer had. The next day I was the girl in 311 that almost died, they wouldn’t leave me alone. It was back and forth with every shift change.

Part of me wants answers. I want an explanation how it went so bad so fast. I’m walking around with donor blood having lost most of mine, no uterus, various holes, and bruises. I’m a mix of happy, sad, angry, and confused. I may need a support group. I’m sure Matt does.

On November 14th, 2012 at 10:34 I gave birth to Conrad Abraham Osborn, by 11:04 I had lost 40% percent of my blood and was being sliced open, at 12:35 I was being wheeled into a recovery room minus one uterus and cervix, and at 1:44 I was alive looking at my husband thanking God or who ever for giving me another day.

Paul Lynde would have to wait.

Conrad Abraham Osborn