The medical staff was discussing my blood pressure, which had dropped alarmingly low. I was given IV fluids, and I started to wake up a bit. Minutes later, I experienced the lightheaded sensation again and started dry heaving. My husband and baby were quickly shuttled out of the OR, and it became clear to me that something was wrong.
As I was lying on the table, my doctor’s face appeared above mine.
“I am going to feel around in your uterus for a clot,” she said, one hand inside me and the other pushing on my belly. “If I can’t feel anything, I will have to go back in.”
Her search was futile. She couldn’t determine what was going on and my blood pressure continued to drop. The team quickly decided to send me back into surgery.
“A lot of people are going to come in the room now. They are all here to help. Try to stay calm,” my doctor said.
“I’m scared. I have two babies now,” I said. My doctor replied that they would do everything they could to keep me safe.
“If we need to, we will perform a life-saving hysterectomy,” she said.
I thought to myself: Is my life in danger?
I was terrified, but the next thing I knew I had a mask over my mouth for anesthesia.
Later, I learned that the surgery was about two hours long, and that I suffered from uterine atony, a condition in which the uterus muscles do not contract after birth, leading to massive blood loss. I hemorrhaged three liters of blood (about half the blood in the body) during the surgery. The doctors had to stitch my uterus up to force it to contract.
“Hemorrhages occur in approximately 1% to 6% of births according to the National Institutes of Health,” says Dr. Jill Purdie, board-certified OB-GYN and medical director at Pediatrix Medical Group in Atlanta. She adds that excessive blood loss is more common during a C-section since the uterus has to be cut open to deliver the baby.
I can’t imagine what my poor husband was going through, holding our newborn baby and seeing…
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