It all began on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 37 weeks and 6 days. I was on quarantine for work to be sure I didn’t have Covid when I delivered since I’m a teacher. I woke up and felt fine. As the day progressed, I began to feel more uncomfortable. My stomach was starting to hurt, but I couldn’t really pinpoint what was going on. I didn’t feel like cooking, so we ended up ordering take out for dinner. I was able to eat, however as the night progressed I began to feel more sick. By that night, I was extremely uncomfortable. I mentioned to my husband that we should maybe go to the hospital, however he felt like I was just in early labor. We both wanted to avoid being sent home from the hospital, so we tried to go on a walk outside. I only made it about two houses down, when we had to turn around. It was late, so my husband said we should just try to go to sleep. He went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I began pacing the house and then realized I had shooting right shoulder pain. I’ve always held tension there, so I just assumed I was nervous about my impending delivery and put a heating pad on my shoulder. I didn’t sleep the entire night and by 3:00 AM, I was vomiting. I finally woke my husband after the second time I vomited. I asked him to go get some Sprite and crackers. It was after he left that I called the on-call doctor. When she heard what was going on, she said it was probably best to head to the hospital.
The Emergency Room
When my husband came home, he quickly threw a bag together and we headed to the hospital. By the time we arrived at the hospital, I was unable to walk from the ER to Labor and Delivery. They asked me to change and use the restroom, but I just didn’t feel like I could. I had a hard time stating what was going on other than just telling them I didn’t feel well. I just kept telling them my stomach hurt, however I never mentioned the shoulder pain because I assumed that was just my stress. My blood pressure was normal and the baby’s heart rate was fine. All of my symptoms really seemed to indicate a stomach bug. We really thought we were going to be sent home, however I got up to go to the restroom and my son’s heart rate dropped at that point. I am so thankful the monitors picked this up, because I had been fighting keeping them on my belly. I was in excruciating pain and I kept pulling them off. After my son’s heart rate dropped, my doctor ordered an ultrasound to complete an assessment on my son. This was extremely painful, however this is what saved my life as well as my son’s. The ultrasound technician asked if I had fallen. Apparently, my liver was enlarged and she could see a lesion. I hadn’t fallen, so she continued with the test. When I asked how my son did, she said my son was in distress. It was then that we realized we were going to be having a baby that day. At that point, my doctor said he wasn’t sure if I would have a c-section or a vaginal delivery. I knew there was absolutely no way I was pushing him out. They immediately ordered a blood test, and it was when that came back that everything began moving so incredibly quickly.
The OR
They had sent my husband to the car to bring in all of our bags. While he was gone, my doctor came in and said they would be performing a c-section and I would have to be under general anesthesia. I was devastated. My husband came back into the room and I was sobbing. They explained what was happening, and then I looked at the nurse and told her I was going to get sick. The doctor later said that when they looked at me, all of the color drained from my body. I began vomiting all over myself and the nurse. It was at this time that the memories began to come and go. They immediately began wheeling me to the operating room. The doctors wanted to perform my surgery in the OR as opposed to where they perform c-sections, however they didn’t think they had enough time to get me there. My OB later said that if they’d made the decision to take me to the main OR, I would not have survived. I do not remember being wheeled into the OR. Once inside, I met the anesthesiologist. She was amazing and very comforting. I begged her to put me to sleep because I was in so much pain. I remember them having to put me onto the metal table and I remember everyone racing around the room to prepare. I had no idea what was going on or what I was going to be waking up to, I just knew I needed to be put to sleep. Right before they put me to sleep, I looked at the anesthesiologist and told her to please be sure I’d wake up. She told me she would make sure of it.
I did not wake up until the next morning. They were easing me out of sedation to see how I responded. I was still on the ventilator and was strapped to the bed so that I could not pull it out. All I could think about was how I couldn’t breathe. It was 4 AM and the hospital had allowed my husband to stay on the mother and baby floor in case I woke up. I was in the ICU and due to Covid restrictions, he was not allowed to remain in my room overnight. My son was in the NICU, and again, due to Covid he could not stay in the room with him. They called my husband’s room and told him to come down to me. The only way I could communicate was by writing. He told me our baby was a boy and showed me his picture. I don’t remember much from this encounter, just the few things my husband has since told me. They put me back under sedation until they removed the ventilator later that morning.
A Diagnosis and Terrifying Realization
I woke up to my OB sitting by my bed later that morning. He explained that I had HELLP syndrome with DIC and that my liver had ruptured. They’d had to cut me open from my pubic bone to my breast bone. That definitely explained the extreme pain I was experiencing. I’d received 24 different blood products, including 7 units of blood. Through our conversations over the next several months, I learned just how scary my situation was. I learned that at one point, my surgeon placed his hand on my aorta to feel for a pulse because there was no blood pressure. I learned that they were ready to begin CPR at any moment. I learned that my nurse in the ICU was thankful when she came back the next day and saw how much better I was doing, because she was nervous when she went home that night. I truly learned how very fortunate my son and I both were to be alive.
Meeting William
I was in the ICU for 2 days. On the second day, they told me I had to get out of bed. I was terrified. The tiny nurse lifted me from the bed to the chair. She brought me supplies to wash my face and brush my teeth. I finally felt human again. After sitting in the chair for a few hours, they decided they could move me back to labor and delivery, and it was on October 2, 2020 that I met my son William Patrick for the first time. I couldn’t care for him like I’d hoped. If I wanted to hold him, my husband had to hand him to me. We were able to do skin to skin like I’d wanted to the day he was born when we finally met. We stayed in the hospital for a total of 5 nights. My recovery was brutal. I had about 15 pounds of fluid in my body and my feet hurt horribly from the swelling. I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams how awful this was. It took me a little while to bond with my son and reconcile all that we had been through. I still have flashbacks and I still see things that stop me in my tracks. Just the other day I was looking through my planbook at school. I just happened to flip to the plans I had left for the substitute that week. Seeing what they were doing at the exact time I was laying on the hospital table dying, took me back. There will be times William does something cute or when he just smiles at me, and I think just how close I came to missing out on all of these moments. I hope that by sharing my story, I not only increase awareness for the need for blood donations, but also increase awareness for HELLP Syndrome. If it saves even one woman, then it is totally worth it!
The Author
My name is Katherine Bredemeier. I am 35 years old and this was my first baby after a miscarriage in August of 2019. I live in Kansas City, MO and teach second grade. I enjoy volunteering at local animal shelters. We currently have 3 rescue dogs: a terrier mix named Alex, a Scottish Terrier named Winnie, and a chihuahua mix named Ginger. I am looking forward to my first summer of not teaching summer school and just spending every day with William!
My husband and I conceived our twins in the summer of 2020 via IUI after struggling for a while to get pregnant. Preeclampsia had been my biggest fear the entire pregnancy and I did every possible thing I could to prevent it despite ticking all the boxes that basically guaranteed I would develop it, namely the chronic hypertension and twin pregnancy. My pregnancy was picture perfect until 32 weeks when I started noticing my daily blood pressure readings were gradually increasing but not to a crazy amount. I never expected any of the events that would take place over the next several weeks, let alone the ensuing trauma. I suffered the traumatic unexpected loss of my younger sister 5 years ago so I was no stranger to it, but this was on a whole different level.
Thursday 1/14/21 – 32 weeks 5 days
I had an appointment scheduled for 32+5 so I made sure to mention my BPs when I went. They took my reading and it came back 132/100. The doctor didn’t like the bottom number so she ordered a more detailed urine panel and some bloodwork. I told her my numbers from my BP cuff at home were normal (later found out my cuff was broken and giving me false normals) and despite one swollen ankle that would swell prior to pregnancy, I felt completely fine and normal. Either way, she suspected preeclampsia was setting in but wanted to wait until the tests were back before confirming.
Friday 1/15/21 – 32 weeks 6 days
I had an NST the next morning and the OB had asked for my BP to be monitored a few times while there. NST was normal aside from my little boy constantly eluding the monitors. Both times my BP was registering in the 140/90s. They wanted to see the labs before releasing me but they weren’t in so they let me go and said they would call later. Around lunch time, I got a call from the doctor that there was protein in my urine and the amount was significant. She wanted me to go to L & D for the first of two betamethasone shots in case I would need to deliver early, another NST and BP monitoring. I went in and my readings stayed high but the doctor ultimately released me with instructions to complete a 24 hour urine test, increase my BP med and to come back the next day for the next shot, another NST and more BP monitoring. I told her this just all seemed so excessive because I felt perfectly fine. I wasn’t.
Saturday 1/16/2021 – 33 weeks
I went into L&D the next day expecting to be in and out, but I was so wrong. My BP was 160/106 and stayed there the entire time. My urine was loaded with protein. My NST however was perfect. Everything happened pretty quickly after that. They admitted me, did the covid test, hooked me up to IVs, a magnesium drip and catheter and told me my babies were going to be delivered at 34 weeks unless my condition worsened over the next week. My husband was able to come by to drop off stuff to me and it gave us the opportunity to talk everything out with the OB and NICU staff since it was guaranteed they would be spending time there. I spent the rest of the night burning from the mag drip. Yuck!
Sunday 1/17/21 – Tuesday 1/19/21
Our virtual shower took place on Sunday morning with me in the hospital, still burning away from the mag. I came off the mag later that day and was moved to the maternity floor to stay until delivery. I was also told I would be getting a c-section on Monday 1/25 because it would be safer in my condition. I didn’t mind, I just wanted to deliver them in the safest possible way. I basically spent those few days cooped up waiting for my condition to worsen. There is nothing like that feeling, waiting for the other shoe to drop and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It was all traumatizing in its own way especially after dealing with the infertility, because it was literally my body failing me and my babies. I had to get 2x daily NSTs which always took FOREVER because my boy loved to hide. One time it took 5 nurses, a doctor and an ultrasound machine to locate him! He garnered quite the reputation on the maternity floor for being a challenge. My BPs stayed in the 130s/80s with the occasional 140s/90s.
Wednesday 1/20/21 – 33 weeks 4 days
I woke up around 3am with horrible back pain and occasional contractions so I immediately started panicking. When the nurse came in for a BP check around 4am, I told her what I was feeling and she told me my BP was 165/110. She called the doctor on call who ordered hydralazine. Luckily my numbers went down but not by much. They ran my blood and one of the doctors from my practice told me that while my other numbers looked fine, my platelet count was dropping, indicating it was likely HELLP syndrome setting in and that I had to deliver sooner than planned, definitely no later than the next day. Luckily my favorite doctor would be there so we scheduled for 1/21/21 at 9:30am. My BP spiked again later in the day so they gave me more hydralazine. They moved me to L & D that night so my husband could stay with me. Because of Covid, he hadn’t been to any appointments so he appreciated getting to witness an NST and impromptu ultrasound since little man decided to be elusive again.
Thursday 1/21/21- Birth Day & Hemorrhage
Everything got started bright and early. They ran my blood work again and my platelet count actually went up slightly which was comforting. My doctor came in and went over everything with us. It was the first time my husband got to meet him. They got me started on another mag drip and gave me some zofran and wheeled me into the OR. The spinal wasn’t bad at all but as expected, my BP dropped significantly within about a minute (from 138/96 to 90/50). I felt weird so the anesthesiologist gave me a shot of epinephrine and I felt completely normal almost instantly. My husband came into the OR and they got to work.
My baby boy, Alan Winslow III or A3, was out first and cried as soon as they cleared out his mouth. He weighed 4 lbs 7 oz and was 17.3 inches long. Baby girl, Jocelyn Devan (after my late sister, Devan) came out screaming, pissed off she was pulled from under her cozy rib cage (the nurses later told me they never saw the doctor have to reach up so high to grab a baby). She weighed 4 lbs and was also 17.3 inches long. Despite being born early, both were stabilized quickly and went off to the NICU while I got sewn up. After spending time in recovery, we made a pit stop at the NICU for a few minutes before going back to my room. While I did get to see them briefly after my c-section, I didn’t get to hold my daughter until the day after birth and my son for 4 days. Despite the C-paps covering their faces, my babies were perfection!
I regained feeling over the next few hours and had relatively little pain. Around dinner time, my husband was in the NICU and I started to feel some gushes. I told the nurse next time she came by. She checked me out and I could tell something was wrong. She told me I was bleeding much more than normal and before I knew it, several nurses came rushing into the room and a doctor, hooking up new IV meds, talking to each other about transfusions and possible surgery, but not actually talking to me. The doctor came to the bedside and told me they were going to have to manually remove clots and that it may hurt but that she had small hands. Before I had time to ask questions, she started and it was the worst most painful five plus minutes of my life. Just as I was about to pass out from the pain, it was over. All said and done, I lost over two liters of blood between the c-section and hemorrhage. Apparently it’s not uncommon for twin deliveries and being on a magnesium drip but it was the one situation I didn’t think would happen. They tried to take my blood shortly after and almost all of my veins were blown. It was by far the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life and I am still incredibly traumatized from it, I think mainly because it happened and the doctor on call just left, if anything she treated me as if I was an annoyance. Thank god for the nurses! I will be forever thankful for them for everything they did to help me through it all.
NICU
The next few days were a blur of going to the NICU, resting and pumping. My bleeding in the hospital and beyond was minimal, probably due to the hemorrhage, which I try to see as a silver lining. My BP was low-normal and stayed that way aside from some mild elevations. I was discharged 4 days later, but my babies had to stay. Within two days of birth my daughter was on room air. My son had breathing assistance until about 2 weeks after birth and required the use of surfactant. Both had anemia, my son more severely to the point he needed several Epogen shots. She was discharged two days shy of 4 weeks old. He was discharged at 9 weeks. He struggled with feeding which they at first attributed to his anemia but after finally getting him medicated for his reflux and changing his formula, he quickly turned the corner and was home within a week. To this day, when he has a light feeding or when I think his skin looks paler than normal, I start panicking that he is going to wind up back in the hospital. I have to remind myself that he will make up for his bad feeding later and then some and that the poor kid got my fair Irish skin. The NICU is traumatic all on its own and the full experience of ours could fill a book! Thankfully, they are both absolutely thriving at home and are such precious babies. I can’t imagine my life without them!
Alan III at 2 days old vs 3 months old
Two days after birth, we had a very scary incident take place during one of our trips to the NICU. After making a few unkind comments to me about breastfeeding and how I shouldn’t try to touch my son so much, this one nurse (she was a floater from another hospital) was changing my daughter’s feeding tube from her mouth to her nose, hitting her vagus nerve in the process and causing her to go into bradycardia. She tried to stimulate her but needed the assistance of another more seasoned nurse who came to help make sure our baby was okay. Seeing her tiny limp body in the hands of this amazing nurse was absolutely terrifying. Meanwhile, the nurse that screwed up walked away and on her way back passed out on me! I was sitting in the recliner and thought she tripped until she fell on me. I quickly lunged from the chair, two days post c-section no less, and she sat there for a while until she said she felt better. Then she got up and stood just to the side of the isolette and not a minute later passed out hard, fell back and hit her head and was out cold. Several nurses ran over (the one was still working on our daughter) and the doctor asked us to go back to our room, despite us not knowing if our daughter was in a stable condition. This had to be the most terrifying thing we experienced and it still makes me feel sick when I think of it. The wonderfully kind doctor came to our room shortly after and explained exactly what happened with the vagus nerve and resulting bradycardia and let us know our daughter was fine and she personally made sure of it.
Jocelyn at 2 days old vs. 3 months old
The Aftermath
When I got home and saw my reflection in the mirror, I looked like I had been through a war. I had lost over 30 pounds in 3 days so I looked sunken from the rapid weight loss, pale from the blood loss (and resulting anemia) and bruised up and down my arms from all the IVs and blown veins. Because of the hemorrhage, my milk supply was awful, never producing more than an ounce per pumping session. I don’t know if it was all the trauma (preeclampsia, hemorrhage and NICU), all the magnesium or a combination of both but I do not remember at all what it felt like to be pregnant and even worse, I don’t remember how it felt when my babies kicked. I’m beyond heartbroken over that.
First photo after Alan’s NICU discharge
There are a lot of things I sadly missed out on not only because of my situation but also because of Covid: not having my husband be able to attend appointments and ultrasounds, having to attend my baby shower from the confines of the hospital, no skin to skin, none of those beautiful newborn photos I so badly wanted and so much more. I try not to dwell on it because at the end of the day, I am so incredibly fortunate to have walked away from it alive with two healthy babies. I do find myself downplaying the trauma I experienced when I know whoever I am talking to either is uncomfortable hearing what happened to me or simply just can’t comprehend that kind of trauma. I also feel guilty that I am so traumatized when other people had it worse. My doctor has said we are fine to have more kids in 2 years but we are most likely going to forego growing our family with more tiny humans and stick to adding dogs instead. This was just too eye opening to all that can go wrong and I can’t imagine risking leaving my husband and babies who need me here.
The Author
My name is Brooke and I live in Harleysville, Pennsylvania. I am married to my teenage crush turned husband, Alan, mom to twins, Alan and Jocelyn and fur child, Abby. You can follow me on Instagram at @brooke_test
I became pregnant with my first child in late July 2017. Everything about this pregnancy seemed normal, healthy, and routine. I didn’t have morning sickness, or gain excess weight. I passed the gestational diabetes test and was measuring big, but on track. I did have my fair share of annoyances: crazy heartburn, trouble sleeping, hormonal acne, terrible upper rib pain on the left side. But everything looked, felt, and seemed like a normal pregnancy. Until it wasn’t.
On my due date, May 3, 2018, I felt horrible. I figured that’s how every soon-to-be mom felt in the days before giving birth, so I wasn’t too concerned. I knew I had my 40 week appointment at 5:00, so I sat on the couch and tried to make myself comfortable. In the waiting room at the hospital, the nurse came out, took one look at me and rushed me up to the Birth Center. They hooked me up and I was having 2 minute long contractions, 5 minutes apart. They told me I was staying to have a baby!
Now in my birthing suite, I took a bath, bounced on a medicine ball, walked around, and puked. Some time passed and as I’m laying in bed my midwife comes in and tells me my bloodwork came back with some weird news. My blood platelet count was extremely low, which meant no epidural. She didn’t seem overly concerned, more just surprised. I, however, was shocked. All I heard was “no epidural.” My birth plan was to have all the drugs. I wanted an epidural. I thought this had to be a joke.
I let that news settle in my brain while two nurses, my midwife and a doctor all tried to feel my cervix and couldn’t. They couldn’t tell how dilated I was, so morphine was out too. I tried to play it cool but I was freaking out. It seemed like all of my pain tolerance options were flying out the window and I was suddenly faced with the reality that I may have to do this naturally.
Later that night, the midwife and nurses came in and asked me how long it had been since I last peed. I thought, “What?! Who the hell cares? Why are you asking that?!” I had no idea how long it had been. Three catheters in and out later I was starting to get a little worried. This was not going like I thought it would. It just seemed like so many things were going wrong, but no progress was being made. I was still having contractions. They didn’t know how far along I was. My water hadn’t broke yet. It was late at night and I was exhausted.
And Then, Everything Changed
I remember a doctor, not my midwife, coming in late that night and saying very bluntly, “Erin you have HELLP syndrome. It’s very serious and you need to have the baby now. Your blood pressure is high. Your liver and kidneys are shutting down. You’re going to have an emergency c-section. You might look healthy on the outside, but inside you are very sick.”
At that moment, the severity of the situation didn’t register. I was honestly feeling a little relieved because I heard “c-section” and that meant I didn’t need to give birth naturally.
After what felt like hours, the doctor and surgeon came back in and said as a team they decided they weren’t comfortable doing my surgery at the hospital. I live in a fairly rural area and the small hospital was afraid they wouldn’t have the blood needed if there were complications. The doctor had only ever seen HELLP syndrome one other time, during his residency. So, the decision was made to send me to a larger hospital about an hour away. They loaded me into an ambulance, around 3:00 AM, during a thunderstorm. My wonderful midwife rode down with me, as my husband had to follow behind in our vehicle.
Once we arrived at the hospital, I was sent into a new room and our parents met us there. My husband had called them on the way down. As they rolled me down the hallway I passed my husband in a waiting room and gave him a thumbs up. I was sent into surgery and I truly believed this would be the end to all of the issues, but it was only the beginning.
Easton’s Birth
Our son, Easton, was born at 6:20 AM on May 4, 2018. He weighed 9 pounds, 14 ounces and was 22 inches long. After the c-section, I had severe hemorrhaging. I ended up needing three full blood transfusions and platelet counts. I aspirated into my lungs. I did not react well to the anesthesia and fought them taking the intubation tube out terribly. I was in the ICU for two days. I have no memory of meeting my son for the first time. Easton was in the NICU having issues related to regulating his blood sugars.
After 4 days in the hospital, Easton and I were both able to go home together. As I write this, he is 2 days away from turning three years old! I look back on Easton’s birth and I have a hard time wrapping my brain around how fast everything went so wrong. I feel so grateful that my midwife and the doctors at my small, rural hospital worked together to save both of our lives. I truly believe that if they had attempted the c-section there we wouldn’t have survived.
After that experience, my husband and I had lots of conversations about adding to our family. We had always planned and hoped on having two children. When I asked my midwife and doctors I was never given clear answers on whether or not HELLP would be an issue in subsequent pregnancies. We had talked it over and over and finally decided we would try again in the summer of 2020 after our son turned 2.
Ready to Try Again
In July of 2020 we began actively trying to conceive again. Then I felt a lump in my left breast one day when I was showering. I sat on it for a day or two. I called my doctor’s office and set up an appointment. I was told it was probably just a cyst, nothing to worry about. I was told I could have imaging done to check, or I could wait a few months and see if it changes at all. I decided it was best to just have a mammogram done while I was off of work for the summer. I went into that mammogram and ultrasound feeling fine. Then the radiologist came in and said “Usually I can tell right away what something is, whether that’s good or bad. With this…I can’t tell.” I had a needle biopsy performed and anxiously waited for the results.
While I waited, I knew there was a chance I could be pregnant. When I was originally told it was probably nothing to worry about, I trusted that. We didn’t stop trying to conceive. When I took the pregnancy test and it came back positive, I looked at my husband and said “What did we just do?” On the one hand we were so excited, but we also knew there was a slight chance I could receive some bad news.
Cancer and Pregnancy in The Same Week
In the same week I found out I was pregnant, I got the phone call I was dreading. “Erin we got your results back and it was positive for breast cancer.” I think I said “Thank you.” and hung up the phone. I immediately called my husband and told him to come home. And I cried. I can’t put into words what it feels like to be told you have cancer, especially as a 31 year old pregnant woman.
August 2020 was a crazy month of more imaging, doctor appointments, and information overload. I was diagnosed with Stage 1 triple negative breast cancer. I had a 1.8 cm tumor in my left breast. My doctors also knew I was newly pregnant. While some women can be treated for cancer during their pregnancy, my doctors did not like that option for my case. Triple negative breast cancer is aggressive, and we would have had to wait until I was in the second trimester to begin chemotherapy. They did not want to wait weeks to begin treatment. Ultimately, the decision was made that I would have a D&C to terminate the pregnancy.
I remember sitting in the surgeon’s office and she kept saying “Maybe this pregnancy would have ended in a miscarriage anyways. We just don’t know.” It felt like a punch to the gut. Yes, maybe that is true, but there is also the chance this baby would have been born perfectly healthy. I really struggled with feeling guilty that we still tried to conceive that month. It felt like it was my fault. I felt like I had to justify why we were choosing to terminate.
We scheduled the D&C for September, when I was 7 or 8 weeks pregnant. They forced me to have an ultrasound done to “confirm” the dates. We sat in that room and watched our little baby up on the screen and cried. The ultrasound tech said “I hope those are happy tears.” and I had to say “No. I have cancer and we don’t get to keep the baby.” That was one of the hardest days.
After my D&C I began chemotherapy. My first appointment I was still bleeding a little. I sat in the waiting room and had terrible cramps. They were running late, so I was sitting there for about an hour before they called my name. When I stood up I felt this huge rush of blood. I immediately asked for the bathroom and I had passed a big clot and what felt like an enormous amount of blood. I bled through my pad, my underwear, and pants. The chemo nurses had to give me a Depends to wear, an extra large pad, and scrub bottoms. As if beginning chemotherapy wasn’t traumatic enough, having this extra reminder of the loss I had just experienced felt like overkill.
Surviving Cancer
Fast forward and I write this 2 days after finishing my cancer treatment! Over 9 months I had 16 chemotherapy treatments, a lumpectomy and lymph node removal, and 20 radiation treatments. I can also proudly say I am cancer free!
We were given the go-ahead by my oncologist to begin trying again this summer. I was told that it will be difficult to conceive again due to my treatments. Chemotherapy puts you into a “medical menopause” and I am still waiting for my cycle to return. I’m already feeling anxious, nervous, and scared about what this new chapter will look like. How will I react if my period doesn’t return? How will I feel my cycle returns but we can’t get pregnant? How will I feel if we do get pregnant?
My journey into motherhood has been nothing like I expected. I’ve battled my way through a scary delivery, a termination, and cancer. I still feel sad some days that I have been forced to live through hard situations others will never have to experience. It doesn’t feel fair. Why do I keep having to prove how strong I am?
I know my journey is far from over. I know I will keep proving how resilient I am, no matter what.
About Me:
I am a mother, wife, breast cancer survivor, and 3rd grade teacher in Wisconsin. Feel free to reach out and connect with me on my Instagram account @etbackeberg.
The moment had come. That moment when all of the hard work pays off. The moment when you touch your baby for the first time, when you first hear the sound of their voice. The relief. The high. Lev, whose name means “heart” in Hebrew, was born. “He’s here, oh my god, he’s here!,” I said, as they put him on my chest. But, he was silent, blue, and limp. He was alive, but he was deeply struggling. Before I could bring my hands to touch him, the alarm bells went off and the midwife quickly cut his cord and handed him to a slew of pediatric staff that had flooded into our hospital room in response to the alarm. For several minutes, the team surrounded him on a warmer across the room trying to resuscitate him. I couldn’t see him. He was still silent and all I could hear was the murmurs of the team. I kept asking if he was going to be okay, but no one would answer me. My husband stood behind them with immense fear and shock in his eyes. The midwife who received Lev was in front of me concentrating on sewing my third degree tear as if there wasn’t this other emergency happening several feet away. My doula stayed by my side and reminded me to talk to Lev. I did. “I love you, baby. It’s going to be okay. Mama’s here,” I said with a shaking voice. I was reassuring Lev that it would be okay without knowing that to be true. Then, one of the pediatric team members said, “We need to take him to the NICU. Someone will come talk to you soon.” And they left the room with Lev. “But is he going to be okay?” No answer. “Go, go with them!”, I demanded of my husband. And now, the room was quiet. No crying baby. No tears of joy. Just silence. And shock. And fear. Confusion. Pain. Disorientation. Shaking. Nauseous. Weak. Exhausted. “Is he going to be okay?,” I asked my doula, but she could not answer.
Some time later, a NICU staff came to talk to me in my postpartum room. They shared that Lev had inhaled meconium and had aspirated. They had resuscitated him. He was now breathing, with support. I could go see him in the NICU when I was ready. But I wasn’t ready. I felt so weak I could barely move. I was still shaking. I felt drugged. I asked my doula, “Will I ever feel normal again?”
Five hours after Lev was born I was wheeled to the NICU to see him. He was in the little clear box and had lots of tubes and cords. The room was flooded with beeping from all his vitals being monitored. It’s a far cry from the relaxing cuddles I expected during the much awaited golden hour. I still felt too weak to hold him, but I touched him for the first time. In some ways, he looked so foreign to me. The situation felt so wrong. This couldn’t be my story. It almost felt like he wasn’t mine. That the whole experience wasn’t mine. Someone got it wrong. I then bled through my pajamas and all over the floor of the NICU. The postpartum nurse cleaned it up and I was wheeled back to my room, away from my baby. Later, I would go back to the NICU and hold Lev and nurse him for the first time. He was finally breathing on his own, but the NICU team had run a bunch of tests and there were more concerns they wanted to explore.
Lev in the NICU
After my second night in the postpartum unit I was discharged. I was fine, or rather, I wasn’t thinking about how I was doing. I could only think of Lev. I moved from the postpartum room to staying in Lev’s NICU room. I had imagined healing at home with my baby. I had imagined lots of time in bed cuddling and nursing while my husband brought nourishing food for me and refilled my big water cup. I didn’t imagine healing on a recliner chair, in a room where no food was allowed, and a hospital unit where there were no pads in the bathroom and no water cooler to refill my cup. Once I was discharged and staying in the NICU, there was no check-in from the postpartum unit around how I was healing. I was on my own. I felt like a shell of a human that once was.
The days passed and Lev got caught in a web of over-medicalization. Too many tests, an abundance of hospital caution, and so much monitoring led to a week dedicated to ruling all sorts of things out, none of which were related to his meconium aspiration. We felt so vulnerable, so desperate, so unknowing. So willing to do anything to make sure he would be okay. But still, no one could ever reassure us that he would be okay, that we would be able to take him home. After a very long week in the NICU, we were discharged. I was grateful that we only had to stay a week, that we got to leave with our baby, and that ultimately, he was okay.
Healing in the NICU with Lev at 3 days old.
With a simultaneous mix of love, gratitude, exhaustion, and pain we launched into a chaotic postpartum period. Since our birth experience, I’ve been working to heal from the sorrow, guilt, disappointment, loss, confusion, and fear that surrounded Lev’s birth. In my healing work I have learned that I will never be “healed.” And not in a dismal way. The thing is, it’s not about the endpoint. The experience of his birth transformed me forever and the active process of healing will also be forever. For me, there is no such thing as healed. Healing, learning, growing and adapting will be forever. My healing won’t be linear. It won’t be fast because there’s no such thing when there is no endpoint. And that’s okay. And most importantly, my sweetheart Lev, he’s okay. More than okay! As I reflect back on my story, I can whisper to my prior self, “Yes! He’s going to be okay! And you will too.”
The day we came home from the NICU. Lev at 1 week old.
Cody and Lev December 2020.
About Cody: Hi, I’m Cody! I am a health educator, advocate, and a mother to my incredible boy, Lev! After my birth and postpartum experience, I decided to shift my decade-long career in sexual & reproductive health education for a career in childbirth education & postpartum support. Along with my friend and business partner, I’ve recently established @intrinsic.birth, which provides empowering, science-based childbirth education & postpartum support. In my personal life, I love being outside, dance, and other creative endeavors!
