Matthew’s Story begins from the moment Mike and I decided that we were ready to have a baby.  It was during the Fall of 2005.  I was going to start my 4 semesters of nursing classes in the Winter of 2006.  I was really beginning to want a baby and was starting to think that maybe it would be a good idea to start our family while in this nursing program.  Mike must have thought it was a good idea too, because I said to him one day, “What do you think about if I go off the pill for a couple of months and we just see what happens.”  I further explained how if we got pregnant during October or November, we would have a baby during the summer and then I would have a few months to spend with baby and everything would work out perfect.  Well, October and November were very busy months for me and needless to say, anytime we “tried” I knew it wasn’t the right time.  But, once we started trying, I just didn’t want to stop.  I really wanted to be pregnant.  In March 2006 I was almost sure I was pregnant as I was very “late” and had never been that late, but I wasn’t.  Then at the beginning of April I found out that my brother-in-law and his wife were pregnant.  At that point, mentally, I kind of gave up a little bit.  However, about 10 days later, I just had a feeling I was pregnant and took a test (way early, I wasn’t supposed to “miss” my period for another 1 ½ weeks) and it was negative the first day but positive the next (I actually didn’t see the really faint other line).  I was thrilled, and Mike was too.  Our due date was December 31st, 2006.

That fall was busy as the nursing classes were tough and I was still working FT.  But, I felt really good.  When I was 33 weeks pregnant I witnessed my first vaginal delivery during clinicals.  It was amazing and I couldn’t wait for mine to come.  I really had been feeling great throughout my pregnancy, maybe a little heartburn here and there, but that was it.

The day I turned 36 weeks was when things started to change.  It was a Sunday night 12/3.  I went to bed, and soon following that I began to itch everywhere.  The bottoms of my feet itched, my palms itched, back, stomach, legs – you name it, it itched.  I wasn’t able to get to sleep until 5am, and then had to get up at 630am.  I also had really bad heartburn and had to sleep in the recliner sitting up it was so bad.  I knew the itching wasn’t right so I called the OB’s office and got an appt for that day (Monday).  I went there feeling like something was going to happen.  I just felt like something was really wrong and that I would probably be having that baby soon.  We go to the appt, and I feel like the OB just went through the motions, to take bloodwork, I’ll have a liver ultrasound at the hospital the next day, blah, blah, blah.  He seemed unalarmed that my initial bp was 140/100.  

On Tuesday I get my liver ultrasound and for fun found out that my baby was headdown.  I feel reassured knowing that if I did need to deliver soon, that he’s in the right position – and he was facing my back –  and was in the optimal position should I need to deliver him soon.  I don’t think I slept well that night either – the itching is worse at night.  This was also the day I started to lose my appetite.  I didn’t feel like eating anything.  I finally decided a Dairy Queen sounded ok, so I went to Rosedale Mall to get that.  I also picked up Chinese for supper, because nothing sounded good.

On Wednesday I keep plugging along.  I mentioned to Mike in the morning that I hope they find something wrong with the bloodwork, because I felt miserable.  But, I kept telling myself that this must be how women feel when they get close to term.  I wanted to call the clinic for my labs, but I kept holding out, because I had a final on Thursday that I just want to take it and get it over with.

On Thursday, I finally decided to call the clinic because the itching was crazy, I felt like I had mono – no energy, and I just did not feel like eating anything.  Through Mike’s and my research, we thought something was wrong with my liver.  When I did call the clinic, they told me that my OB is out for the day, and I responded with, “Well, the other one NEEDS to call me back.”  I got a call at 4pm, and Dr. Alexander said that she had my lab work and while the levels were not dangerous yet, they weren’t good.  She asked if I’ve had a non-stress test yet, and I said, “no.”  She then asked me to go to the hospital, have more bloodwork done, and have an NST (after my final – bless her – I’d come this far, what was a few more hours going to do).  The plan is that everything will check out at the hospital and I will have an appt the next day.  Dr. Alexander says it is likely I’ll be looking at some type of bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy.  I called Mike and explained the scenario.  He played volleyball at 715pm that night.  I told him that I’d call him once I get out of class and head towards the hospital.  

I think I left St. Kate’s around 7:30pm and I interrupted Mike during volleyball and let him know that I’m on my way to the hospital and just to come when he’s done.  Once I get there, I am put in a gown and get the fetal monitors on.  My baby isn’t moving much, so I drank a bit of lime soda.  That brings on the awful heartburn, but my baby starts moving.  I have a reactive NST – which is a good thing.  Mike gets there around 8:30pm or so.  I still haven’t gotten the lab results yet.  It takes a long time.  Finally the nurses come in and state that Dr. Alexander is on the phone.  My lab work was so bad that she says I need to be induced.  I am diagnosed with pre-eclampsia with a variance of HELLP Syndrome.  I have very high liver enzymes – normal is 20-60, and on Monday they were 495 and by Thursday they were in the 1100s.  This is indicative of a lot of things.  I have later learned through my research that women who have “Acute Fatty Liver of Pregnancy” have liver enzymes that level out in the 500s, and I’ve researched that those with cirrohsis of the liver due to alcoholism have liver enzyme levels of 200-300s.  I was really sick.  My liver could have burst as a result, I could have needed a liver transplant.  Why wasn’t I taken care of better on Monday when I went in?  Why wasn’t I a better advocate for myself?  Looking back, I feel like my care was neglected.  I went in because there were issues, and I don’t feel I was taken seriously.  When I requested my medical records, I saw that my lab work was returned to the clinic on Tuesday at noon.  Why was I never called?  Why was I only called back on Thursday at 4pm, ONLY because I had called twice that day looking for answers?  I further learned that at our Level II ultrasound at almost 33 weeks, the perinatologist recommended weekly NSTs and BPPs in her dictated letter due to climbing blood pressure.  Those recommendations were never heeded by my OBs.  I am certain that my condition would have been caught sooner and perhaps I could have been put on bed rest and the rest of this story would not have played out so dramatically.  

So around 10:30pm, we realized that we were going to start the labor process through induction.  I have to admit, I was excited to meet my new baby, but feel foolish now looking back, because I didn’t realize how hard induction would be and the difficulties that were to face me.  Mike went home to take care of all of the odds and ends that we weren’t prepared for.  When he was gone, I was started on the Magnesium Sulfate for the preeclampsia, which is a CNS depressant that is supposed to prevent seizures from occurring.  I had no clue what the Mag would do to me, because within 10 minutes I threw up all over myself, the bed, the floor, everything.  I would continue to throw up at least every 2 hours.  It was horrible.  I also became incredibly weak as my whole system was depressed from the Mag.  I felt helpless, lifeless, and disgusting.  They also gave my cervix a pill called Cytotec which is to soften and efface it.  I have since learned that Cytotec is not an FDA approved drug for pregnancy, it is actually a medication used for stomach ulcers – so why was that used on me?  Why was I not told this? 

We continued to go through the night with the Mag running and me throwing up every two hours.  Mike returned around 2am and I told him what had happened so far.  I also had a catheter placed, which was uncomfortable, and obviously IVs going which was also uncomfortable. We were told that pictocin would start around 7am.  But, 7am goes by and there is no pictocin.  I don’t think it got started until 9am.  I think they got the dose pretty high, but I wasn’t making much progress, so the OB came by from the clinic around noon and decided to break my water to speed things along.  She also placed an internal monitor, which was incredibly uncomfortable as I was only 1cm at that point and it was very difficult to get that monitor on my baby’s head.  I was so helpless during this, I couldn’t hold my leg up by myself as the Mag had me that weak.  

I started to actually feel the contractions after that.  I had been having them most of the morning, but had not been feeling them.  They weren’t bad and I could definitely work through them, but I was worried about what would happen when I needed to push as I couldn’t even bend my knee to have my water broken.  This is where I feel the big mistake came in on my part and where Mike and I would have fully benefited from a doula or some other advocate.  My nurse, who I thought was great otherwise, asked if I wanted an epidural.  My original plan for birth was – no, not if I am doing ok with pain.  But, I figured that my whole birth plan was already ruined and completely full of drugs already, I listened to what she had to say.  I told her that I was concerned because I was so weak already, that I would use all of my energy getting through the contractions, so how would I ever be able to push when the time came?  The nurse raved about the epidural and explained how it would help me labor down and that my platelets hadn’t dropped yet and if they did I wouldn’t get this great benefit.  I was never told that the downside of an epidural is that it can cause your blood pressure to drop and as a result, put your baby in distress.  She scared me into thinking that if my platelets dropped I wouldn’t be able to get it.

So I got the epidural.  Probably 45 minutes later, my son began having heart decelarations that were non-reassuring.  The nurse said, “Your blood pressure is normal, now that your blood pressure is normal - your baby doesn’t like that.”  She must have called the OB back, because my OB came back around 3pm and told me that we were going to need a C-section.  At that point I was like, whatever.  The induction was so painful, violating, humiliating, I really didn’t care.  I was so drugged up from the Mag, that I didn’t care anymore.  I was told that the plan was to re-bolus the epidural and we would have the surgery. 

Around 3:27pm or so, my room is all of a sudden chaos.  People are flying in and running me into the OR.  I am literally thrown onto the table.  I saw someone running a Doppler over my stomach trying to listen to my baby’s heartbeat which I felt miles away from.  I knew something wasn’t right, and I strained to hear the heartbeat too, but couldn’t hear anything.  I began to pray in my head to God that my baby would be safe and healthy.  I prayed, and prayed in those few seconds.  Then, someone began to hold a mask over my face and said, “Take deep breaths” – I still remember thinking – “No!  They’re putting me under, I’m going to miss my baby’s birth.”  And that is exactly what happened.  I missed my very first child’s birth.  Me – who wanted natural childbirth was not even present for their baby.  No child should ever have to be without their mother right after birth.

I began to wake up around 6:30pm, but was still so drugged up and I think so in and out of it.  I remember my mom was there, and Mike telling me that Matthew looked like me, he had Apgars of 8 and 9 and that he had hair.  I remember feeling incredibly embarrassed that I had not only chosen the epidural, but then I had general anesthesia.  The epi was completely pointless, and at the time I felt awful that I cost us more money by choosing that. I remember being shocked when Mike told me Matthew only weighed 5lb 2oz.  Already I was fearful that I had started my son out too little.  What had I done wrong?  Matthew’s birth time was 3:37pm.  I saw him for the first time around 8pm.  I couldn’t even keep my eyes open for that.  I couldn’t hold him – I still was physically too drugged up to do that.  I was horrified that I didn’t follow anything that we had learned during childbirth class.  I remember thinking that for good breast-feeding outcomes, your new baby is supposed to be able to have skin to skin right away, that your baby should listen to your heart, etc, etc.  I was already failing my baby in so many ways I felt.  I was also terrified that I was unable to move or feel my arms or legs.  What in the world was this?  This was not birth.  This certainly couldn’t have been my birth.  I had never been so helpless in my life.  I also was not able to attempt to breastfeed until 24 hours after birth as I was still on the Mag.  I was never able to get Matthew to breast feed.  Our odds were already against us as he got bottles for the first 24 hours of his life.  Me – who wanted to have that mother-baby bond of breastfeeding had also failed my son in that way.  

At some point on Saturday the 9th, I discovered that I had a vertical scar on my stomach.  I couldn’t believe it – I would never be able to have a VBAC as my uterus was cut the wrong way.  I was already devastated that I missed the birth of my son, but then I realized that my hopes of a vaginal birth were gone.  That evening, I began to cry when it was just Mike and I.  I told him that I missed Matthew being born, and I was very sad about that.

On our discharge date of Monday the 11th, my dear husband said, “We should ask the doctor if you can have a VBAC.”  I remember thinking – there’s no way, my uterus was cut the wrong way.  But bless Mike for asking, because we found that my uterus WAS cut the right way, the outside of my skin was cut differently because she wanted to get in there so fast.  This is when I learned that Matthew’s heart rate had deceled to 60 beats/min and stayed there.  That is why it was an emergency.  Even though it was inevitable that we were bound for a C-section with the interventions of pictocin and the Magnesium Sulfate – I really believe that epidural was the final tip of the iceberg.  I wish I would have said no to it, and given myself somewhat of a chance for a vaginal birth and overall better outcomes for Matthew and myself.  

I love Matthew, and I am ever thankful that he is healthy and beautiful.  But I mourn the birth experience that I lost.  It is my mission to have a better birth experience and to have a VBAC so that my future children can be assured better health and outcomes.  I mourn the fact that Matthew and I never had a true breastfeeding relationship.  He deserved that.  He deserved breastmilk longer than I could give it to him.  I spent weeks after Matthew was born crying in the shower over the fact that I had missed his birth.  I revealed my feelings only to myself.  I felt like I had already cried/talked about it once to other people in my life, that I had to stop after that time.  I kept wondering if I was going to need some medicine to get me through this, but somehow amazed myself at how I got through this experience.  Birth can be a beautiful thing, but the pre-eclampsia, induction, epidural, all robbed me of that experience.  I don’t regret them inducing me, because I was very sick.  Matthew needed to come out in order for me to get better.  Also, parts of my placenta had died – so my womb was no longer a safe place for my son.

I long for a better birth next time.  I long for my next child to have the experience Matthew didn’t get.  I am grateful for the bond that I have with my son despite the difficult entry into the world.  I pray for a VBAC next time.  I am thinking that maybe the part of the point of my C-section is so that perhaps I will be blessed with a VBAC and will have a better perspective having been through an Emergency C-section and then later having a Vaginal birth.  Some people are okay with their C-sections, and while I was okay with the physical aspect, I believe that my hidden emotional scars are far greater and more ragged that my hideous looking physical scar.  If one looks at my physical scar, they should imagine that scar blown up and equate that with the emotional loss and emptiness I still feel of missing my son’s birth.

Matthew, my dear son, if you happen to read this someday, know that I love you so very much.  Your birth, regardless was special.  Mommy only mourns it, because ultimately I wanted to be there for you when you weren’t born.  I feel like I let you down as a mommy in that way.  You did have your wonderful daddy with you, which definitely brings comfort to mommy.  I often think of how God once said about his son, Jesus, “My son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased” – I often think that in my head Matthew, that you are my son, whom I love – you are everything to me.  

I also want that experience of having my husband – the one who created my child(ren) with me, there at the birth, sharing in the experience.  I want him there right with me in the most natural environment possible, not in some sterile room where I am being cut open like an animal.  Don’t get me wrong, if my next child’s birth needs a C-section medically, I will be the first to put myself on the operating table.  But I pray everyday and dream everyday about what this next birth might be like.  Matthew, I would give the world for you, you have taught me and your daddy so much.