Thursday, June 23rd I started itching like crazy, seriously it was horrible. I stayed up until early Friday morning scratching myself raw. The bottoms of my feet and palms of my hands were the worst. So as soon as my doctor was open Friday morning I called and they got me in to be checked out. After running some blood tests it was discovered that I had Cholestasis of Pregnancy , my doctor actually had never dealt with this condition before and had to call the high risk in Des Moines to find out what we needed to do next. He called me back about an hour later and said that he wanted me to come in that night to start the induction. Since I was already 37 weeks and the complications to the baby start at 38 weeks or after he wanted to get her out. We went in at 7 pm June 24th to start the induction. They broke my water at around 10:30, at this point I was only dilated to a 2 so I knew it was going to be awhile still. I had planned on going all natural but between the pain of the induction, the itching and pain from SPD I decided to go with the epidural. I tried to rest for awhile, the nurse came in and checked me at 3:30 am, I was barely a four, about an hour later I called her in because I really felt ready to push, she checked again and I was a 9 so they called the doctor in, after he got there it was only three contractions later I was holding Amelia. She was born at 4:51 am June 25th, 7lbs and 20 inches long.
They got her all checked out, got me cleaned up and stitched the one tiny tear I had and just when I thought we all were going to get some rest is when the madness started. I started bleeding heavily, the nurse was there with me and she was pressing on my stomach because she could feel something in there. At first she thought maybe it was a piece of the placenta but it turned out to be a very large clot ( weighed 1lb 6 oz and was the average size of a placenta ). After that is when she called the doctor back in, along with several other nurses. The bleeding and clotting just would not stop, they tried five or six different medications and finally had to call in the gynecologist to see if he could get it to stop. It took him a little while longer but he was finally able to get it to stop.
Later that afternoon I needed to use the rest room so the nurses came in to help me, I was holding onto Chris when I told them I was dizzy and that is when I passed out, had a seizure and actually stopped breathing for a few moments. I do not remember any of that, I remember waking up to about six different nurses asking me my name and if I knew what happened. Apparently due to the blood loss, my blood pressure crashed when I stood up causing the black out and seizure. It was decided at this point that I was going to be given blood after all, I had lost three units of blood and they were going to give me two units of blood. It took the rest of the day to get me back on track, we did have to stay in the hospital an extra day because of it all but I am doing a lot better now.
Amelia is nursing like a pro and is a pretty calm baby. We are adjusting to life with four children and things are going pretty well. It is going to take some time for me to get back to 100% but I am getting there slowly.
My labor and delivery was nothing like we planned which was disappointing but we are just happy that everyone is okay.
