It was a crazy ONE!

I can’t believe that in a little over a week, we will have a one year old! I have a lot of mixed feelings about it and if you’ve got kids, you know the feeling I’m talking about- the mind boggling sensation that the last year FLEW by. Our year was not the easiest to say the least and it didn’t just start with Brooklyn’s brain tumor.

When I found out I was pregnant with Brooklyn, oh I cried. I was scared out of my mind, excited about having a tiny human, worried about how my body would respond to carrying a baby and if being pregnant was as “beautiful” as people said it was. It took me a while to adjust to the idea of actually being pregnant because I honestly thought I would be the “fun aunt”…Loren was the one who always actively talked about having kids. I never even thought I’d find some poor sod to actually marry me, let alone have a kid with me 😅 until I met Ben. As time went on, and I could see the changes and feel Brooklyn move, I became more excited about meeting her but so scared…well because everyone ever tells you about their horror stories from labor and delivery.

I had an uncomplicated pregnancy. I exercised regularly, ate good food and took my prenatal vitamins. The only “remarkable” thing about my pregnancy was that I had stinking Co*id at 9.5 weeks pregnant. Literally, no morning sickness, no nausea, nothing really crazy to write home about. Around 38 weeks, we went to the hospital because Brooklyn hadn’t been quite as active as she normally was- no sooner had we gotten there… boom she was her normal wiggly self. When I went in for my 39 week appointment, I asked the OBGYN if I could schedule an induction because I didn’t want the possibility of delivering my child on the anniversary of my sister’s death. So I went in on a Monday for my appointment and my induction was scheduled for that Wednesday, June 23, 2021 and Brooklyn was born on June 24, 2021.

June is a weird month in our family. There’s so much to celebrate but so much grieving happens at the same time. If you have read previous blogs, Ben and I got married June 8, 2019. Loren turned 30 on June 12, 2019 and died on June 29, 2019. June sucks…but doesn’t at the same time. Now, we just ride the roller coaster of emotions. Celebrate our anniversary, cry a bit on her birthday, celebrating on Brooklyns birthday and grieving on Loren’s anniversary. It’s wild man…but I digress… back to labor and delivery.

We went in at 8:00 on June 23 for the induction. I made sure to eat breakfast at home because I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to eat after I was induced( which is crap- according to th American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, women who have had a low risk pregnancy, should be able to eat and drink freely during labor…its like a marathon! I’m making mental notes for things to discuss with my provider for if, and when we have another baby.). I had my coffee, and my oatmeal with protein and berries. Ben and I got in the car and didn’t say much on the way to the hospital, partly because I think both of us were anxious for what was to come.

After we got to the hospital, I was hooked up to pitocin, and an IV. I had a monitor on Brooklyn and there were just a lot of wires. It didn’t make moving around easy at all. Ben and I were trying to figure out ways to pass the time with movies and card games in between popsicles and naps. Things moved pretty slow for me even on the pitocin, so a balloon catheter was used to help move things along- and honestly, I forgot I had that until I started typing this. It was not the most comfortable thing but hey, it did the job. My epidural was flawless- but I definitely should have waited until I was further along before getting one because it really restricted me being able to even shift to get more comfortable. After the epidural, Ben and I started a Harry Potter marathon taking bets on which movie Brooklyn would come during. It ended up being like half way through Order of the Phoenix.

Around 2:30, I started getting almost a cramp feeling in my right hip and found out that I was almost ready to go and we were going to meet Brooklyn soon. Thankfully, with some adjusting, I was able to go back to sleep until about 4 when the cramp felt like a sharp pain in my hip again. I was 10cm dialated and it was go time. (I’m literally making so many mental notes for if I have another kid and what I want to do differently LOL). I pushed for about 2.5 hours, didn’t feel much at all and we finally met Brooklyn Renee at 6:26 on June 24, 2021. She was 7lbs 5.5oz and 19.5” long and freaking perfect. She was born with the meconium so I didn’t get to hold her immediately because they needed to make sure she was safe.

When these nurses give you this tiny human…it’s an insane feeling. Like I just grew another organ, and another person on the inside and here she is on the outside! I could finally see who she looked like- her dad obviously- what color hair she had, the sweet little button nose she had on the ultrasound and her long legs. The exhaustion after pushing for two and a half hours was real but looking at that baby, it was all worth it!

Labor and delivery…easy! Postpartum is where things got dicey for me. I did my research and knew that someone was supposed to come and push on my stomach in 30 minute increments for the first hour after Brooklyn got here. I got two fundal checks in the first hour and none after that. I felt tired, and had this urgency to pee but couldn’t go. I kept asking my nurses to help me get up to go to the bathroom. I remember the first time I got up to go, I needed a lot of help getting to the bathroom. I felt awful. Light headed, like I was going to throw up and I heard radio static in my ears. I finished in the bathroom and my nurse walked me back to the bed and I collapsed. My blood pressure was 95/48. Shift change happened and my postpartum nurse came in. I was telling her what I had told my previous nurse, that I had to pee and I my pain was 10/10. I tried to sit on a bed pan to go to the bathroom, ended up with a chemical burn on my ass from the bedpan because I had to lay on it from being light headed again. I tried to get up to wal the 7 feet from the bed to the bathroom and collapsed in the recliner that was 3 feet from the bathroom. My bladder hurt so bad and I felt like if I could just go to the bathroom, everything would be fine.

I was laying on the bed pan in the recliner crying because I couldn’t get relief. I knew something was wrong and I asked the nurse to remove the bedpan. No sooner had she removed the bed pan, I felt like I had become incontinent. It wasn’t until I looked at her face that I knew something was wrong. She pulled out her phone and called for back up “um I think my patient is hemmoraging”. 🤨 What? You think! Several other doctors came in and discovered that I was hemmoraging and the clots needed to be removed…Manually. Push out a 7lb baby and then you’ve got two men trying to remove clots with tools and their hands…at this point I’m begging for my life, for my labor and delivery nurse to come back and for someone to hear me. I blacked out, and was in and out of consciousness but remember grabbing whoever was closest asking for them to save me, begging them to feed Brooklyn, and signing consent for a D and C. I remember my OBGYN coming in right before talking to Ben about the D and C, telling the other doctors to take their hands off, “you’re traumatizing her!”. After that, I remember sobbing all the way to the OR and telling my doctor and L&D nurse that I needed a new post partum nurse because I wasn’t being heard. My OBGYN saved my life.

In and out I remember some of the OR…telling the staff that I was appreciative of them, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d barely seen my daughter long enough to remember what her face looked like or what her cry sounded like. I never even got a first latch with her before this happened. I had to have a blood transfusion and left the hospital anemic. Add being a new parent, to anemia… it was a new level of exhaustion. We spent two more days in the hospital while I recoverd, and while we tried to get Brooklyn to nurse while supplementing with formula. This also left me devastated because I wanted to nurse her. I was so upset that I missed the first few hours of her life, that bonding time and that time to work on nursing. DEVESTATED. I know that fed is best but everyone has their plan of how they want to feed their kid, and I wanted to breastfeed. Thankfully with some help from lactation, we were able to get to a point where Brooklyn would nurse.

When I say the last year was a year… the last three years have been a doozie. From not knowing if I was going to make it after delivery, to not knowing if Brooklyn was going to survive her brain tumor surgery, we have defied the odds and persevered. As cheesy as that sounds, we did it. They say that the first year of marriage is the hardest…its been three years, and we’re wondering when it will get easier for us 😂. All in all, it’s made me and Ben stronger as a couple, stronger as parents and we are blessed every stinking day with that soon to be one year old.

We are strong, we are blessed, and we are fearfully and wonderfully brave.