Reader: Let me take you back 24 hours earlier...
About 9am yesterday morning, I was sitting at a computer desk in an office, filling out computer spreadsheets for a leadership committee that I volunteer for. I was alone in the office, and after about an hour, I began to feel a bit tired. I also felt light-headed, so I ate a little snack, and then my stomach began to hurt. My stomach muscles were tightening and starting to cramp a little, so I tried to sit up straighter. I have bad posture sometimes, but even sitting with better posture didn't help the cramping, so I went home.
After I was home for a little bit, at 11am, I drove to one of my regular doctor appointments at the Women's Clinic. I was weighed, I peed in a cup, and I gave them my blood pressure. I talked with the doctor about how I was feeling much better emotionally. I also explained that I had been feeling crampy that day, kind of like how I felt the day I went into the ER, but not nearly as horrible. He poked me and felt around my belly, reassuring me that uterus cramps will come and go. He encouraged me to take Tylenol for the pain. I thanked him, left his office, went to the Lab to have blood drawn, and then went home.
The rest of the day, I was fairly tired, so I took it easy around the house. I sat on the couch and rested, I caught up on daytime television. I took some Tylenol XS capsules when the cramps got a little worse, reminding myself that uterus cramps happen to all mothers. I kept telling myself that I am not a wimp. For goodness sake, if I can't get through uterus cramps, how the heck would I get through child labor?
When Scott called to tell me that he was going out with a friend after work to go shooting, I was actually a little relieved that I wouldn't be cooking dinner that night. Instead, I just continued to sit back and relax through dinner time. It was around 7:30pm when I decided to take a bath, hoping to encourage my uterus ligaments to finally calm themselves.
After I lowered myself in the little bathtub in our rental house, I sat back, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I put my hands on my stomach, hoping that I could coax my muscles and ligaments to stop cramping. But very suddenly and within minutes after being in the bathtub, the pain got worse. MUCH worse.
The pain that seared through my abdomen was terrifying. The pain was the same intense ripping feeling that took me into the ER the first time. Somehow, I lifted myself out of the bathtub and onto the toilet. The pain was felt throughout my stomach, around my entire uterus, and down through my vagina. It was excruciating, and I felt like bearing down on the toilet would alleviate the pain. But after sitting on the toilet, my stomach muscles began to feel cramped in the sitting position, so I moved to the bed. But once on the bed, I was not able to find a comfortable position. I curled myself up in a fetal position, and it hurt. I would stretch myself out, and it would hurt. I would lay on my left side, I would lay on my right side, but the pain would not subside. I would start to get up to go sit on the toilet again, but the dizziness, nausea and ripping pain would keep me down on the bed. Stuck between intense pain and ever more severe pain, I just laid on the bed and wept.
Scott returned home shortly after all the pain started. Lying on the bed, close to throwing up all over myself, it was a relief to see his face. Scott immediately ran to my side to help, but also just as quickly, felt completely helpless. He got me a bowl, where I began vomiting and revomiting the insides of my stomach. I moaned, I cried. I did all this, while trying to avoid Scott's face. I didn't want to feed into his fear, especially since I couldn't control mine.
At one point, I asked Scott to help me to the bathroom, explaining to him that each time I tried to get up, I would get light-headed and my stomach would get queasier. As soon as he helped me up to sit on the toilet, my head went light, I started to see black spots, and my hearing went out, like the volume suddenly was turned way low. I felt the need to throw up again, and as I sat down on the toilet, I leaned into Scott next to me and whispered, "Honey, I feel like I'm going to faint..."
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Suddenly, I hear Scott talking frantically on his cell phone, still squatting next to me on the toilet, still holding me up with his hand, "--Yes, she turned a shade of WHITE/BLUE! I helped her up from the bed to the toilet and then she went out. She convulsed, her hands came up to her chest, and her eyes rolled back! Yes, I'm with her... The door is unlocked, they can get in. Please HURRY! Okay, I hear the sirens now."
The fear in his voice startled me into consciousness, and I instinctively replied, "Honey, I'm sure I'm fine. I feel a little better. They probably don't need to come inside..."
Scott helped me off the toilet onto the bed. Somehow, one of us managed to pull my shorts up before the Emergency Crew invaded our messy bedroom. As the Crew plopped a couple of life-saving devices on the bed next to me, and for the first time that entire night, I felt a little self-conscious about my makeup-less face, short shorts, and my greasy hair pulled back in a bun.
After interviewing with the Ambulance Crew, riding strapped-down on the rough gurney, being whisked to the Emergency Room in an ambulance, dealing with annoying ER check-in staff, and finally getting into a private emergency room, Scott and I held hands (me on my back, him standing next to me), silently sharing through each other's eyes our unspoken fears.
After being admitted into the hospital, we had an emergency ultrasound and a brief CAT scan, where they explained that the baby wasn't encased by a uterus (later, confirmed by a couple of doctors) and where they found a lot of misplaced blood in my abdomen. After the staff began to notice how much blood I was losing internally, they called for an emergency surgery, where they invited a general surgeon, two obstetric surgeons, the anesthesiologist, nurses, and a large staff of surgical assistants to assist in what they knew was a unique and dangerous case. The doctors explained to us that their focus was to remove the growing amount of blood around my uterus and lower stomach, fix what was causing it, and figure out--
Whew. I just broke down in tears as I was writing. This part of the story is the hardest to relive. Here goes...
-- In surgery, after the doctors surgically opened me up, they found that the top of my uterus had ruptured open. The surgeon explained that they witnessed quite a sight as my insides were exposed: our tiny baby girl, her connected umbilical cord, and the all-important placenta was just sitting right there on my opened uterus.
In recovery, the doctors explained that in order to save my life, it was imperative that they remove the bleeding placenta (the cord and the baby), and that they quickly close my hemorrhaging uterus to avoid additional blood loss to my system. They explained to us, when it came to the baby, it would have been impossible to save her in my life-threatening situation. They were not able to sew the baby back inside the uterus to grow to a gestation where she could have been able to survive outside of the womb. She died very quickly, but on the other hand, my life was saved. And in the end, this was apparently the first time many of these surgeons have ever witnessed such a severe condition in their own practice experience, especially with a fetus 18-1/2 weeks old.
The reason for all of this trauma? The doctors have explained that I have a bicornuate uterus, which you can read about here and here. Basically, my uterus never formed into a normal "bulb-like" shape when I myself was a small fetus, but kept a shape with two distinct bulbs to a common cervix. Fast forward 30 years later, and once I was pregnant, our little baby and her placenta grew in my left uterus bulb for over 18 weeks, which probably stretched that bulb to capacity, causing it to rupture.
The plan is to go back into the doctors next week to remove the staples in my stomach incision, so we are also preparing to get information and begin to speak with specialists about my condition. Since getting pregnant is not an issue for me, could I ever be able to carry a baby to full term? If so, what precautions would I need to take while pregnant? Would we have to expect weekly drugs, additional doctor monitoring, or even bed rest? Did that bulb rupture because it is the weaker of the bulbs? Is carrying a baby even an option for me at this point, or should I just discount the idea of ever having a biological child of my very own? Pregnant or not, how has this physical trauma affected my general health now?
So many questions... so many potential scary answers...
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Rest in Heaven:
Baby Girl Thorpe, 18 weeks and 3 days
Silently Born Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 4:55am
5.5 ounces, 7-3/4 inches long
You are already missed more than we could have ever imagined.
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