Liam Keale

39 weeks after his cells started splitting and turning into a human, we packed our bags and hit the road to meet our son.

Talk about freakin out, it was 5 am when we left and I’m not sure either one of us actually got any sleep that night. We knew it was coming, I had a scheduled C Section because 1) Sophia was a C Section baby and 2) Liam was breech. I had been counting the days… (probably counting the minutes…) because this was not the most fun pregnancy in the world. I was SO done.

When we got to the hospital, a barrage of nurses came and went, getting me prepped for surgery. An hour and a half later, I was poked, prodded and ready to roll down to the C Section room.

They take the woman in there first. I can’t imagine what’s that like for the dad (being all alone to worry about what’s next). We got into the stark white room bustling with a ton of people (like, 15 or something) and they worked on getting my spinal tap done. Frank the anesthesiologist was awesome (and totally cute)… although it took them a bunch of tries to get it right. Once the spinal was set, I was laid back and prepped for the cut. Scary.

Once they brought Chris in, it seemed like time flew. They cut me open – and sorry for the TMI, but even though I couldn’t feel pain, I could feel and hear them cutting me open and that was freaky. Tug, snip, tug, snip, tug. *shiver* In no time at all, they pulled that kid out of me! I was oblivious, but Chris said when Liam was born, Heart’s “Magic Man” was playing on the stereo. (SUPER cool, eh?)

The group of baby nurses were busy taking care of Liam, cleaning him off, weighing him, checking stats, all that. I was pretty preoccupied with watching that and didn’t realize the doctors were busy themselves, having found a problem. I had Placenta Accreta, a very dangerous (and can be fatal) condition in while the placenta attaches itself to the uterine walls. The doctors had to surgically remove the placenta and sew my uterus back together. It’s very common to have a hysterectomy when you have this condition… but because my doctors were so good (and I think they thought I was too young) they were able to repair my uterus and didn’t have to do the hysterectomy. On a sad note, I won’t be able to have kids again without a severe risk to my life. (Thank goodness I am done having kids!)

While the doctors were busy fixing me, I was able to finally meet my son. It was awesome… although because I was all cut open and stuff I was not able to hold him yet (which sucks). During those first moments with my son, I started to feel sick — and before Frank was able to get the anti-nausea medicine in me, I started to throw up. Not cool when your all cut open. Think about it for a second — when you throw up, your stomach muscles are pushing the bile up… and now think about doing that when your stomach is sitting there cut open. They rushed Chris and Liam out of the room. Everyone was freakin out — I don’t remember much about what happened next. I remember getting smelling salts stuck under my nose, and thinking “how is this going to help me stop throwing up?!?” but looking back I think I was passing out. Apparently it’s common during this situation for the patient to hemorrhage, and add to that my puking and you got trouble.

I don’t know how long I was in that room. I didn’t know Chris and Liam had left. And I don’t even remember being wheeled back to my recovery room. (Scary)  I do remember panic… I do remember nurses running around like crazy people and I do remember seeing a lot of blood. I think it’s lucky I was unaware of what was going on, because that was the only thing keeping me from going crazy with fear. Based on the comments from the doctor, I guess it was a really close call in there… they very well could have lost me. I think about that almost every day now – what would have happened to my children, my husband and the rest of my family had I died on that table.

Once I was back in the recovery room, the doctor came in to check on me… and that’s when we found out what had just happened. I was still pretty out of it so it didn’t sink in… but it didn’t take long after that to get it. Then they brought Liam in – and I remember having him handed to me for the first time. It was awesome. He was the cutest, sweetest thing ever.

After a few moments of taking it all in, taking pictures, and texting announcements, I was not feeling so hot. I started to black out so I handed the baby over to Chris and called for help. Once again, I don’t remember too much about those moments. The doctor came in  and after an evaluation they told us I had blood clots in my uterus. And they had to get them out. Manually.

The doctor had to reach in and pull them out, while pushing on my belly. I don’t know if you can imagine how painful that could be… but just trust me that it was horrible. It was obvious to the doc and nurse how bad it was, because they stopped to pump me full of pain meds (apparently the morphine was not strong enough, so they gave me something else that was a bunch stronger… and so, I was loopy). Both the OB doc and my own OBGYN took turns pulling clots out of me until they thought they got them all.

Since I lost so much blood, I had to get a blood transfusion. It was such a nonchalant process. Weird, considering they were refilling me with someone else’s blood. That was kind of odd to wrap my head around… being refilled. But it was saving my life, so big ups to all of you who have donated yours. I was never able to do that since I am anemic… but I gotta say I wish I could have.

After the blood transfusion, I was feeling a lot better. Our families cam to visit and meet the new little dude. I had to stay in the recovery room overnight to be monitored… but I was able to eat some crackers and get out of bed within  24 hours.

I was pretty sad when they transferred me out of the Labor & Delivery wing into the normal rooms… the nurses in the L&D were the nicest, most caring women I have ever dealt with. I spent the next 3 days in the hospital being monitored, filled with pain pills and cuddling with my new baby. Lots of folks came to visit (Thanks to the Keale & Potts families, Leah & Mike, Vijoy, Amie, Nikki, and my kiddos)

I’m not sure I was ready to go home that Tuesday when I was discharged… I was still in a lot of pain and was not feeling very strong, but I walked out of the hospital greeted by the hottest day of the year and headed home with my new baby.

The following week was pretty rough – Liam was a joy, as good a baby as they come – but my body was not happy about what had just happened to it and it let me know. Since then I have had a few complications (nothing too serious) but things are looking up so I am hoping to be back to normal soon.

Liam is the last baby I will ever have… both because 3 kids is enough for me to handle and because of the high risk involved in getting pregnant again. Who knows if I will be this lucky the next time. One thing is for sure, I’m keeping my OBGYN. That man saved my life.