The birth of Anabelle Luz

On the night of Thursday, October 18th I started having cramping in my lower abdomen. Something just did not feel right. Because I've never been through labor before, I didn't know this was the start of the contractions I would be having over the next few days. The cramping slowly got worse. While my regular OB wasn't in the office on Friday, I made an appointment to see another doctor anyway.

The doctor that I saw took some labs and diagnosed me with a urinary tract infection (UTI). She started me on an antibiotic and said that she was running a culture and would get the results back on Monday. I went home and tried to get some rest. However, Friday night I was in quite a bit of pain and started vomiting. I was to the point Saturday morning that I hadn't been able to keep any food or water down. I wasn't able to take the zofran or the antibiotic that they gave me the other day. The cramping was to the point that I could time it... 4 to 5 minutes apart.

Saturday October 20th, I went to the ER around 11 am. I told them the symptoms I've been been having and that I haven't been able to eat or drink anything, including my medications. I told them that the cramping was 4 to 5 minutes apart. I explained how bad I was feeling and they did some blood work and checked for the baby's heartbeat with the fetal tone monitor. The baby's heart beat was about 170, which was slightly elevated but they were not concerned. They gave me an antibiotic, anti-nausea medication, a pain medication and then released me.

Saturday night I called the nurses at my OB's office. I explained to the nurse how bad the cramping was and that I could barely stand it. Since my pharmacy was already closed, she sent in a prescription for Vicodin to a 24 hour pharmacy which I went to get. She told me that if I took the Vicodin and the pain didn't feel better after an hour that I should return to the ER.

I took the medicine right before 7pm that night and by 8 o'clock I had no relief. I was laying in my bed crying. I asked my roommate to take me back to the ER but he had plans with someone to go to a haunted house and wanted me to watch his son. Another one of my friends said that I could drop my room mates kid off and she would watch him, but couldn't take me to the ER because she was babysitting. I was in no condition to drive myself to the hospital and so I called my mom. My mom told me that pain was normal during pregnancy and I just needed to suck it up. After sending a text message to one last friend, and the fact that she was unable to drive me to the ER, I gave up and tried to sleep.

I was 16 weeks when I woke up at 1:00 am Sunday October 21, 2012 to go to the bathroom. As I went to the bathroom, I felt something "pop". I looked down and the toilet was full of blood. I freaked out, woke my room mate and had him take me immediately to the ER. I later found out that I had just lost my mucus plug. By the time I got to the ER I was losing clots of blood the size of my hand. I was put in an ER room and was told I had to wait for a doctor because an ambulance had just arrived.

My parents came into the ER room shortly after, and were by my side during the rest of the traumatic morning. A nurse came in to talk to me and I told her how much blood I was losing. I told her as I was sitting on the table and I said... "I think my water just broke". She said it's ok and asked my parents to step out to clean off the table and to clean myself off. As I stood up to clean myself off, I put my leg up on the table and my daughter came out, in my hand, stillborn.

I screamed. I could hear my mom screaming through the door if I was alright. I remember crying and screaming at the nurse. I remember the amount of blood that was draining down my legs and onto the floor. I remember my heart sinking. And then the thought... today, October 21, was the father of my child's birthday. I fainted. I think I might have been sitting down but I fell to the floor. There was blood all over the room and all I could do was cry. The nurse then told me I had a baby boy and asked if I wanted an autopsy or any type of testing done. I said I did, because I want to find out why such a thing has happened.

I remember waiting for the doctor. After the doctor came in he said he was finally calling down the OB and that I should just wait there because they needed to see if the placenta was going to come out of if I needed surgery to remove it. I remember him coming in and the feeling that he was being very insensitive because he kept saying he was sorry over and over again while ripping, scraping, cutting, whatever he was doing to remove my placenta. I screamed. I cried. I was mad because it physically hurt and I was mad because my heart hurt.

Shortly after removing the placenta the ER doc came back in and released me from the ER. I was released about 6 am while I was still bleeding profoundly. The doctor prescribed some medications that would supposedly stop the bleeding and I went home to process what had just happened. I was so numb I couldn't even take it in what had just happened. I did not sleep. I didn't do much but sit in the chair at my parents house and cry. It hurt so bad that I just could not do much of anything.