This story starts with what made us decide to have a baby, talks about our journey to make it happen, includes his birth story and my near death experience and ends with a little boy we couldn’t possibly love more.
Daddy Minks and I had a talk early in our relationship about children. He didn’t have any children and I had my tubes tied 9 years prior to that so I was done having children. There was a brief mention of IVF being an option but we decided we were happy with it just being the 2 of us and my two older children. After all, I was about to turn 37 with 2 teenagers so it seemed silly to start over again.
It was March 2021 and we had been dating about 3 months and I found out I was pregnant through a trip to the ER. This was a shock considering the whole tubes being tied thing. Long story short, it was an ectopic pregnancy and my tube ruptured and was bleeding internally and had to have emergency surgery to have both tubes completely removed.
A few months later when the rawness of everything that happened wore off, we had a serious talk and decided that the whole experience made us both realize how much we really did want to have a baby together. So we start the IVF process. We ended up with 5 strong embryos after the egg retrieval procedure. We had our first embryo transfer in March of 2022. Days later, I got several positive pregnancy tests. We were beyond thrilled. Got my bloodwork 11 days later and it was positive as well but my numbers weren’t great. Repeated a couple days later when the number should’ve doubled and it didn’t. Not even close. Repeated again. Barely increased. Doctor called and told me that the embryo did take but its not developing appropriately and he recommended I stop my IVF meds. I ended up having a D&C to remove all “tissue” from the pregnancy.
Three months later, we had our second embryo transfer. This time we decided because of my age and the failed transfer 3 months ago, that we would transfer 2 embryos to increase our chances. Obviously we knew this meant a chance of twins but we were willing to take that risk. Days later….positive pregnancy test. We were cautious this time. We refused to get excited until we knew for sure it was a viable pregnancy. 11 days later, bloodwork. They called back that afternoon with wonderful news. My numbers were great! We still needed the number to double within the next 2 days but we were off to a good start. 2 days later, the number more than doubled. A third blood draw was done days later and my numbers had skyrocketed. We were excited but still holding our breath until we had that first ultrasound where we would find out if there was a heartbeat and if 1 or 2 embryos took. We had the ultrasound when I was 6 weeks and 2 days pregnant and the ultrasound tech smiled really big and said “see that? Thats a baby!” Baby had a strong heartbeat. They only saw 1 baby. It was a weird feeling because we were so excited to be getting our baby but it also meant that 1 of them didn’t make it. We graduated from the IVF clinic that day.
My pregnancy was considered a “geriatric pregnancy” 🙄 (at the ripe age of 38) and high risk because of my age and it being an IVF pregnancy. There were NO COMPLICATIONS through the whole pregnancy. I mean, I got Covid and Influenza A within a week of each other and was hospitalized for a while for that but that wasn’t exactly pregnancy related. As we got closer to my due date, I found myself getting nervous. I thought that was weird because I’ve been through this before and I wasn’t nervous with the other 2 so why should I be now? I just kept telling my fiance that I feel like something is going to happen. We got so lucky to get good embryos at my age. Then we got so lucky that I got pregnant. Then we got lucky that our baby boy seemed perfectly healthy at every ultrasound with no issues. And I had a pregnancy with no complications when I was considered high risk. I told him that something was going to happen. I didn’t know what but something was. I didn’t think something was going to happen with the baby. I felt like if something happened it was going to be because my body isn’t going to cooperate. I even told him we needed to make wills and I talked about my wishes and made sure he would make sure the kids were all taken care of if something happened to me.
My Dr wanted to induce me at 39 weeks because he said it’s safer because the placenta can detach early with IVF babies and he had been measuring big anyway. So I was induced. Two days later I was still in labor and still no baby. I had been dilated to 10 cm for 6 hours and nothing was happening. Doctor had me push for a bit and every time I did, the baby’s heart rate dropped dangerously low and stayed low for a few minutes before recovering. The Dr wasn’t comfortable with this and said we needed to do a C-section. I knew in my heart this was it. This was what was going to go wrong that I had been worried about. I told them I needed to sign a power of attorney before they took me back because I wanted my fiance to be able to make decisions for me if I was unable to. So I signed the papers and we went to the OR. At this point I couldn’t stop throwing up. I had been sick for hours and it was only getting more and more intense. I received an epidural earlier in labor but it didn’t work so it had to be redone. I still didn’t feel like it was working as well as it should’ve been. I’ve had them before and I was COMPLETELY numb from the waist down but with this one there was still a little bit of sensation. The anesthesiologist said he would increase the amount of meds going through it.
The C-section begins and I feel the pressure of him cutting into me. Not pain but pressure. This is normal. However the further they cut (they have to cut through 6 layers) the more I felt. I was feeling unbearable indescribable pain. I told them that I could feel everything and I needed something for pain and they said they couldn’t give me anything until the baby was out. I felt myself going in and out of consciousness. Things would go dark then pain. Then darkness then pain. So much freaking pain. I felt like I was being tortured and there was nothing anyone could do until the baby was out. My fiance kept saying “they’re almost done” and it just felt like it was taking hours even though I know it wasn’t actually that long. Then we hear him cry and I start fading again until I hear Daddy Minks’ voice saying “you hear him? He’s here!” He was so happy. I’ve never seen him so happy and at the exact same time I felt like I was dying and couldn’t share in that joy with him. The nurses take his phone and take pictures of the baby. I still hadn’t seen the baby yet but I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was trying to survive. They tried showing me a picture of him and I looked over at his phone and I couldn’t focus on it. I told him we had to wait until I got some pain medicine. The nurse rushed over to me and said “we’re going to give you something right now. It’s going to sedate you” I said, “I dont care. Just give it. This is where things got really bad.
They thought I was sedated but I was actually just paralyzed. I couldn’t move or speak or open my eyes but I could feel everything and hear everything. I felt my uterus being removed from my stomach. I felt it ALL. I heard the doctor tell the nurse to get some A- blood. The nurse asked if he wanted it on standby and he said no, I want it now. My fiance and the baby were taken out of the room. I heard panic in the doctor’s voice when he spoke to the nurses. I was screaming on the inside and trying so hard to move or speak and I couldn’t. Then suddenly everything is quiet. I feel no pain and hear no sound at all. I knew something happened to me. I knew I was dead. I remember thinking “this is what it’s like to be dead. This is it. I just don’t exist anymore. I didn’t have a body. I was just energy. That’s the only way I know how to explain it. Everything around me was an extremely bright white. The sky, the ground, the air. You couldn’t tell where the sky began and the ground ended because it was all just so bright. There were tall, white buildings around me. Like a marble material. They had no doors or windows. I was so sad that I wasn’t ever going to meet my baby. I was so sad that I was leaving my older two children behind. I felt so guilty for trying to have a baby at my age and because of that, my kids were going to lose their mother. I was so sad that me and my fiance didn’t get enough time together. I had finally found real happiness in my life and it was now over. I convinced myself that everyone would be ok. Family would make sure the kids were always taken care of and loved and made it through this and my fiance would have his baby boy and that would help him through it and I knew his family would help him. Shortly after I convinced myself that they would be ok, I started walking towards the building in front of me. Then suddenly I’m back in my body and feeling everything again and hearing everything. The pain was still excruciating. I heard a nurse tell the doctor “the spouse would like an update” and it was dead quiet. No one spoke for a long time. I don’t know how long all of this went on because it felt like time didn’t exist. There was just pain and panic. I hear an exchange between a nurse and the doctor. They are talking about how now I can finally get some much deserved rest and they were glad things turned around and ended up ok. Finally, the paralysis was wearing off but all I could manage to do was moan. I moaned as loud as I could so they would know I was awake. The nurse stroked my hair and told me I was ok. When I was finally able to speak, the first thing I said was “did I die?” She reassured me and stroked my hair some more. And the pain continued. I told her I could feel it and begged the doctor to stop whatever he was doing. At least I think I said that out loud. I’m not sure because no one actually responded to me.
Finally it was over. They ask me if I want more pain meds and I said that I did but I wanted to be able to see my baby. Finally, 2 hours after he was born, I get to see him and hold him (with assistance) for the first time. His Daddy was amazing the whole time he was with him. He did skin to skin the whole time. Stinky Minks never felt alone even though he didn’t get to be in his mama’s arms until 2 hours after being born.
After being moved to a normal room and getting settled in, the nurse asked me if I was starting to remember things from the OR. I told her that I remembered everything. She asked me what I meant and I told her that I was paralyzed but I felt and heard everything. She was horrified. She said she knew things didn’t go well but she had no idea that I could feel it all and hear it all. I told her about my near death experience. She told me that I did lose what is normally a fatal amount of blood (over 2000 ml) but they were able to get the blood transfusion in me quickly. Over the next couple days, my kidneys quit working so they were pumping me full of fluids quickly and non stop. I gained 40 lbs in water weight in 2 days. I was so swollen I couldn’t bend my legs. I felt like I was in someone else’s body. My blood count also kept dropping dangerously low and I had to receive multiple blood transfusions over the next couple days as well. All of this on top of trying to care for and breast feed a newborn baby. The nurses kept saying they were amazed that I was able to still care for him and somewhat function because at the levels I was at with my blood count they expected me to barely be conscious. I told them a new baby that needs me is pretty good motivation to keep me going.
At my follow up appointment with my doctor I finally spoke to him about all of the details of my experience and he felt just terrible that it was even worse than he thought it was. He called the anesthesiologist to find out what meds I was given and told him about me being paralyzed but feeling everything and he was told that it was an adverse reaction to one of the meds I was given, ketamine.
It took me months to process everything that happened. I think I’m still processing it. But Stinky Minks is a joy to have. We tried so hard to get him here. I fought so hard to stay here with him. I’m so grateful I get to stay home and spend every day with him. I record as much as I can and take tons and tons of pictures and truly slow down and appreciate all the little moments as well as the big moments with him because I came so close to not being here for any of it.