It started with an ambulance ride

by Erin S.

The day that my son was born was like no other I have ever experienced in my life. It was, Sunday, April 23, 2006 and it was sunny after having a whole day before of nothing but rain. My husband and I had eaten at a Mexican restaurant the night before and when we got home about an hour later I started having contractions. They were regular but really didn't hurt much. I timed them for about 4 hours and even though they were still very regular, occurring about every 30-45 minutes and lasting about 1 minute they still didn't hurt too bad. I decided to go to bed and get some sleep just "in case".

The next morning we woke up about 8am and I was in such horrible pain. I tried to drink some water b/c I have always heard that if it is false water tends to make them go away. I was so thirsty, I even ate a chilly willy popsicle, which I loved the entire 3rd trimester. About 30 minutes later I was using the bathroom all over myself, thought it was my water breaking but it wasn't and vomiting profusely. I was so bad off I couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom, my husband then had to call the emergency crew to come and get me.

When the medics arrived my blood pressure was 70/30 and I had 102 fever. They rushed me to the hospital where I was then hooked up to a fetal monitor. By this time the contractions were every 5 minutes and lasting about 2-3 minutes. My blood pressure was still relatively low and still had a high fever. So they started pumping me full of fluids. About an hour later I was begging for food and water which they wouldn't give just in case they needed to do surgery, just ice chips. So I would try to let the ice melt to water and drink. Also when the nurses would leave the room I would make my husband go and get me water out of my private bathroom.

Well, things started looking up, they were even talking about sending me home. The contractions had eased up and all my vitals were pretty much back to normal. Then, my son's heart rate dropped to 20 beats per minute. The doctor and nurses rushed into the room made me get on my knees with my butt up in the air to try and get his heart rate back up. It didn't help. So guess what? They had to do an emergency c-section. I had no anesthesia given to me before they just crammed the catheter into my bladder, I thought that I could have hit the nurse.

The next thing I knew I was awake in my room with all of my husband's and my family around. We had the cutest baby ever! It was one of the best days of my life, although I felt I might die when the day began.