December 18th, 2009. The birthday of my daughter. The day that is both the most important, and scariest day of my life. The day I brought life into this world, I almost lost mine. That day changed me in SO many ways. Not just in the, “now I’m a mom” way, but in the, “now I need to heal my scars.” way. NOT only the physical scars, but the emotional.

It’s taking me a long time to move on and accept what happened. I go back and forth…. one day, I’m ok. It’s ok. It happened, I’m cool. Another day, I tear up just thinking about it. I’m tearing up as I type this. It’s one of “those” days. Hee.  This time of year is hard for me. Christmas is normally my FAVorite time of year. Now, December means I also flash back to my daughter’s birth.

I can still see/smell/hear/feel so many moments from that week. It felt foggy. I was weak. Confused. My body hurt. I lived for pushing the morphine button. It’s all they would give me before they knew what was happening. The drip system was set to only give me a certain amount every 15 minutes. I was in so much pain I would sit there and push it over and over… if I fell asleep my husband would wake me and let me know the “morphine light” was green. Thank goodness. If I let it go too long… I would feel the terrible breath-shortening pain again.

I remember feeling relief when the doctor decided I might have appendicitis. Something weird to be relieved to hear, but I needed something. That meant there was something wrong with ME, not my baby. I felt better (in my head). A day and a half later I was wheeled into surgery. I hadn’t been allowed any food or water since I arrived at the hospital. I was in so much pain and I just wanted to feel better. I wanted a healthy baby. That’s all. Let’s do this. I was ready.

The walk to my appendectomy (or ROLL in my case) was sort of happy. My mom and husband were relieved. They had spent this entire journey with me, and had experienced a whole other side to this hospital stay… my mom watched her daughter scream in pain, and my husband couldn’t help his wife (carrying his child) to feel better. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it was for them.

I signed the resuscitate papers. Why wouldn’t I sign them? Who wouldn’t sign those? I joked with my mom and husband about those papers. Silly papers. I’m just getting an appendectomy. They said I would be done soon. I’d feel better. My daughter and I would be safe. All this pain will be done.

I remember the nurse wheeling me away from my mom and husband. I was happy. ready. Let’s be done with this pain already. The nurses and doctor were chatting about something. I don’t quite know. I wasn’t really paying attention. I’m sure it was something about Christmas, since we were just a week away. I was asked to roll over to my side, I said I couldn’t, so the nurse put me under early.

I woke up hours later. I had my daughter placed on my chest. She was out of my belly. People were happy to see me. I had a “miracle baby”. I still pushed my morphine button. I continued to have blood transfusions. I remember this. I still feel it. It is still hard for me. I learned later that I had flatlined more than once. I had almost lost my life… multiple times. My daughter was lucky enough to STILL be getting blood throughout this entire thing.

This whole experience contributed to the postpartum depression I had right after my daughter’s birth and, more recently, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that popped up with some bad panic attacks, last Spring. I am better. It’s just a big learning experience. I’m working to heal myself and learn to adjust and live with my experience.

All a work in progress. I can’t forget that, I need to continue to heal myself.

– Chelsey

Note: I know most of you may not know everything about me…. SO, just some info for you… I had a uterine rupture that led to this whole mess. I had never had any surgery on my uterus before, and my doctors didn’t know what to do. BUT, I’m here today. Here’s my LOoooong birth story if you’d like to read.

Connecting with Just Write this week.