Notes for the Baby Book - Our son, Francis Joseph

I hit the bathroom at about 7 pm. I labored for awhile, mostly laying in the bathtub with the shower running on my tummy. I think it was around 8:00 pm when the baby came out. I held him (yes, we could tell it was a him) in my hand for awhile and then placed him in a bowl while I cleaned up.

I was in a lot of pain and had a lot of bleeding. Finally at about 1:30 am I was so dizzy/sweaty/pale, I woke Jeremy up and told him I needed to go to the ER. My brother came over to stay with the girls until morning.

We arrived at the ER and thankfully didn't have to wait too long. They put us in an ER room and a doctor came in and did a pelvic exam in which he realized that the placenta was still inside my uterus. He ordered a blood pressure test and an ultrasound. The blood pressure test was first. They took my blood pressure with me laying down, and then with me standing. When I stood up, I lost a lot of blood and I think I scared the male nurse who was administering it. Jeremy was helping me stand and thankfully caught me when I passed out.

We then waited for awhile for the ultrasound. It confirmed that the placenta was still inside. The doctor told us they would probably do surgery to clean out my uterus. He said it would take 10 minutes, then they'd watch me for a couple hours then I could go home by 10 am.

At this point, a new doctor came in and made a different plan. He thought the tissue was close enough to coming out that we should wait it out. So, the hooked me up to pitocin and we waited. We waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile, I still couldn't stand or even sit up without getting dizzy. The doctor told me that my hemoglobin (which they took when we first arrived) was fine and I was probably dizzy because I was overwhelmed. I told him that I have never had problems with dizziness and I had never passed out before. Then, he decided to test my hemoglobin again.

When we first arrived, it was 13, by noon on Tuesday, it was down to 9.9 - low, and explained my dizziness, but nothing they could do anything about.

They gave me more medicine around noon and told me that if I didn't pass the placenta by 3:00, they would do the surgery. Three o'clock rolled around and the doctor came in and examined me again. He decided that he could probably just pull it out...very painfully. It was successful, thankfully, and they told us we could go home that day.

Unfortunately, my hemoglobin is now down to 6.7. I am waiting for my blood transfusion and praying nothing else goes wrong. All I want to do is be home with my family during this difficult time.

We named the baby Francis Joseph. We could tell that he was born with 6 toes on one foot. St. E's weighed him and measured him and took his tiny handprints. We mourn the loss of our first son, but we know that he was not made for this world.