My Accreta Fundraiser

I had zero risk factors. I was 29 years old. It was my first pregnancy. This is my Accreta story.

Aside from some intense 1st trimester nausea and a very mild case of diet controlled gestational diabetes everything was normal. While I didn’t love being pregnant, it wasn’t a difficult journey by any means. My water broke around midnight when I was 38 weeks and change. After 6+ hours of labor and only an hour of pushing I was holding my sweet baby girl. She even latched right away, what a champ! Then came time to push out the placenta. No luck. Try again...and again. My wonderful, amazing, miracle woman of a doctor was literally up to her elbow making every attempt to remove what was once my baby’s precious source of life. “We’re going to take you down for a D and C” I was told. Simple. Thirty minutes and I’d be back with my sweet lady and proud husband. “Ok, no problem,” I thought. “He’ll get time for skin on skin and I’ll get a little nap. Maybe my mom will even be here when I’m done. Make sure there’s food when I get back. I need a ham and cheese sub.”

The first thing I remember seeing when I opened my eyes was the clock. 2:42. My mind raced.  “That can’t be right. It was just after 7 when I came down here.” I realized very quickly that everything was not ok. My memory is foggy, but I’m sure someone told me that I was in the ICU due to complications from surgery. But I couldn’t talk or ask any questions because a breathing tube had been necessary for the anesthesia. After signaling for a pen and paper I asked my anesthesiologist to tell me what happened. “...complications...lost a lot of blood...hysterectomy.” That’s all I remember hearing. I must have gone numb. Maybe it was the morphine. 

I remember arguing (via pen and paper) with the ICU nurse to remove my breathing tube. He said I wasn’t stable enough yet (I have a history with asthma). I gave him the finger. Twice. 

I later learned that my placenta had attached itself to my uterus and trying to separate the two resulted in an epic amount of blood loss. I needed several transfusions, and my husband was forced to make the decision to have the doctors remove my uterus completely. It was life or death.

The days and weeks that followed were the hardest, emotionally and physically, that I’ve ever experienced. Placenta Accreta stole the future I had planned for. It stole my dreams of the sweet moments spent as new parents with my husband and baby. All it gave me was pain and anger and anxiety. Instead of changing my baby’s first diaper I sat by while her doting father put in all the work during those first few days. I spent more time than I would have liked drugged up, in and out of sleep. 

But I survived. We both survived. I conceived a child one time and my precious girl thrives to this day. And now I will never again feel life growing inside me. Too many women try and fail to have even just one child. Too many women experience tragic loss. Too many don’t survive. I try to remember those facts when I’m feeling mad, bitter and sad.

I watch Eleanor flourish each day with joy and amazement and slowly, very slowly, the anger and grief fades. It creeps in sometimes, unannounced, only to be forced aside by an open mouth kiss or a cry that needs my full attention. 

We are accreta strong.

I am participating to bring attention to this life-threatening pregnancy condition that currently affects 1 in 272 births. Please donate and support my efforts to raise funds for National Accreta Foundation. Learn more about placenta accreta, Accreta Awareness Month, and National Accreta Foundation's mission and programs here.