Holly Rieschick
August 2nd of 2001 was about as hot and humid as you could get in Nebraska in August. I was about a week overdue with my third child and was more than ready to have this hot and humid day be THE day.
My first two labors were very short, simple and without any complications whatsoever, so I assumed this would be the same as my last labor and delivery: show up at the hospital right after midnight (so I wouldn’t be charged for the previous day) and have the baby within 2-3 hours. Well, this wasn’t going to be the plan of attack for this baby. She was in no hurry to get to the outside world.
This little stinker was posterior and seemed to be stuck that way. I was dilated to 8 cm for approximately 6 hours and still at 0 station. This baby wasn’t going anywhere. Around 5 a.m., my doctor informed me that it may be time to consider a c-section (I was always terrified this would happen). This labor had seemed different right from the start, and, of course, when it lasted longer than 3 hours, I knew something was wrong. Because I hadn’t received any drugs with my first two babies, I knew that the pain I was feeling was much more intense than ever before and I just knew something was wrong. I told my doctor I needed no time to think about it—let’s do the c-section. They prepped me for the c-section and were preparing to give me a spinal when my blood pressure began to drastically drop. So, with the mom under general anesthesia, Macy Lee Rieschick was born at 8:20 a.m. on Aug. 3rd, 2001. She weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces and was 21 inches long. Most importantly, she was healthy.
Mom on the other hand was not doing as well as baby. I woke up from the c-section not feeling right. My mother who was in the room when I awoke, looked at me and asked how I was feeling, to which I responded, “Not so hot.” When my mother looked at my blood pressure on the machine, it read 80/20. She hustled down the hall and got the nurses. The nurses came in and began to do their job, excellently I might add.
However, as time passed no one seemed to know what was going on with this perfectly healthy woman. My doctor got on the phone with some OB/GYNs in Omaha at Nebraska Methodist Hospital. They all concluded that another surgery was necessary for exploratory purposes.
So, another 7 hours after my first surgery, at around 3 p.m. on August 3rd, I went in for anther surgery. When they opened me up, all they could see was blood, so a complete hysterectomy was performed in hopes of finding where all the bleeding was coming from. Unfortunately, the hysterectomy was not the solution to my problem. I continued to lose a lot of blood after the second surgery.
My doctor spoke with the doctors in Omaha once again. They all agreed it sounded like I had something similar to Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation, probably caused by a placenta abruption that happened during my labor, which would explain why it was so painful. This diagnosis meant that my body was clotting and building up a dam of blood for about 30-minute time periods, then all at once I would start hemorrhaging and losing a lot of blood.
I am A negative, and Falls City had two units available for me at that time. The Nebraska State Patrol brought several units of blood to Falls City from Lincoln, but I was going through them just as fast as they could get them into me. The doctors decided it was time to get me out of Falls City, and by the time I left Falls City at 11:30 p.m. on August 3rd, I had already had 11 units of blood. I had about 30 minutes of stability in which they could fly me to Omaha. So as soon as I began stabilizing they got me on a Life Flight and away I went.
I arrived at midnight, just in time, because as soon as I arrived I began to lose more blood and my blood pressure and heart rate were beginning to crash once again. Once in Omaha, I went into another surgery under general anesthesia.
To those of you who are keeping track, this was my third surgery under general anesthesia in less than 20 hours, not exactly easy on the heart and lungs. The surgeons and specialists at the Nebraska Methodist went into surgery to repair four blood vessels that were bleeding out in my abdomen. They did a fine job with the help of another 16 units of blood.
The surgery didn’t take long, only about three hours, then I was in ICU for three days and spent another three days in high risk OB. Just shy of my Macy’s one-week birthday, I got to go home and meet her for the first time. Without the blood that I received, this meeting would have never taken place.
I am told that a body my size holds somewhere between 8-9 pints of blood, so the fact that I received 27 pints, the equivalent of what three people my size hold in their body, is pretty amazing. You could say I am just a little bit thankful to the Red Cross and everyone who works for them and donates to them.
This is a case of a woman who was healthy as could be. I ate well. I walked five miles a day, five times a week before and during my pregnancy. I was not at all prepared for something to go wrong. I was not prepared for all the quick decisions that I had to make, along with my husband. I was not prepared to tell my 3-year-old daughter, my 2-year-old daughter and my new baby goodbye before I left on a flight that may not land with me alive. My husband was not prepared to raise three girls on his own and my parents were not prepared to lose their youngest daughter who had just turned 30 years-old three days before.
No one was prepared for this situation, except for the American Red Cross, its volunteers and those who donated their blood so that someone else might be saved. To those of you who have never tried to give blood before, try it. You may be helping a young boy or girl, a mother or father, sister or brother, grandmother or grandfather, a friend or foe, or maybe, just maybe, you’ll be helping yourself.
Holly Rieschick