Life and Death

Shall I tell the story of how I almost died in childbirth? I even had a classic near-death experience long before I read anything by Kubler-Ross. It was 1974.

I was a couple of weeks past my due date, when the many Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been having for weeks became a lot stronger. Friends stopped by to see how I was doing and to see the ripple of contractions over my belly. I could write another essay about how a pregnant woman’s belly seems to become public property, with bare acquaintances feeling entitled to pat it. I was cleaning my apartment, a common urge during labor, when my water broke with a loud “Thok!” and splashed all over my clean floor.

A friend drove me to L.A. County Hospital, where I was to deliver my baby because I was participating as a control subject in Toke Hoppenbrouwers’ study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome there. I was in labor for several hours, throwing up the entire time. It hurt! But I did not scream, as many of the other women were doing. I used to say I would not have given up state secrets from that much pain. After going through transition and becoming utterly exhausted, the doctor gave me a spinal block, a bit late I thought! The monitors on the baby and me showed distress, so the young doctor used forceps to pull her out quickly.

The force tore me open from my left ureter to my left labia, and I hemorrhaged pints of blood. I saw the doctor literally throw my baby at a nurse and start screaming, “Get some help in here!!! I need help in here!!!!” I think I went into shock, as people rushed in all around me. I felt like I could not move, but I felt a strange, deep calm, and wanted to tell the young doctor not to be afraid. I felt like I was floating above my body and I saw a white light in the distance. I think the calm feeling came from not being able to move, and the sensation of floating above my body and seeing a white light was my brain trying to make sense of the state of shock. Anyway, after a while, I sort of “came to” and became aware of the reality around me. An older doctor took my hand, and said reassuringly, “You’re going to make it.” I thought, “You mean there was doubt?” and then I was afraid. I looked around to see where they had put my baby and saw her lying alone in what looked like a clear plastic box, and I started asking if she were OK.

After I was all sewed up and hydrated with IVs, someone handed me my baby, and I began to cry with joy. I remember singing her a little song in a cracked voice, through my tears.

I fell asleep and woke up in a hospital room with three extremely young Hispanic women. They had their plump babies with masses of dark hair, and they had lots of excited visitors. I could see they felt sorry for me, so weak and full of IVs, with no visitors and a pale, bald baby. They would help me get out of bed and lift my baby for me.

I was starving! I had not had anything to eat for over two days. At lunch, the orderlies brought me a huge, juicy hamburger. It smelled so good! I was about to take a bite -- I literally had the hamburger in my mouth -- when a nurse rushed in and grabbed it away from me. She said I had to have an X-ray with dye added to my blood to assess how much internal damage I had, and you are not supposed to eat before that test. I learned why when the dye made me totally nauseous. Although the test showed that they had sewed me up well and my ureter was OK, I was exhausted by the time I got back to my room and could not eat.

The next day we were all sent home. The doctors came in the morning and said “You are going home today” to the Hispanic girls, who did not understand English. So the doctors repeated it more loudly! They actually did this. I translated for the girls, a small favor in return for all their help.

My doctor said the same, and when I said I felt so weak that I thought maybe a blood transfusion would help, he said he did not want to do that because there was something wrong with the blood supply. So they knew something about AIDS even then. He also said hospitals were a very unhealthy place to be, so I had to take my baby and go home. 

My mother came to stay with me, and she took complete care of the baby, because I could do very little. She was still working, so after a week she went home. My sister came and spent the night with me after her work for a couple of days, since I was afraid I would die during the night and the baby would be all alone. My friend Joanie was at the point with her daughter that she did not need her full time nanny anymore, so I hired her. For a couple more weeks, Lora did everything, while I tried to recover my strength.

I was supposed to start my new job six weeks after giving birth, but I was still not very strong and asked to start at ten weeks. After ten weeks with my darling baby, I spent the first two days at work crying in the ladies’ room. After a year, I finally felt fully recovered.