My Birth Story – Placenta Previa & My Emergency C-Section

Rosie was born at 32 weeks (+3 days) on August 23, 2017. At 32 weeks, I just started the third trimester. On the Tuesday, I woke up at 6AM to pee and noticed tinges of blood in the toilet. “Not again,” I thought. I had been diagnosed with placenta previa which meant any bleeding was potentially dangerous. This is my birth story – placenta previa & my emergency c-section:

I had a bleeding episode before and it didn’t turn out to be a big deal but I mustered the energy to go to the hospital to get checked – just in case. I learned my lesson from the first hospital stay and made sure to pack a few essentials for my overnight stay (phone charger and toothbrush are a must!).

In triage, the nurses did their typical interview and examination process – again, nothing new. But then my OB Dr. Kang came by and decided I was going to be on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy. George had to clarify if that meant bedrest all the time because we were planning to go on a family trip the upcoming weekend. No trip. No work. Just bathroom privileges. She must have given a few other orders to the nurses because all of a sudden I was being hooked up to monitors and prepped for a few small procedures (wince).

I don’t know why I didn’t freak out or clue in at the time, but they were being precautious and preparing me for a potential delivery. Everything went quite smoothly and I settled in a spacious private room (except have you ever gotten an IV put in before? Wow they sure hurt!). My bleeding episodes also seemed to be getting better. At night, George got a cot to sleep in beside me. We enjoyed half of a Netflix movie before I got too tired and went to sleep.

The birth emergency I did not expect

I woke up at 2AM with a strong urge to pee – again, nothing new. I pulled myself out of bed and immediately knew something was not right. My underwear felt like it weighed a few pounds heavier than it should. (Ladies – imagine wearing an overnight pad that was submerged in water beforehand. Men – sorry for the graphic description). As I stood up, I felt wetness trickling down my legs. I took a glance at the bed and it looked like a murder scene. Immediately I woke George and waddled to the bathroom.

There was a lot of blood. The nurse came in to help me get cleaned up. The on-call OB and her team came in for a quick examination afterwards. “No more washroom privileges for you. You need to be on complete bedrest.” Five minutes later, “we’ll keep monitoring you and the baby might be coming out in the next few days.” Five minutes later, “you need to be prepared that the baby might come out in a few hours.” And again, five minutes later, “we think it is best that the baby come out right now. You’re going to have a C-section.”

To this day, I’m still not sure about many things that happened that night. Why did I bleed out? Why did I not feel contractions? What made the doctors change their decisions so many times and so quickly? How do I have that much blood to bleed out? And can you believe we got our pregnancy photos taken on a whim just the weekend before? Call it luck or coincidence. I believe it was God’s providence and His hand at work to orchestrate the whole ordeal. The C-section was a “textbook case” and Miss Rosemary Zhou was born at 3:39AM on August 23, as healthy as she could be for a 32 week old baby. I guess she was tired of being cramped up in mommy’s belly.

My next post about our NICU journey and Rosie’s first five weeks of life can be found HERE.

What kind of birth experience did you have? Please share in a comment below!