I had a run to the ER late Friday night. One minute I was breastfeeding-something I've been doing no less than every 3 hours since Jan 25th, then the next I'm running to the bathroom with a HUGE clot. I then began bleeding like a stuck pig. It was surreal and scary and I hardly knew what to do. I passed two more clots and blood kept streaming out.
We had been having ice and snow storms and had pretty much holed up in our house in the boonies not even shoveling.
Now, we were being faced with the prospect of trying to quick pack up the twins and get them warmly secured in the car andd drive to the nearest decent hospital, 35 minutes away!
I started packing a hospital bag after speaking with my midwife and having her let me know the hospital was the place to be (I am extremely anti-doctor so I actually need people to tell me these even while I'm filling a disposable diaper with blood)
Well, it didn;t take long for me to feel like i was going to pass out, so I decided to consider making up a plan B so I called our local ER hospital, 20 minutes away and asked if they did DNC's, if they could handle me coming in.
They said yes so I called an ambulance.
We were trying to pack, but I could move much and the babies were crying so I was trying to feed at least one while DH shoveled and I wanted to pack my breastpump, but we ran out of time. All this happened SO fast, like 20 minutes.
So the pump stayed behind and off I went with 90 over 55 blood pressure and got an IV in the ambulance, which got stuck on the way to the hospital. The roads were scary dismal, but we got there without too much work. It got itself unstuck so noone ahd to get out and push.
So I get there and the dic and nurse say all they can do is stabilize me, they can't do anything else. Otherwise I can get back into an ambulance an go another hour to a real hospital. I decided to take my chances with them. They called my OB, but he was gone and the on-call guy said I was just having my period.
What?
I filled a toilet, two newborn diapers and was streaming out blood on the OR table and this is a period? I passed another whopper clot and the bleeding suddenly slowed way down. They then took the on-call OB's advice and gave me some hormone mix that would also slow the bleeding down. I had to stay the night.
I was beside myself because my husband and 5 wk babies were at home with no more than 3 1/2 oz of pumped breastmilk. Nothing else. We were keeping formula out of the house so I wouldn;t get tempted. My emotions were really running strong. Luckily one of the first responders was a neighbour and went to her brother's house and brought my husband some formula. I was gone for almost 12 hours! He diluted the BM with water (he called it giving them skim) and only had to give them formula once.
And there was me at the hospital. They had NO breatpumps, not even a hand expressor. Here I am, trying to convince my body to produce more than what twins need and I;m facing a night and maybe more away from them. It was so hard to express my breasts and I ended up using some pretty desperate techniques. It was a such a shame. I had to throw away about 16 oz.
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Anyway, it turns out there is a reason I;m writing all this. I ended up really needing the IV for my blood pressure and became anemic plummeting to a seven hemoglobin. I;m still taking the hormones for about 9 days and that part is fine. So I was talking to a friend and the same d&^% thing happened to her! It was right after she stopped breastfeeding at 8 months. She filled two towels full of blood, passed two baseball size clots, and then poof, it was just a period and all was well. She never felt bad, though.
So why don;t women know about this more? The nurse didn;t know at the ER. Is it really rare and I just happen to know someone who had the same thing?
I hope this helps someone else. It sucked.
But everyone is fine and my DH is AMAZING for taking care of two babies by himself with his wife in the hospital. He did awesome and we're just now catching up on all the lost sleep.
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We had been having ice and snow storms and had pretty much holed up in our house in the boonies not even shoveling.
Now, we were being faced with the prospect of trying to quick pack up the twins and get them warmly secured in the car andd drive to the nearest decent hospital, 35 minutes away!
I started packing a hospital bag after speaking with my midwife and having her let me know the hospital was the place to be (I am extremely anti-doctor so I actually need people to tell me these even while I'm filling a disposable diaper with blood)
Well, it didn;t take long for me to feel like i was going to pass out, so I decided to consider making up a plan B so I called our local ER hospital, 20 minutes away and asked if they did DNC's, if they could handle me coming in.
They said yes so I called an ambulance.
We were trying to pack, but I could move much and the babies were crying so I was trying to feed at least one while DH shoveled and I wanted to pack my breastpump, but we ran out of time. All this happened SO fast, like 20 minutes.
So the pump stayed behind and off I went with 90 over 55 blood pressure and got an IV in the ambulance, which got stuck on the way to the hospital. The roads were scary dismal, but we got there without too much work. It got itself unstuck so noone ahd to get out and push.
So I get there and the dic and nurse say all they can do is stabilize me, they can't do anything else. Otherwise I can get back into an ambulance an go another hour to a real hospital. I decided to take my chances with them. They called my OB, but he was gone and the on-call guy said I was just having my period.
What?
I filled a toilet, two newborn diapers and was streaming out blood on the OR table and this is a period? I passed another whopper clot and the bleeding suddenly slowed way down. They then took the on-call OB's advice and gave me some hormone mix that would also slow the bleeding down. I had to stay the night.
I was beside myself because my husband and 5 wk babies were at home with no more than 3 1/2 oz of pumped breastmilk. Nothing else. We were keeping formula out of the house so I wouldn;t get tempted. My emotions were really running strong. Luckily one of the first responders was a neighbour and went to her brother's house and brought my husband some formula. I was gone for almost 12 hours! He diluted the BM with water (he called it giving them skim) and only had to give them formula once.
And there was me at the hospital. They had NO breatpumps, not even a hand expressor. Here I am, trying to convince my body to produce more than what twins need and I;m facing a night and maybe more away from them. It was so hard to express my breasts and I ended up using some pretty desperate techniques. It was a such a shame. I had to throw away about 16 oz.
Anyway, it turns out there is a reason I;m writing all this. I ended up really needing the IV for my blood pressure and became anemic plummeting to a seven hemoglobin. I;m still taking the hormones for about 9 days and that part is fine. So I was talking to a friend and the same d&^% thing happened to her! It was right after she stopped breastfeeding at 8 months. She filled two towels full of blood, passed two baseball size clots, and then poof, it was just a period and all was well. She never felt bad, though.
So why don;t women know about this more? The nurse didn;t know at the ER. Is it really rare and I just happen to know someone who had the same thing?
I hope this helps someone else. It sucked.
But everyone is fine and my DH is AMAZING for taking care of two babies by himself with his wife in the hospital. He did awesome and we're just now catching up on all the lost sleep.
