Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday and I thought I would share with you an amazing story of what happened 35 years ago today, as told by my mom...

On a rainy March 14th morning around 5 a.m. I was awakened out of my sleep to a soaking wet bed; my water had broken. Contractions began almost immediately and by 7 a.m. I was on my way to the hospital. By 8:15 a.m. I had very quickly delivered a healthy beautiful 7 lb. 5 oz baby girl. As I lay in recovery I was elated that I not only had had an easy delivery but a precious baby girl

My excitement however was short lived as pain began to engulf my body. The nurses first kept telling me it was after-birth pains. I tried to tell them it wasn’t because the pains were in my right leg, but they thought I was imagining it, until the pains became so intense I had to be rushed into surgery. There it was discovered that the doctor who had done the episiotomy, had by accident cut the main blood supply to my right leg and not knowing this had happened, stitched me up, and a blood clot the size of a baseball had formed. After the surgery I was placed in a private room for rest.

Around 8 that evening I suddenly felt faint, and literally could feel death overtaking me. The nurses quickly pulled back the cover to discover that my bed was saturated in blood. Hurrying my bed out of the room they tried to take my pulse, and found it only read 60 over 0. They looked at each other and said “this one is a goner”. At that moment I cried out to God in faith, I couldn’t imagine my little girl growing up and I wouldn’t be there with her, or our son. Immediately on the tile ceiling over head of me in the hall a vision appeared of Jesus and the women who touched his garment with an issue of blood and was made whole. I said “Lord, if you can do it for her, you can do it for me”.

Into the operating room I was pushed, and the surgeon who was waiting for me was amazed to discover that on its own the bleeding had stopped. By this time I had lost so much blood my body was in shock. I was very blue, very cold and my veins had collapsed. I was wrapped in oven warmed blankets and they began to give me blood transfusions only to discover my temperature had dropped so low, they had to put the blood in ice water to match my body temperature so the veins would not sting as badly.

Through this ordeal they were surprised that I never lost consciousness, but an inner voice told me it would be alright and not to go to sleep, and there was an overwhelming sense of peace. I had tried to speak to one of the nurses that my husband and I knew, but she told the doctor she didn’t know me. The next day she dropped by my room to apologize for not recognizing me. The doctor who worked on me came into my room , looked my way and went out, to ask the nurses where I was. He couldn’t believe I was the same lady. As news spread through the hospital, nurses from different floors came by to see the lady who fought death and survived. It gave us then and still now a wonderful testimony of God’s faithfulness.