The Worst News of my Life

We were so excited about baby girl Khoja and had already planned our life with her – it was our last embryo from IVF and it worked! We made all the announcements and had passed the 16th week mark so it seemed appropriate to finally celebrate! Then came May 27th, 2023 which was the day I got the worst news of my life.

On May 27th 4:30 PM, I went into the ER bleeding uncontrollably and for sure thought I was having a miscarriage. The ER doc was probably one of the worst docs I have ever seen but I cant totally blame him because they aren’t really expected to know much about pregnancy related issues. However, when we ask to see an on call OB, that should be something that can be done without so much pushback. The ER doc was going to send me home because my ultrasound looked ok and the baby had a heart beat. He said “You may be at risk for a miscarriage and you may go on to full term.” Hmm ok, but I am literally peeing out blood so it does not make sense for me to just go home!

The ER doc finally called my OB (with my husbands persistence in asking) who was in the hospital luckily on call. He actually came down and did an exam and told me that the “water bag” had come down too far and that he couldn’t feel my cervix. He said I had a shortened cervix/incompetent cervix. What does that even mean and why do I have this? This is usually common if you have had complications with the first pregnancy but I did not. It can be caused by some trauma to a cervix, which I didn’t think I had gone though although I did have a lot of manipulations with IVF related surgeries. The only way to treat an incompetent cervix is to get a cerclage (essentially a stitch) however he couldn’t feel any cervix so I was beyond that at this point. He said that we could try a position called Trendelenburg position (look it up, it is not fun) for a few days and then reassess. He did very clearly say that there is VERY minimal chance of saving this baby girl. I stayed in the Trendelenburg position for the weekend and then my OB came to reassess me but there was really not much of a change. I went to see a specialist after getting discharged and he still said the same thing. I had no hope for anything except being on bedrest until I delivered (which would be any day according to both physicians).

The Worst Day of my Life

On June 5th, I felt contractions and something coming out. I could not tell if it was the baby or a membrane but I knew I needed to go into the hospital. I knew it was time for her to come. We got to the ER and I made my husband circle again because I remembered that I lived in Texas and there was no way they could help me if my baby girl still had a heartbeat even though there was no way my baby girl would stay alive. Eventually we went back to the hospital ER because I didn’t think I could deliver by myself at home. When the OB did an ultrasound, she couldn’t see my baby girl anymore. She had already moved out of the uterus which was a blessing in Texas because they could now give me meds to help her come out. The OB did see lots of blood clots on the ultrasound but didn’t seem too concerned. My delivery was actually not bad at all. The scary part came after. After the delivery, we were waiting to get the placenta out. Every time I thought I was pushing the placenta out, it was a clot. Each time seemed bigger than the last. The nurses started weighing all the clots and I continued to stress. The OB finally thought that she was helping me get the placenta out, however it was a clot as big as the placenta. Now I’m worried… What is happening to me? She finally said I had lost too much blood and they needed to prepare for surgery. I had lost about 1.3-1.5L of blood. While waiting for a blood transfusion, my blood pressure dropped to the 50s/30s and OB came in and said my Hemoglobin was 5.4. Now being the pharmacist that I am, I asked if they needed to start pressors? Am I about to die? Am I making it to surgery? Are they about to call the rapid response team?  They took me into surgery and I don’t remember anything after that. Meanwhile my husband is waiting to see how things are going in the room with our dead baby girl. They said it would be a 20 minute procedure to make sure all the placenta came out and to stop the bleeding. He didn’t get an update until an hour and half later.

The next day the nurse says “I’m glad you’re doing better. You were white as can be last night however you made it through.”  I can’t help but play the incident again and again and again in my head. I’m happy to be alive. Never have I ever hated living in Texas so much due to the dumb laws that people who are NOT in healthcare make about women’s bodies and lives. If I lived anywhere else, I think I would have been given multiple options of what I could do instead of just potentially bleeding to death. If for some reason my fear of not being able to get treatment prevented me from going to the hospital that day, I would NOT be alive. My worst fear for the situation I was in came true. I did have the best possible outcome from a shitty shitty situation. Here we are now trying to live and cope with a life without our baby girl, Sanera Sanna Khoja, that we had envisioned for the last 5 months.

Sanna Khoja