It’s almost a year late—my daughter will be one in three weeks—and I’ve been delaying this post for a simple reason: talking about Clara’s birth still terrifies me. Even after eleven months, the memory feels raw. Her arrival was dramatic and life-changing in every way.
The day she was born was the most amazing day of my life, and easily the most frightening. I’ve shared bits of the story in comments before, but now that nearly a year has passed I’ve had time to process enough to tell the full account. I’m not “over it”—I don’t know if I ever will be—but I can finally relate the experience without falling apart. A few friends suggested writing it out would help with healing, so here it goes.
I had what most people would call an awesome, low-risk pregnancy. No high blood pressure, no weird pains—just more than 100 days of morning sickness (yes, I counted). Once that ended, I felt great. I loved feeling Clara kick, and I soaked up every moment of being pregnant. My mom, who’s 4’11”, had two fast, natural births, so I had high hopes for a similar delivery. I took pain-management classes and learned about the Bradley Method, and kept telling myself, “Whatever it takes, the baby will be born and I’ll meet her—no fear allowed.”
We were a one-car family; John worked downtown and would borrow the car during the day, so I was often at home without it. That felt risky given how fast labors run in my family, but I had neighbors who’d offered to drive me to the hospital if needed, and John had been on high alert the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy, answering his phone instantly. At 39 weeks I was already dilated to 3.5 and we were expecting labor to begin any time.
On the morning of Friday, May 14th, I started having intense contractions—my first real contractions. They were irregular at first, so I didn’t wake John. As they settled into a pattern, they sped up to about four minutes apart and felt like an 11 on the pain scale. I called him during his last day at the office to tell him to come home right away; he was literally finishing his lunch. By the time we reached the hospital, the contractions were two minutes apart and I could barely walk from the car into labor and delivery. I genuinely thought the baby might arrive in the parking lot.
Once inside, my water broke—but instead of the clear fluid you expect, it was streaked with a lot of blood. The sudden change brought a flurry of staff into the room. They diagnosed a placental abruption: the placenta had detached from the uterine wall. That explained the intense, ripping pain I’d been feeling. A placental abruption is a dangerous emergency because it can deprive the baby of oxygen and cause heavy bleeding in the mother. The team moved with extraordinary speed.
Within minutes they wheeled me into the operating room and performed an emergency C-section. The rush was a blur: gurneys, corners, people calling for extra help. I remember feeling terrified and singularly focused on one thing—save the baby. I couldn’t speak; I was frozen and in shock. John wasn’t initially allowed to come with me, and the memory of him standing in the hallway in scrubs, waiting and alone, still makes me cry.
In the OR, the team discovered another crisis: a cord prolapse. Clara’s umbilical cord had become compressed, cutting off her oxygen while the abruption reduced blood flow. The staff warned us she might not cry immediately. Hearing them say “cord prolapse” and “baby in distress” was devastating. For a minute that felt like an eternity I was numb, watching everything unfold like a scene on television, praying silently, pleading with them to pull her out and save her.
The team got Clara out, and at first she barely made a sound—a tiny, heartbreaking moan. Her initial Apgar score was a 4, which is low, and it was terrifying to wait for the five-minute retest. NICU specialists were already working on her. John later told me he couldn’t bear to see her not make it and watched only enough to know she was breathing. I couldn’t see her myself because of the surgical drape; all I could do was hold my breath and hold onto John’s hand.
By the five-minute Apgar, she’d pinked up and cried a strong cry, and her score rose to a 9—almost perfect. We learned later that the five-minute Apgar is the most informative one. The team also ran cord-blood tests to check for oxygen deprivation, and when those came back clear we started to relax. We realized how miraculous our outcome was: infants who survive a placental abruption still face a 40–50% chance of complications, and mothers can suffer severe hemorrhage. We were incredibly fortunate.
When they finally wrapped Clara and brought her to me, I was still strapped down from surgery. John held her up so I could see her. I was swollen from fluids, exhausted, and still processing everything, but the overwhelming feeling was gratitude. I kept thinking: what would have happened if we hadn’t been at the hospital? Or if a different team had been on duty? Nurses and doctors came by for days to tell us how lucky we were—the story of a baby surviving both placental abruption and cord prolapse had been a topic around the hospital that day.
This experience has changed how I’ll approach future pregnancies. Cord prolapse is a rare, unpredictable event that can happen to anyone, and it doesn’t necessarily become more likely after it occurs. Placental abruption, however, has a higher chance of recurrence—about one in four women may experience it again—so doctors have advised waiting at least two years before trying another pregnancy to allow my body to recover. I plan to enjoy this time with Clara and use it to process what happened, but I know I’ll be far less carefree during a subsequent pregnancy. I’ll be vigilant, anxious perhaps, but also better informed and prepared.
Would I choose another pregnancy knowing the risk? Yes. And I’m also open to interventions I might once have resisted—if a repeat abruption is detected, a C-section will be the safest option. Whatever it takes for a healthy baby.
This was without question the scariest day of our lives, and also the most joyful. Clara is our little fighter and our miracle, and every time I look at her I’m reminded of how grateful I am for the quick action and expertise of the medical team who saved her life.
Whew. No wonder we’re obsessed with this little girl.