Yikes! As a fellow C-section patient (all four babies) I can feel some of your pain, but the not breathing?
Glad it all worked out and you got a cute little boy out of it!
YIKES!! I had an emergency c-section the first time. Not fun. Number 2 was a vbac. It stressed my family and hubby at first but when I was up walking around withing ten minutes of birth he knew it was the right decision. I've heard planned c/s and emergency are night and day. Mine was pure nightmare but not as rough as yours.
WRONG....I do sing very high soprano...wanna guess again??
and
my epi ran a little high with number two. I knew because I could tell it was getting harder to breathe....and my anesthesiologist was busy with our camera taking pictures! I kid you not...he got some great pics though 
I concentrated on breathing and all was well pretty quickly.
it's really not as bad as it is scary. Takes a LOOONG time to suffocate and all manner of alarms would be going off long before then.
My greatest fear is breaking my jaw and having to have it wired shut so I have to breathe through a straw.
It's a phobia I have so I can *almost* imagine what you went through...
Yuck
I DID have 3 c-sections.
Nothing so scary as yours, though. But I am realizing now why I had that heavy feeling in my chest with my first one. They said it was normal. Gave me extra oxygen. But it didn't happen with #2 & #3. Hmmm. Took a LONG time for that first epidural to wear off, too.
No near death stories, thank God
I'm grateful to not have anything to contribute to this subject. That would have scared the crap out of me. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.
Thank heaven you and Kyle are okay!
OK, I had trouble breathing myself while reading this. Ugh..SCARY!! Glad that you and Kyle came out of it OK!!!!
Michelle-Glad to filled in a puzzle piece for you!
Andrew-Thanks for the chuckle.
MightyMom-Wow! That's funny (sort of)
Jen-I had a VBAC when Kendall was born. The difference was night and day.
Kazzy-I'm happy for you that they went smoothly!
Mary Ellen-Luckyyyyyy!
I'm so sorry you went through this! As a L&D nurse, I've seen it happen several times over the course of 13 years, & I can't imagine how frightening it is! Apparently, your spinal did work to numb you (I was scared at first that you were going to say you Felt the surgery!) but did "go high" which at first makes you FEEL like you can't breathe (terrifying) though you CAN breathe, you can't feel it, so you dont' think it's happening. Obviously yours got worse, hence the bagging! I can't imagine anyone blaming you for not worrying about Kyle in those moments you were fearing for your life! (Also, my best guess on his apgar is that he had a good strong heartbeat, & not much else going for him--fairly common in that situation, though scary!) The five-minute score was almost as good as it gets--we often joke that the baby has to walk to the nursery to get a "10", but it's a matter of the baby's hands & feet being completely pink, & so few babies have good enough circulation to do that in their first 5 minutes! I'm so glad that you are both healthy & well now!!
Ummm...can I just say that I CAN'T BREATHE after reading this? I'm not kidding - my chest is SO heavy! That would be insanely scary...glad you made it out okay! 
Lordy! I've never come close to dying. If I even so much as IMAGINED I was close, I probably would die because I'm that big of a wuss!
Shit, that had my chest tightening just reading it! It also makes me rethink childbirth! HAH!
I have a few "death" stories-- but two of them have been told to me, because I was a baby. The third story was my fault compltetly, but it scared the shit out of me.
Oh you poor thing! I would have been freaking out (and possibly vomiting) too!
The only near death experience I had was when I was in recovery from a surgery years ago - apparently I had an adverse reaction to the anesthetic and went into 'code blue' twice...it didn't phase me much, except wondering why all these people were rousing me out of my dream state, but it freaked out the hubby...
After baby #4 was delivered, my uterus did not contract, causing massive blood loss.
RUSH to ER
RUSH to stop bleeding
Bleeding would not stop
Never held my baby
Ghost white
doctors saying.."Hang on. Just hold on,OK?"
Big white light hanging above me
asked over and over, "Am i gong to die?"
four blood transfusions later, here I still am.
Thank God.
I wrote my own whole POST about this! thanks for the topic today, I was stumped.
I haven't had any children, so this is all new to me - goodness, how frightening!!!
I came close to dying but hadn't a clue. I was in Norway on train with a friend of mine when all of a sudden the train came to a screeching halt. The tracks had just been washed out a half mile away from where we stopped, but no one knew...except for the little old man who flagged down the train. He always watched the trains go by, so the conductors knew him. On this day the normally passive man was jumping up and down waving his arms violently. Thankfully the conductor took this as a sign as danger ahead!
I can't tell that story with my mom around because she just breaks down in tears.
Thankfully, this event didn't cause me any pain - except for a 4 hour bus ride.
Wow, Kristin! I'm so glad that little old man was there to save the day!
Laura & Stacy-That's terrifying! I think your stories trump mine.
Let's hear it, Heather? Where's the post?
Laura-Thanks so much for the information and the validation!
Off to read your post, Kori!
That is so incredibly terrifying! In a way, looking back it's hilarious that you vomited upon first glance at your baby. I never had an epidural because I was afraid of them doing anything near my spine. Now, I know I was right!
So glad it all turned ok in the end.
I had an emergency "C" with Ella Una. The anesthesiologist adminstered the drugs, but they went the "wrong way." To my head, not my lower half. Talk about a trip! PS: Made the correction on Lucy. Sorry...
Wow. Like Andrew, not being able to breathe is my absolute worst fear, so I can't imagine.
As for my own experiences- does trying to do 5 minutes of cardio count as a near-death eperience?
Eeeeek. That's all. Just eeeek.
When I was having my c-section with my first daughter, I started feeling the numbness creeping up into my chest area. I told the anesthesiologist and she said "Oh. That's unusual." I nearly freaked! They caught it before I completely couldn't breathe thankfully. Your post made ME feel short of breath!
Powerful stuff, Mrs4444. Yikes!
And the stories your readers are sharing... my hats off to each of you!
When I was a teenager, my aunt taught me to windsurf up in Chicago. The first time I actually caught wind and stayed up on the board pushed me far enough away from her that she couldn't get to me right away when I went down. I plunged into the water- and couldn't get back up. Lake growth of some sort had snarled around my ankle. It took a lot of kicking and fighting of waves of panic to free myself and break to the surface.
I've never wind-surfed again.
I had the opposite problem with my son. When they finally decided to do the C-section (after 24 hours of labor, 4 hours of pushing and forceps that cut my son) the epi wasn't strong enough. I had to stop them "Hey, I can feel that!" The doctor said "No, you can't." "Yes, I can." He then told me to close my eyes and he pinched me. I said "Ow" and pointed to where he had pinched me. "Hmmm. You can feel that. I have never had that happen." They then proceeded to knock me out. They allowed by hubby to stay in the room until the started the surgery and then physically grabbed him and threw him out. I have always said that the delivery from he** brought me Evan from Heaven!
Thank goodness for modern medicine! It is great that you both came thru so well. I am sure that was very scary!
Liz-OMG! That's horrible!! I had a near-drowning incident, too, as a kid. I'm pretty sure that's why I hate swimming!
DMom-Luckyyyy!
Jonel-Thanks for sharing your story. Thank God you were able to communicate!!
Willowjack Mom-Of course! That explains my aversion to cardio, too!
WOW!!! I guess I'm pretty lucky!
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