Source: Reddit
This happened 7 years ago and I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday. When I gave birth to my 4th and final baby, I had complications. He was a big baby. 22inches long and 10lbs, with very wide shoulders. He was stuck for a while at his shoulders and the dr had to use force to pull him out (he’s totally ok now).
When he was born the nurses put him on my chest, my husband was by my side, and we were very very happy. This is where things happened, and it happened so fast. With in milliseconds my son was gone from my chest and my husband was being pushed away from my side as well, more nurses flooded in the room.
They began telling me to push hard and two additional nurses jumped on each side of the bed and began pushing on my stomach hard. I cried out in pain and remember seeing a nurse push my husband from the room. Every time the nurses pushed on my stomach I felt, and heard, a massive gush of liquid come out of me. A nurse took my leg from the stirrup and asked me to hold it up, forgetting that I had had an epidural and could not feel the leg. My leg dropped onto the bed and made a loud audible splash. Towels were being thrown on the ground around the bed. I didn’t know what was going on. I cried out one last time when they pushed on me and heard one last gush. That’s when the sound in the room disappeared. All the pain and feeling disappeared.
I remember turning my head to look out the massive window in the room, even though it was night time and outside was dark. That’s when I saw a light illuminating from behind a grouping of clouds and it was getting brighter. Suddenly no one was in the room with me. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I felt warm. I felt peace. I felt… finished. Completed. Whole. I felt LOVE. I felt like I had been sent to do a job, my job was done, and now I am done, and I could rest. My anxiety, fear, constant mild depression that was always with me that I shoved in some back place of my mind so I could function everyday was completely gone. It was pure happiness.
I forgot my husband, my other three kids at home and my newborn, still in the room with me, even existed because somehow I knew they would be alright. I was ready……….. Then I felt like I was sucked right back to the cold and hurt, like someone dumping a bucket of ice water on you, the shock. Everything felt horrible again.
My husband was sitting in the chair beside my bed. I was in a different room now and it was morning. I was clean and wearing a new hospital gown. I was attached to several bags of IV fluid, one of them being blood. My husband would tell me later that he’s not exactly sure what went on in the room after they pushed him out of the room, but the gush of liquid, that at the time I had assumed was left over amniotic fluids, was actually blood.
He said the bed was soaked in blood and there was blood all over the floor. We are all ok and well now, but it took me 2 whole years to tell this story to my husband. Part of me is angry and holds resentment for being pulled back away from that feeling I felt when I saw the light in the clouds at night, but mostly I’m living life to its fullest now and I see so much beauty in things I never saw before.
I’m not a religious person, and I’m not convinced what I experienced had anything to do with religion, but what I do know is, Life is beautiful and amazing and I love every minute of it, but at the same time part of me can’t wait until I’m old and surrounded by my children and grandchildren while I pass to feel and what I felt in that moment before.
