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When I was in labor with my son I lost a lot of blood. The same thing happened with my daughter…for one reason or another my placenta got stuck and the doctors had to go in and retrieve it. Yes, I said doctors (plural) as opposed to doctor because at one point I think I had three doctors standing there taking turns, frantically trying to retrieve my placenta. This was all while my poor husband stood there, mouth agape, wondering why everyone was panicking and why there was so much blood.

Okay, everyone together: Yuck!

The same thing happened with my son, and although I was a little more prepared for it I can’t say it was really any less scary. I’m not telling you this to make you nervous about childbirth, and the odds of your placenta getting stuck are probably pretty slim. The reason why I pass this story along is because I think it’s a great illustration about how you can read every pregnancy book and spend hours watching A Baby Story, but sometimes things just happen that you may have never even heard of. I had certainly never heard of something like this, and I didn’t understand just how serious it was until I noticed that my doctor’s hands were shaking. By the way, your doctor’s hands shaking is not so comforting.

The moral of the story is this: Expect the unexpected. I’m not saying that you should be utterly paranoid and lose sleep worrying about what might happen (you need as much sleep as you can get right now, trust me). Instead, what I’m hoping is that you can do your best to just roll with the punches when it comes to childbirth and later with caring for your baby. The less panicked you are, the better you can focus on the task at hand…getting that baby out of you and into your loving arms.

Tags: childbirth, labor, placenta