Saving Mothers Today

       I've had this day, June 14, 2014, marked on my blog calendar for a post about blood donation. I had read a while ago about today being "World Blood Donor Day" and wanted to pay tribute to the anonymous person whose blood I received the night my son was born. When I opened the website tonight to check the date and collect my thoughts, I was struck by the sentiment on the screen: 'Safe blood for saving mothers.'
       Not only is it a day to honor blood donation, it is really a day to recognize the ongoing need for blood for my population of women. I had no intention of ever needing blood in my life, much like the rest of us. I have never been prone to excessive bleeding, never been one to expose myself to much risk of trauma. When it came to birthing my children I gave little thought to the aftermath, assuming my body would "take care of business" and nature would take its course.
       For the most part that was true. For my first baby, swift and strong as she came into the world, my body knew its place. For the next, we messed with nature and forever altered the course of time. Blood loss in surgery is expected and though high, mine was not worthy of transfusion. The threat was evident with my third baby, placenta previa blocking her way into the world with a mass of vessels weaving a gate that could not be breached without a flood. We discussed autologous banking during pregnancy and familial donors for the high chance of the need. Even that birth though did not require the help of a willing donor.
       With the last of our babies on his way, that thought was the furthest thing from our minds. When we became aware of his demise, more pressing matters were at the forefront. A stable pulse did not belie the abruption but the crashing pressure did. I made quick decisions over numbers like 80/60 and 60/40 as I lie on the dining room floor waiting for an ambulance. I was fully aware on my way to the hospital how large my blood loss was, despite the fact that we could not see it. I could feel all two liters of internal hemorrhage pressing on my diaphragm, shifting my baby and shortening my breaths as it held my belly taut.
       My husband signed the consent form for surgery, included in that- one for blood transfusions as necessary. I know a stat hemoglobin was checked in the OR though I have never heard or seen the number. I was told later that I had plenty of medications to stabilize my vitals and sedate me for surgery. I was also given someone else's blood.

      Honestly, in all the hustle of the trauma and then the aftermath of Grief over losing my Griffin, I had given little thought to that blood. I have never been a donor myself so I know it could never have been mine. I doubt it was cross-matched due to the time constraints in my emergency case so it has to have been the most generic blood available, making it really the most prized. I don't mean that in giving it such little consideration, that it wasn't valued. I stabilized quite quickly and was discharged less than thirty-six hours post major surgery. My hemoglobin, when I left, was barely 7, so I cannot imagine what it would have been without that precious unit from a stranger. In fact, for weeks I walked around in Grief and felt the effects of my trauma, the nightmare that was my life weighing me down with exhaustion and dizziness, pallor and palpitations. I can look back now and see those were also physical manifestations of low blood levels.
       How does this go for women without blood at the ready? In areas where there is no blood bank or there is a lack of healthy and safe donors, who gives to the desperate mothers that need to be saved? The effects of blood loss are difficult to live with and lengthy to overcome when the body needs time to recover. And when it cannot recover the total loss, when there is nothing to receive, there is only death.
I am blessed to live where there are plenty of willing people, relatives and friends that respond to the call to be donors month after month, that fill the banks with units of richness. I was blessed to be on the receiving end of one of those donations in my own hour of need. I assume it was a stranger's blood, someone I have never met nor ever will. Maybe that isn't the case after all when I break it down.
       Do you donate? Who are you really saving? For every time you walk in, get hooked up to that little tube and take your time to give to someone else, maybe you are saving someone you know. I never thought it would be me, never thought I would need blood. I am so thankful that it was there for me and to whoever you are, MR. or MRS. O-, thank you!

   
For more information on blood donation: http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day/2014/en/