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By Alyce Collins and Kelsie Bouton
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At 35 weeks pregnant with my fifth baby, I thought I knew the signs to look out for. I thought I knew what to expect because I had been through it four times already.
I will never forget a conversation I had with my husband and sister in the hospital when I told them that, for the first time, I didn’t feel nervous about giving birth. That comment still haunts me because of how quickly everything changed.
I was on blood pressure medication during the pregnancy, but at 35 weeks, my levels were still elevated. I also developed a severe headache that even Tylenol didn’t seem to touch.
Read More on My Turn
Given that I was in my third trimester, I decided it was best to go to the hospital and get checked out. When doctors measured my blood pressure, it was, terrifyingly, around 170 mm HG systolic, which was of immediate concern. That night, I was diagnosed with preeclampsia and had to be admitted.
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But that wasn’t all. In fact, the situation was significant enough that I had to be induced.
Everything happened so quickly that night. I wasn’t even five centimeters dilated when my waters had to be broken just before 2 a.m., and then I received my epidural around 20 minutes later.
Active labor was extremely fast and incredibly easy. I didn’t even make one full push, and by 2:54 a.m. on August 26, 2026, my daughter Whitley was born. She weighed just over 5lbs, and there was a sense of calm as soon as she was delivered.
When she was finally in my arms, I felt incredibly happy and relieved. She was premature, so just having her there safely and seeing that she was OK meant everything. I was holding her, smiling, taking pictures and enjoying those first few moments with her.
There was absolutely no indication that within a couple of hours I would nearly die.
‘Half the Hospital Was Trying To Stabilize Me’
About an hour after delivery, things took a drastic turn.
It was around 3:50 a.m. when a nurse noticed that my uterus was boggy, so it appeared softer and more enlarged. By that time, I was also passing large blood clots.
That's when the postpartum hemorrhage began.
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Initially, they were able to remove large clots from my uterus and placed a JADA device inside to try and control the bleeding with suction. For a short time, that appeared to work and it seemed like I was improving—only for the bleeding to continue.
During the second hemorrhage, everything became extremely serious. I was unresponsive, my blood pressure became unreadable, my oxygen saturation dropped to 78 percent, and my heart rate dropped into the thirties.
The nurse pressed the code button to call an emergency alert and my room quickly filled with doctors, nurses, ICU staff and a multitude of other care providers.
“Keep your eyes open, Kelsie!”
“Your children need you, Kelsie! You have to stay with us!”
I remember the nurses shouting at me repeatedly, begging me to keep my eyes open and to stay conscious. They kept telling me that my children needed their mother, and I just remember looking up at the nurse above my head and pleading with her, “please don’t let me die.”
I kept fading in and out, so my husband and sister were told to wait outside while what felt like half the hospital tried to stabilize me. My family were utterly terrified and kept praying that I would survive.
Just minutes prior, I had been holding my newborn daughter in my arms and laughing with my husband. We were simply overjoyed, but nothing could have prepared us for what was about to unfold.
As I coded, doctors treated me with multiple medications to stop the bleeding and they activated the massive transfusion protocol to give me three units of red blood cells and one unit of fresh frozen plasma, along with large amounts of IV fluids. I was placed on high-flow oxygen and had a second IV inserted while the team worked to stabilize me.
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‘Still Not Sure I Have Processed It’
My memories from that time are very fragmented, but I have vaguely managed to piece everything together by going through my medical records. As much as I wish there was, there isn’t a distinctive moment that brings everything back to me.
I welcomed Whitley safely in the early hours of the morning, then within two hours, I had become unresponsive and lost approximately 1.8 liters of blood. According to the documents, the bleeding began slowing down sometime between 6 a.m. and 6:47 a.m. My vital signs also started to improve, and I became more responsive during that window.
By the time I regained consciousness, I felt physically exhausted and weak from losing so much blood. Thankfully, I stabilized relatively quickly once the bleeding was under control and I received the transfusions. The JADA device remained in place for several more hours and was removed that afternoon.
Soon after, my bleeding was minimal, I was able to walk, eat and use the bathroom normally. Everything happened in such a whirlwind, I could barely get my head around it. Truth be told, I’m still not sure I have processed it.
There hasn’t really been time to let my experience take its toll on me. Having a brand-new baby, a medically complex 1-year-old that needs 24-hour care, and three other children has kept my mental state too busy to let what happened affect me (at least not yet).
Although I will say, days later when I pulled up the notes in my medical chart, I bawled my eyes out as I read through everything.
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Thankfully, I don’t have any long-term physical complications from the postpartum hemorrhage. But I know how fortunate I am, considering how quickly my health deteriorated. Nonetheless, I do not think I would survive another childbirth, so my husband and I have decided not to have any more children.
‘From Holding My Baby, to Fighting for My Life’
I share my experience with other women to show that postpartum emergencies can happen incredibly fast—even when the delivery goes perfectly.
I went from holding my baby and smiling, to fighting for my life within hours.
I want women to know the warning signs, advocate for themselves and never feel like they're overreacting when something doesn't feel right. I have an entirely different appreciation for labor and delivery nurses now because mine acted immediately and refused to let me give up.
What stays with me the most is how quickly everything changed.
When I looked back at the pictures and videos of me holding Whitley after she was born, I see myself looking completely happy. There's something eerie about knowing what happens next when the person in the video has no clue. At the same time, I'm incredibly grateful that moment was captured because it reminds me of what everyone was fighting to save: my chance to be here with my children.
I had just delivered my fifth baby, and I thought the hardest part was over. Instead, the postpartum period became the most life threatening. I'm incredibly grateful to the doctors and nurses who recognized what was happening. It’s because of them that I went home to all five of my children.
Kelsie Bouton, 33, resides in Citrus Springs, Florida with her husband and their five children. She has taken to social media (@kelsiiiiiiie on TikTok) to share the realities of motherhood and postpartum emergencies. She hopes to use her experience to raise awareness for other women.
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