Sarah A Mattie
March 2023
Sarah A
Mattie
,
RN
Labor and Delivery
Alaska Native Medical Center
Anchorage
,
AK
United States

 

 

 

She held my hand and kept reminding me that I was strong and that she was here for me.
Sarah took amazing care with helping deliver our baby and making sure we were properly cared for. She even came in on her day off to drop off flowers and check in on us.

I wasn’t going to share my birthing experience and still won’t go into full detail due to still having to process all that happened in that delivery room. I just wanted to say that Birthing Trauma is real. I planned for a natural but knew that I might need an epidural if I was laboring for a while.

After 5 hours of back-to-back contractions, I folded and got the epidural. That choice was the best choice I have ever made but I wouldn’t know that until 16 hours later.

I started pushing at 4:51 pm. My daughter and I were surrounded by 20 people. She had been stuck in the birth canal without oxygen for three minutes and thirty seconds. Shoulder dystocia is one of the scariest situations that NO ONE can prepare you for.

Sarah Mattie, who not only saved my daughter's life by acting fast but noticed a slight hemorrhage afterward will forever be held in my heart. She held my hand and kept reminding me that I was strong and that she was here for me. She held me after and cried with me. My mom lives out of state, and my father wasn’t close enough to make it to our daughter's birth. Sarah quite literally was my only moral support besides my boyfriend in that room. She has a heart of solid gold.

We are thankful for each and every nurse/doctor that was on our care team but Sarah will forever have a special place in our family's lives.