“I had never been afraid of labor before but with this pregnancy, I was,” Samantha shared. As she prepared to welcome her fifth baby, that feeling only grew stronger. The morning she left for the hospital, she was so nervous she left a note for her boys: “I love you… just in case I didn’t come home.”
After being induced, what started as a normal delivery quickly turned into an emergency. “Instead of a baby, I started bleeding… I was being rushed for an emergency C-section.” Samantha experienced a placental abruption and severe complications, losing a significant amount of blood as doctors worked quickly to save both her and her baby.
“I remember whispering ‘I love you’ to my husband before they rushed me away,” she said. “I was praying for both of us to make it.”
Her baby boy was delivered safely, but Samantha needed lifesaving transfusions. “The blood I received during surgery saved my life,” she shared. Even the next day, she was too weak to hold or name her son, until she received more blood. “As soon as those units went in, it was like I had been given a superpower.”
Because of blood donors, Samantha gained the strength to hold her baby, name him, and begin her recovery. Just days later, she was able to go home to the family who needed her most.
“To blood donors everywhere: thank you for giving me my life, my children their mom, and my husband his wife.”
 

Robin needed multiple blood transfusions after giving birth to her son, Cameron, which caused her to lose about 40% of the blood in her body. It was because of volunteer blood donors that she was able to see her son grow up. 

“To have the opportunity to be a mom and to still be there for my kids means the world to me,” Robin said. “There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thankful for all of the people that donate blood every single day that change lives and save lives."

Kristin was asleep in bed in the middle of the night when her water broke. Several minutes later she started having a seizure and losing blood. Her husband called the paramedics, and she was rushed to the hospital where she needed an emergency C-section. She suffered from a rare but life-threatening pregnancy complication called an Amniotic Fluid Embolism, and she needed 26 blood transfusions to save her life. When Kristin woke up in the ICU 48 hour later, the first thing she said to her husband was “why are all of these people in our bedroom?” 
 
“I’m just grateful for every moment that I get to be here,” Kristin said. “There are so many people to thank. The paramedics, my husband for calling 911, the doctor that was on-call, but I truly would not be here today if it weren’t for blood donors. I had a massive hemorrhage where I was bleeding out and I would not be alive if those 26 units had not been on the shelf when I arrived at the hospital.” Pregnancy complications like Kristin’s are why we Donate for Mothers.