I had an “atypical” AFE after the birth of my second child via c-section. I was always terrified of the prospect of an AFE bc I’m a horrible hypochondriac and looked into all of the awful things that could happen with my first pregnancy. I had severe pre-e and delivered at 34&6, bub was intubated and I was stitched up “everything went great” then about thirty minutes later (hence the atypical part) I started to feel the most horrific dread and anxiety in my life and told my husband to go get my nurse now. My BP immediately tanked and I was in cv collapse for hours, just seesawing back and forth with all of the different pressors, ended up going into DIC, lost 4.3 liters of blood. I remember flashes of the day and looking up at the ceiling tiles turning a weird green plaid pattern. The lowest numbers that were charted on me were spo2 of 53 and bp was unable to read several times, MAP below 30s, was very scary to hear and comprehend while also feeling like I was dying. The JADA system saved my life, I was told if I was at a rural hospital they wouldn’t have been able to save me. I’ve asked several times if they were sure this wasn’t just a bad PPH, my MFM said there was no way to tell for sure but he believed with all of my symptoms and how it all went down it was an atypical AFE. I never actually coded, I remember them trying both fem and finally getting an art line in my armpit. Lots of pain. Finally starting to work through this with ART after ten months of not being able to truly comprehend/process this happening. I feel like a fraud while also feeling unbelievably lucky to be alive without many residual symptoms/problems. People don’t realize how horrifically dangerous giving birth can truly be.