Stories of Courage: Taylor Forsmark

Taylor Forsmark, RD, LD and Director of Food and Nutrition Services at NNMC, shares her story of how a blood transfusion saved her life, and how she is now giving back by becoming a blood donor herself.

My birth story with Peyton is something I could have never imagined. January 7, 2020 was not only the best day of my life but also the scariest day of my life. After having the best pregnancy, I thought her birth would be the same.

We planned to start induction Monday night, January 6. It was slow going at first, but mid-day Tuesday, January 7, I started to progress nicely. Baby Peyton joined us with no issues at 3:46 p.m.

As I was crying with joy and bonding with my baby girl, my doctor was working on delivering my placenta. My placenta was very sticky and started to bring my uterus out with it. My uterus became inverted, and I was losing a lot of blood. The doctors were unable to stop the bleeding, so I was rushed to the operating room.

I had to receive a massive blood transfusion as I lost about 60% of my blood. In order to save my life they had to perform an emergency hysterectomy. They were not sure what state I was going to wake up in after all of this trauma. I woke up intubated in the ICU, completely myself, and had remembered everything. My first thought was "where is my beautiful baby girl?"

I was able to be extubated right away and started to recover very fast. My wonderful husband and baby girl were able to visit me in the ICU. I continued to recover quickly and was able to get up to walk the next morning. I was back in postpartum with my perfect little family by mid-day. I cannot describe the feeling of being reunited with my loved ones after this.

Today is now February 8, 2021, and I am sitting in the Vitalant bus at Northern Nevada Medical Center donating my blood. All I could think about in this moment is how I wish I could find and thank the people that sat in this chair to save my life. I am so incredibly thankful to not only be a blood transfusion recipient, but now a blood donor.

I choose to share my story to hopefully touch someone that needs it. To show how truly precious our lives are. To push you to hug and kiss your loved ones extra today. To inspire you to live life to the fullest. In addition, to encourage you to donate blood, it can truly save a life.