The following is my NDE narrative, remembered to the best of my ability: The year was 2002. I was 23 years old and induced with my second child.

I remember that this pregnancy was different from my first. For example, with my first pregnancy, there was a feeling in my body and my mind of awe; joy; surprise; wonder; and expectation. While I was definitely looking forward to eventually meeting my second child, I could sense something was significantly ‘off’ with my body. In other words, I sensed an unnatural foreboding.

I remember flinching each time I drove by my town’s two funeral homes; it was an unshakeable feeling, one I didn’t have with my first child. I remember cleaning/nesting the house, and sometimes I would catch myself thinking, “Will this be the last time I clean the bathroom, etc.?" I have no idea why I thought those things or what even brought them on … only that my body and my spirit carried with them a general sense of malaise. These feelings lasted throughout my entire pregnancy.

As with my first child, I was induced. My doctor was not a particularly good doctor; perhaps at one time he had been, but he’d experienced a series of complex struggles in his life, which may have been what made him non-attentive and impatient. I was, at the time, without resources and on state insurance, so I really had no other medical care options.

I remember begrudgingly going to the hospital for my scheduled induction. I remember trying to work toward natural labor, but the Pitocin was drastically increasing my contractions, making it nearly impossible to breathe. I eventually opted for an epidural. I remember asking one of the nurses, a woman from Ireland, if she had ever lost any patients to childbirth; she looked at me a bit surprised, stating, “No.”

As the night continued onward, my foreboding feelings increased. When I was dilated enough to push, the doctor arrived. I could immediately sense that he didn’t want to be there; he even remarked to me that he had to leave his Christmas decorating so that he could deliver my baby. I also remember that I didn’t have solid spatial awareness of my cervix, hips, and the like, indicating to me that I most likely had been given too much of an epidural. Even so, I pushed; I must have done that for a few hours.

I was able to deliver a wonderfully healthy baby. But as I stated earlier, my doctor was impatient, and I could tell he was eager to return home. He began pulling on my placenta; he pulled so hard that he brought my uterus with it AND inside out. What happened from there is a whirlwind of events. I remember blood, my blood, convulsing out of my body at an alarming speed and quantity.

I remember looking at my doctor’s face and seeing absolutely no color; he looked terrified. I saw the staff ushering my family out of the room, quickly. The last familiar and loving face I saw was that of my baby, being wheeled out of the room. I turned my head toward my doctor and asked if I was going to die (at least, this is what I remember, but, unlike some of the other events, this memory is foggier); my doctor said, “Yes,” or something to that effect.

Space and time, in that moment, ceased to exist. I began, without hesitation, to commune with a presence. It felt like ‘the presence’ had always been with me, but I was just now realizing it. I bargained with the presence, but it was the most open and honest and transparent form of bargaining. I laid out my case, with a faith that could move mountains. Nothing I said or transmitted via energy, because I don’t remember the communication taking place via strictly words, was ever explicitly stated by the presence; instead, it was a feeling / an assurance.

I don’t know how much time passed, but it must’ve been short, before I began losing complete feeling in my body. It began in my toes and traveled upwards. But probably about halfway through losing bodily sensation, I experienced this overwhelming assurance, complete and total assurance. I knew, without being able to prove it, that I was going to make it through this ordeal.

The doctors were literally running me down the hallway and toward emergency surgery and blood transfusions, but I was in a state of complete peace, like I’ve never before or after experienced. I remember trying to tell the doctors not to worry, that I was going to be okay, but they acted like they didn’t hear me, and now I’m not sure that I ever verbalized anything at all.

The last thing I remember is being with my mind, as my body had lost all sensation. It was almost as if the energy engaging with me was tucking me into a universal blanket. I saw no lights and I experienced no visions, but I was letting go into a dark, infinitely peaceful and loving embrace; the letting go was so loving that I simply succumbed to the darkness.

The next thing I knew, it was like someone had forced my spirit back into my body. I was strapped to a hospital bed, intubated, and with no pain medication (I was told that my heart had stopped multiple times throughout the night and that I was too weak for pain meds). I suspect, even though I thought I was awake, I was not, and perhaps even outside of my body; nobody else knew I was conscious.

I cannot adequately recall how long it took for me to fully inhabit my body and alert the medical staff. What I do know is that I was grateful beyond measure to be back in the material realm so that I could raise my children. And, unlike most of the medical staff and my family, I was not surprised by my return.