Nothing Short of Amazing

In 2013, Kristy Kloos delivered her daughter, Charlotte, with an unplanned C-section because of an infection during labor. Everything turned out fine — but Kristy didn’t feel fine. She felt she’d missed out on an experience she’d always wanted. “I had a very hard time accepting that I didn’t have — and probably would never have — a ‘normal’ delivery,” she says.

Kristy says she felt better about it after discussing her feelings with Dr. Rachel Harris, but when she became pregnant with son Jackson, “all of my anxiety and sadness about having another Cesarean came back,” she says.

Then came another dilemma. In 2016, it was now possible to try for a vaginal delivery after a C-section, with a 1 percent chance of complications. “So now I had this huge decision to make, and that was even harder!” says Kristy. “My husband and I just couldn’t decide.”

This time it was Dr. Anne Meschke who helped Kristy and her husband, Matt, move forward. “She shared her own experience with having to make the same decision. It all clicked for me when she said that as much as she wanted the experience, she knew she would worry during labor, making it impossible for her to have the experience she wanted. Being the queen of worry myself, I knew at that moment that I would choose to have a repeat C-section.”

Kristy says Jackson’s May 20th birthday was “the best day it could possibly be.” Dr. Leigh Koidahl used a clear curtain so that Kristy could watch her son being born, and made sure Kristy got to hold Jackson immediately. “The delivery was everything I could have dreamed of,” Kristy says. “I still tear up just thinking about it.”

As an MRI technologist, Kristy knows what good patient care is all about. In a letter she wrote to Drs. Harris, Meschke, and Koidahl, she says she’ll be “forever grateful” to the doctors — and the entire staff — at Southdale ObGyn:

“Being in the medical field and caring for people every day, I know that it’s sometimes easy to forget how our words and actions can impact our patients. Every physician and staff member at Southdale ObGyn has been nothing short of amazing, and I’m so thankful for all of you.”