Can anyone shed some light?

[scrufhead]

Bare with me... (poss tmi) I gave birth to my daughter just over two months ago now, but something still doesn't make much sense to me.

I had a home birth planned. my waters had gone around 10PM on a Sunday night & I began contracting. Around half an hour later I went to the loo and discovered bright red blood and around 3 palm sized blood clots.. of course I freaked and rushed the hospital.

At first the midwives were telling me it may be a possible detached placenta so they would get me up to the labour ward to get me put on the drip as my contractions had stopped by that point.
We had been waiting around 3 hours and the bleeding started slowing. I asked when I'd be getting taken up only for the midwife to tell me that they now thought it was my plug (I'd lost that 3 days earlier, I did explain that to them) and they were busy on LW so to just sit tight.

Spent all Monday and Tuesday sat around waiting for info. Other ladies got taken up in the meantime. It was very busy, i did sympathise with them but i started to lose my patience. Eventually got taken up at 1 am the Wednesday morning. I Gave birth at 9.43am the same day.
When the midwife delivered the placenta it was in a right state. It was in pieces and she said it was gritty and asked if I had smoked through my pregnancy! I did not so she quizzed to who in the house did... (no- one.) After the placenta had been delivered she was stitching me up when a big black clot had popped out as she was down there... Anyways my question is... is this normal?! Is it normal to bleed so much and to have your placenta be in pieces afterwards?? Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks if you made it through the essay!

My placenta has been in tact both times. I don't think it's normal but I'm not a medical person.

DD2's placenta was very gritty and had placental lakes and I had a couple of bleeds during the pregnancy. I was 29, didn't smoke, was fit as a fiddle, lived mainly off vegetables and did tonnes of exercise. The placenta was in such bad shape that the midwife sent it off for a histology report. Never heard anything back I think that sometimes these things are just random.

There was some question about foetal growth through the second half of the pregnancy, with the staff deciding she would be 5lbs tops at birth, but she came at 42 weeks weighing 7 lbs 9 oz. I had however had a lot of scans in pregnancy due to the potential growth retardation. Don't know if that makes a difference.

I also retained a little piece of the placenta after the birth (maybe 2 square inches), which came out a week later after a few contractions.

Thanks guys!
The only thing I could put it down to was having HG all the way through, so it could have been due to my crappy diet during my pregnancy. I just found it strange how they turned round and said it was my plug. I did ask if that was the case could I go home and they said no, just in case it was detached?! I think it's just gonna be one of those things that is random, you're right. Thank you!

Oh and DD2 is now 17yo and fine and dandy! She's always been in fine fettle.