On Monday the 11th I was so tired I slept ALL day long. When Sean got home he thought I was sick or something. I made a joke that maybe my body was preparing for labor and I was going to have a baby that night. I went to Ladies' Bible Study at 6:30 and was itching miserably. Everyone told me to call the doctor to see what was wrong. They thought maybe since my blood pressure was high this might have something to do with that. I really did NOT want to call the hospital again because I had already been there three stinking times and all they do is give me a urine test, draw my blood, monitor my blood pressure and monitor the Boston's stress level for an hour to six hours and then send me home. What's the stinking point I figured, but my mother-in-law let me borrow a blood pressure cuff and my blood pressure was 147 over 115. Kelly called me to see if I had called the hospital yet and I said no, but that I was going to. I called Kadlec and the nurse said relax for ten minutes, take your blood pressure again and then call me back. Ten minutes later my blood pressure was 145/114, so of course the nurse said come in. I told Sean don't worry about it, go back to bed and I will be home in a few hours. He looked at me like that was the dumbest thing he had ever heard and said Are you kidding me?
As we pull up the the hospital I was said maybe that joke about sleeping so much because I might go into labor tonight wasn't so funny huh? He said yeah, maybe not! The nurses immediately put us in an exam room, give me a gown and tell me to undress. I looked at Sean and said, ok maybe this is a little more serious because they don't normally give me a gown. Of course they give me the cup and say go to the bathroom, then tell me the lab will be by in a bit to draw my blood and hook me up to the blood pressure and baby monitor. It's maybe ten minutes and Kelly shows up and the nurse comes in to take a look at the monitors. Then in walk Dr. Mulholland and I knew something was out of the ordinary because he wouldn't come in unless it was warranted. He looks at the blood pressure and says something to the effect of Holy Cow, how long has it been that high? He talked to the nurse for a minute and says he'll be back. The nurse does her checking and leaves the three of us alone. We're all thinking great! Then the nurse comes back in and says that I'm most likely going to stay over night to be monitored. I ask her if I can eat but she says to wait until the blood and the urine test comes back. It's been maybe another 15 or 20 minutes and she comes in to say there was a lot of protein in my urine and I am well on my way to having a baby. The likelihood of being induced is pretty high. The next thing I know she is back telling us we're going to have a baby tonight. Although, since it's a quarter to midnight we all know that isn't exactly true. Dr. Mulholland is going to induce me because I am pre-eclampsia and the baby is better off out than in. They transfer us to an actual birthing suite and tell us that no more than two people are allowed in the room because they don't want me to be any more stressed out than I already am. Then they make an exception because my mom, Kelly and Sean are all supposed to be in the room, but the nurses aren't real happy about that. They nurses hook me up to an IV and give me pitocin to induce labor and magnesium or something to lower my blood pressure. We make all the family phone calls and then we wait, and wait, and wait some more.
Around seven thirty in the morning we are still waiting, by this time my contractions are getting to be more frequent and stronger, but they are still manageable. The nurses ask me if I want the epidural and I immediately say yes...even though I felt kind of silly since the contractions weren't THAT bad yet. They give me the epidural about a quarter till and tell me that the epidural will make my blood pressure drop, so that's good since it's still high. Immediately after the epidural I am feeling great. I can't feel any of the contractions. I'm thinking this is easy. Then I look over at the nurse and see the look of concern on her face as she is studying the monitors. Great I am thinking. She says she's going to show the tests to Dr. Mulholland and come back. A few minutes later they both walk in and he tells me that they are going to perform a c-section. He explains that my blood pressure drop was so severe that it made Boston's heart rate drop dramatically and that it wasn't safe. He said luckily it's not an emergency, but it's still serious enough that they didn't want to be continually messing with trying to stabilize his heart rate. He said we were waiting for the room to be free and we should have our baby by 10 am.
I was like ok! Although having a C-section was no where on my to do list for this lifetime! Sometimes you just don't know what is going to happen. When we got the operating room Sean was already beaming from ear to ear because he knew it was close. He couldn't wait. All I could see was him looking over the drape and eagerly awaiting Boston's arrival. Then next thing I know they are calling Sean over and telling me to turn my head to the right and there was our beautiful baby boy!!! It was so weird! I was like you are done already?!? I was in and out of the operating room in one hour and two minutes. I really think it was five minutes of actual surgery and the rest was prepping me and stapling me up. There was even a medical student in the room so you know it took longer than it normally would have because he was teaching as he was working!
Tuesday January 12th Boston Alexander Campeau graced us with his presence. He was born at 10:08 am, weighed 6 pounds even and was 20.5inces long. He has a ton of hair! No wonder my heart burn was so bad!! Sean was the happiest man alive and I was so thankful for him because the next 16 or so hours were pure un-imaginable misery for me. I really don't know what I would have done without Sean. My body did not handle all of the drugs well at all to say the least. The nurses were then giving me all kinds of nausea medicine and other injections to counter act the narcotic effect of the epidural. I think I finally felt human again around three am. It was COMPLETELY worth it though and I would do it again in a minute!!
That sounds a little similar to my first experience. I didn't have the blood pressure problem, but I did rest/sleep the whole day before my baby shower and then I went in to the hospital at 10pm. I was pushing from noon-2pm, but she was a giant (9#2oz)and it wouldn't work, so I had a c-section at 3:35pm. I've had two more c-sections since then and the second and third were the BEST. I highly recommend them, if needed.
ReplyDeletePS.(Just in case the hospital didn't show you the cool trick to guarding your stitches-which by the way will probably cause irritation and I requested to just be glued up last time-wear a maxi pad on the inside of your underwear to buffer against bumping it or kids bumping your incision.)