Love Bug's Birth

This is a long time coming, but once you read it all I'm sure you'll see why I've disapered and why it's taken so long for me to write.

My last post was a quick, "Surprise, baby girl is here", but I don't think I gave any real details. I know it took a lot of people by surprise even those that knew the details of our situation, I mean it took me by surprise but I think I was just being optimistic and oblivious to how sick I really was....


All the way up until my third trimester things seemed peachy keen except for how large my stomach got. I now wonder if that was the beginning of me getting sick. Anyway, it seemed like a week or so before my third trimester is when I started to really feel more and more uncomfortable. Retaining water, swelling, back pain, and then the high blood pressure. In the beginning of November is when my blood pressure started to creep up. Doctor sent me home with papers to fill out to monitor my BP 3 times a day and told me to get a BP cuff for home. My BPs were anywhere from the 130's - 140's / 70's and 80's. We started weekly appointments early in order to keep an eye on things. In the second week of December I started the NTSs' a week early, at 31 weeks because the weekend before I felt a lot less movement of baby girl. It was due to my anterior placenta, how it was placed and she was fine, just hiding behind the placenta. I had my first test on Monday and since my BP was elevated then doc wanted me to go ahead and come back on Thursday that week. At Thursday's appointment she was fine, but this is when the down hill decline started for mommy. My BP was 160/like 80 something. Doc admitted me to the hospital for observation and to try and get my BP down. We did already know that we would not be going past 37 weeks of pregnancy, but I was holding onto that and praying she'd stay in until then. I was released from the hospital in a little less than 24 hours, but not allowed to go back to work and I was put on "modified" bedrest. He wanted me to get up and move around but no work, no running errands. Following week when I went in to the doctor's office to have my first set of steroid injections in order to help her lung development is when they found protein in my urine in addition to high BPs. I was admitted again, this time for a 24 hour urine collection as well as monitoring of me and baby girl. She was strong and healthy through all of it, never a scare for her, it was always me. When my urine test came back I was right on the brink of my protein levels being high enough for them to take action, but they went ahead and sent me home. Still told me that I could go to family Christmas events as long as all I did was sit, so that's what I did. Christmas eve I sat in a recliner and was waited on hand and foot.  Christmas day was not good.  I was already dealing with swelling,  but we went to Brad's aunts for breakfast and I could tell that my extremities were swelling more and more and starting to hurt.  We went home,  Brad's parents came over later and his mom made chili.  My neck started to hurt and I chalked it up to how I had slept the night before. As the evening wore on it turned into a head ache. I should have probably checked my BP but I was really scared to. At midnight I broke down and took Tylenol for my head.  For some reason Brad decided to stay and sleep on the couch with me, altho neither of us really got any sleep cuz I felt so awful.  At 2am my head ache was unbelievable.  I had also started to feel nausea and shaky.  I took my BP. 160/104, that was the first time the lower number had been high. I checked again and that second time it showed 170/101. I called the doctors exchange and he said to come in to the hospital.  We grabbed our bags and went.  I was truly expecting that they'd keep me in the hospital on bedrest for a couple of weeks, that's what they had been warning me of. I got more and more nauseous once at the hospital and I finally threw up. I was hooked up to an IV right away and they started trying to get my BP stable.  I had climbed to 180 over 100 something.  It was probably 3:30am when they started with the IV and they just couldn't get my BP to come down no matter how much meds they pumped thru me.  Then my urine test came back at about 5am.  Protein was really high.  My nurse, who I loved by the way.  I loved just about all of the nurses and docs I had. She came in and said that we had a birthday for baby girl.  December 26 2014, that we'd be parents within the hour! I started crying right off the bat.  Because she was breech it had to be an emergency c section.  When I say emergency I mean it. They meant business. I was given the epidural,  Brad was great support, my nurse walked me through what was going to happen and within the hour, at 6:31am she was here.  I was overly exhausted from no sleep and totally drugged out. They had me on Magnesium to prevent me from going into seizures due to the high BP.  I don't remember a lot,  I do remember crying when I heard her beautiful cry.  Brad took tons of pics,  I got to see her and kiss her for a quick second before she was wisked away to the NICU. Because of the drugs I was on I was told I couldn't see her again for 24 hours.  I think if I hadn't been so tired and drugged up that would have killed me more than it did.  I was put in a recovery room while my actual room was prepared.  My nurse that took me to my actual room did take me to the nicu to see my beautiful girl for a quick minute, but again,  due to the drugs I couldn't hold her. She was such a champ! I'm so thankful that I'd had the steriods the week before becasuse I think that otherwise she would have probably been in the nicu longer than the 4 weeks she was in. They only had her hooked up for any kind of oxygen  breathing support for hardly 24 hours. She mainly had to stay in the nicu that time to make sure that she didn't have any heart rate drops, would hold her body temp, gain weight and take all of her feedings by mouth. She had a feeding tube in her nose, which she hated. The first week she was there wasn't nearly as bad as the following 3 for me because the first week I was still in the hospital myself and I could just go down to the nicu any time, not have to drive 30 minutes and leave her. They couldn't get a handle on my BPs. By the time I was discharged I was on 2 different BP meds and it had taken them some days to figure out what would work. In addition to that my swelling was scary awful. I gain 60+ pounds and over half of it was water weight! That water weight didn't come off as quickly as I expected. I think I was home a week before it seemed to just overnight evaporate. My feet were so swollen I had to wear slippers to the hospital to see my daughter, I had no shoes to wear. I had swollen up so much in such a short time that even what I had worn a day before she was born wouldn't fit. At one point Brad, not realizing how bad it was, grabbed my foot and squeezed and I about died. I literally thought that my feet would pop, I felt like the skin was expanding and that I would pop like a balloon. Him squeezing my foot left the grossest imprint for several minutes. After 2 weeks I think of me being home I was able to stop all the BP meds all together. Now that we are home Love bug seems to be getting really big to me, but she's still probably under 8lbs. She was 5lbs 4oz when she got to come home with us. I would spend about 8 hours every day up at the nicu, and I would cry every day as it killed me everytime I had to leave her, but I knew she was in the best hands possible. This entire thing was one of the hardest things I've ever had to endure. Being sick and all that came along with that and then having my baby in the hospital and not at home with me. Hubby was amazing through it all. I think that this all showed how strong our relationship is and made it stronger. I know that I'm blessed with an amazing man. I don't know many that would be able to go through all that we did. We never really realized just how sick I was. There are 5 doctors that are in the practice that I was at and I delt with each of them and they never really let on how bad I was. I guess they didn't want to scare me, but it was after the birth that they kept saying how serious the situation was and how sick I was. Recovery for me was pretty tough. I had the most awful bruising from my c section.  They actually took a sharpy marker and traced it so that they could make sure that it wasn't growing. I was told that I won the prize for worst c section bruise that they'd ever seen. It was always a bit amusing to see the doctors and nurses reactions when they would go to check me and see it. It did make me nervous that if things were so bad looking on the outside what did my insides look like. We are doing good now, so thankful to be home and trying to get the hang of being a new momma.

She's 7 weeks old today, picture taken day she got to come home. Those marks are from the sensors she had to wear during her stay. She's changed so much already, I can't believe it!