I was supposed to start this blog a long time ago, when I got pregnant to be exact. I am a bit of a procrastinator and before I knew it, it was April and I was almost due. I wan't going to start it that late, I would have way too much to write about then. It seemed that it all went by so terribly slow, until April 12th. That was the day I was at my friend Lisa's baby shower and I started bleeding very badly. I went to the hospital and was admitted to Labor & Delivery with a placenta previa bleed, preterm labor, and possible leaking of amniotic fluid. I was 30 weeks to the day when this happened. I remember saying "oh, baby, slow down, you can't come yet. You still have some cooking to do, and we aren't ready for you yet." I cursed the day that I wanted this to be all over. I was extremely swollen, had horrible heartburn and nasal congestion(which I learned is quite common in pregnancy). I hadn't been able to breathe out of my nose since October. I was miserable, and this was putting it lightly. And yet when the time came that I would possibly meet my child 7 weeks earlier than my perinatologist, Dr. Adashek wanted me to, I was terrified. It's kind of funny actually that I had this reaction, as I have tons of experience with premature babies. In my previous life, before IVF and a high risk pregnancy, I was a pediatric nurse. I worked in the NICU(Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), the PICU(Pediatric ICU), and on general pediatric floors, taking care of kids with everything from cancer to dehydration and everything in between. I knew exactly what a 30 week infant looked like, and exactly just what my child would go through and have to overcome before leaving the NICU, and yet I still did not want to meet him that day. As I sat in the "triage room" of the Labor &Delivery floor at Summerlin Hospital alone, I kept bargaining with God that if he would just let my baby stay where he was for a little while longer, I'd do my part to keep him safe inside me. I was alone because Eric was working and he had to get a physician to come in to the ER so he could come and be with me. People are instinctively good when things like this happen, as he actually was by my side no later than 30 minutes after I got there. We were waiting for Dr. Adashek's partner, Dr. Pierce to come in and tell us what was going on and if I was going to likely be meeting my baby any time soon.
She came in and the news was kind of ambiguous. They really "couldn't tell" if it was amniotic fluid that leaked or not. "The litmus test" on the Qtip said it was amniotic fluid, but then the doc told me it could be urine too. "GREAT", I wondered to myself, "what the hell is the point of a test if it isn't definitive"?? The only way we'd know for sure was if she measured my fluid on ultrasound and then measured it again tomorrow, and if it was significantly less, then there was our answer, it was leaking.
Long story short, it wasn't amniotic fluid as it showed the next day. I WAS, however, contracting. I was started on Terbutaline, or as I'd like to better call it, "speed". It is the absolute worst feeling to be on that medication and be so jittery. I had to laugh at the nurses because I was on a fetal monitor, and I had to sit very still, because every time I moved, we lost the tracing of the baby's heart beat. Have you ever tried to stay still on 20 cups of coffee, or on methamphetamines?(just an inference...), IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to stay still on a drug that makes you feel as if you are climbing the walls.At around 5 a.m. 3 nurses rushed into my room, dropped the head of my bed all the way down to flat, put an oxygen mask on me and turned me on to my left side. I was barely awake, so I asked, "does anyone want to tell me what is going on, or should I guess"? My nurse said your baby's heart rate keeps dropping. We have a call in to the doctor and she called and is on her way. Do you know how fun it is to try to breathe with a stuffy nose and lay completely flat? Not fun at all.
Well, she gave me a 50-50 chance I'd deliver that day and said I should call Eric and make sure he has someone to cover him in case he had to get to the hospital fast.
He didn't have to come, and I didn't deliver, I went home on bedrest 3 days later.
Next the funniest thing happened, all preterm labor signs and symptoms stopped. Completely stopped. I got to 35 weeks and I was thinking to myself, it would be ok if I went this early. My son had other plans. I ended up making it to my June 4th due date. When I got admitted that morning for my C-section, my son must have thought he was funny, because I actually went in to labor and contracting every 3 minutes. I guess he was making sure that come hell or high water, he was getting out of my uterus TODAY. I was scheduled for 5 PM, but the doc came to get me at 3:30, saying he would take me then as the lady that was supposed to go before me was going to be a complicated case.
HA HA HA HA! I have to just laugh at the sheer irony of that last statement. Lets just say I wasn't an "easy" case. I was already being operated on in the main OR(not the one on L&D floor) because of all of my surgical risks and complications. Dr. Adashek prepared for every complication. There was a surgeon with him to help with my scar tissue. There was a urologist there to put stents in my ureters so my bladder didn't get cut(again)-which is another LONG story.There was the anesthesiologist, my perinatologist, 2 scrub nurses, one circulating nurse, a nenatologist(NICU doctor), in case the baby got into trouble, and 2 NICU nurses to take the baby right away. They told me they would bring him to the NICU for "transition" and then if he was ok I could have him back with me in my room in the a.m. Eric axtually said that he had never seen that many people in the OR for a routine surgery. I was in good hands.
The anesthesiologist tried 5 times to get my Spinal to work and numb me from the mid-belly down. It never did work, so I had to be put to sleep, thereby missing my son's birth and first cry, and first minutes in the world. I told Eric that no matter what was happening with me, that he was to go with the baby. I said it didn't matter if I was dying, he had to stay with our baby and make sure he was ok. So, I woke to the scrub nurse telling me my baby was perect, healthy, and was just taken to the NICU for some mild fluid in his lungs-par for the course with c-section births.
The next time I woke up Eric was with me, and he was telling me how beautiful or baby was, that he weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 19 inches long. Then the recovery room nurse said there was a problem and I was bleeding more than I should be and my uterus was not contracting back down. I spent the next 5 hours being human bread dough, having my uterus kneaded by about 5 people, mind you I have a fresh stapled incision, so that was quite a lot of fun, let me tell you. I ended up getting 2 units of blood, and I never did get to see my baby that night, I never got back to my room until almost midnight, almost 8 hours since i had gone down to the OR with my baby still inside of me. I can not even put into words how unbelievably lonely and sad I felt that night. Most moms feel somewhat sad that they can no longer feel their baby move inside of them, but could counter that with the joy of being able to hold and snuggle with their babies. I didn't get to do that either. He was in the NICU and I was too sick to go to see him.
5 days later my entire world was turned upside down as I was rushed back into the OR for surgery. I had gotten progressively sicker in the days after G's birth. Nobody would listen to me when I kept repeating over and over, "something is wrong here." Even Eric thought I was fine at first, but when I was getting no better, and getting MORE swollen instead of less, my pain was getting worse instaed of better, and I kept needing blood transfusions he started to listen too.
Lo and behold, on June 10th at 2 PM, my incision opened up all on its own, around the staples. My small intestine had perforated. That means there were 3 holes in it. Not a good thing. Thank God Dr Adashek and Dr Simon were able to fix it, without permanent damage. But that doesn't mean that my "perfect birth" ever materialized. It was horrible, I wanted so much for it to be so different, and it sure proved me wrong.
To all of my family and friends, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you did for Eric, my mom, and me during that horrible time. We could not have survived this horrible crisis without the help of everyone of you. For everything from watching G so my mom or Eric could come to see me, coming all the way to the hospital to see me and cheer me up, and just calling every day to see if we needed anything. I really believe that your true friends show up in times of crisis just as much as in calm times, and I know I have a LOT of friends, because the help we got and the care and concern, cards, thoughts and prayers were unbelievable, they are still coming in to this day. I feel very blessed to be ok and still alive, to have my miracle baby, and to have the greatest friends and family a girl could ever hope for.
So I was in the hospital a month, G came home after just a week with my mom and Eric, and I stayed to get better. I was supposed to be having surgery in September again, as closure to all of this stuff, but miraculously, I healed, and will not need surgery again. The doctors were amazed that I healed without the need of the 2nd surgery to close everything up.
So this is why I haven't started my blog before now. I have been just a tad bit busy dealing with the high risk pregnancy at first, then just trying to stay alive so I could be a mom to ny son, and now it's crazy every day here for obvious reasons. I will say that my sweet baby boy is the love of my life, and such an angelbaby. He is always smiling and(now) laughing. He sleeps through the night from 8PM to 7 AM and this morning actually slept until 8 a.m. He also takes 2 or 3 naps a day each being 1-2 hours, so I do have a very easy and good natured baby.
Now if I had a tool that would let me stop stime, I would, just so I could spend all my time loving my baby. I am already so sad that he's almost 5 months old. He is now eating cereal and vegetables, as well as formula. He holds his head up so well and is now standing up on his feet if you hold him that way. He loves his baths and just laughs and laughs at me when I sing "splish splash" by ELMO during his bath. Yes, I am officially a dorky parent, I just downloaded ELMO's greatest hits on to my IPOD so I can sing the songs to him and make him laugh. In my defense, I do have the "rockabye baby" CDs, that are instrumental covers of bands like U2, Coldplay, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and the Beach Boys. I have the U2 and Coldplay ones and he likes them a lot too.
So I am going to try to keep up on this, keep it updated and current, so please bear with me as it's my 1st blog. Also, please see the links to the other blogs I follow and check out the one titled "I will carry you" or "He will carry you". I forget the exact title, but it's a link of the blogs I follow so you can just click on it. I will warn ahead, it is a tearjerker, but I haven't stopped thinking about Stacy and Spencer, and their son Isaac since I read the whole blog. I think it is important to see things like this and see how well and with such grace it was handled by the parents. I know the other day I was getting frustrated because no matter what I did, G cried. Then I went and read this(from a friends blog link), and it was telling me to take a step back and enjoy the moment you are in now. That means enjoying the good as well as the bad. Well I just wanted everyone to see and read this beautiful story tonight, and to let everyone know that I hugged my child a little bit harder today, and when he slept in his crib, I stood over him and watched his angelic face, then I cried tears of joy that I have him at all, and also tears of sadness for Stacy and Spencer, that they won't get to spend that kind of time with Isaac, They are a true rxample of how to live, how to love and how to endure. I hope that God has some great surprises and treats in store for them, they certainly deserve it.
Nicole
