Monday, October 8th.
This particular day it was hot and somewhat humid. We had been having this horribly uncharacteristic humidity off and on, and this week was worse than most. In addition, my wonderful husband had ripped the roof off our house and decided to replace it. As if the roof weren't "project" enough, we were also having our HVAC unit, the ducting and insulation ALL replaced. Eek.
The baby was still three plus weeks away so I wasn't too worried about the construction zone that was our house, but my husband saw the writing on the wall. He knew that baby was not staying put for long. I was in denial or something because I genuinely believed I would not be early...until this particular Monday rolled around. I went to my appointment and when they took my blood pressure, I was 168/110 or something ridiculously high (for me anyway). My doctor did another urine test. My protein had gone from "trace" amounts the week before to +2/3 (I think the scale is 0-4). The way my OB explained it is that once the protein is there, it increases exponentially. My wonderful OB decided he would put me on bed rest. However, since he knew I would never actually stay in bed at home, he decided to confine me to the hospital until he was ready to deliver the baby (he did not indicate when this would actually be).
At this point, I knew I would probably be having the baby early but the question was HOW early. Would it be tonight? Next week? Two weeks? etc. I didn't tell anyone (except my husband and sister) that I was in the hospital because I didn't want people worrying and I really didn't have any useful information to share at the time. According to my doctor, I was a "time bomb" (his words) and this has sort of an ominous, dismal connotation that I didn't think my family & friends would appreciate or understand. So Erik and I kept the information to ourselves and I spent the next two-ish days watching Law & Order SVU marathons and waiting for the time to tick by. Erik went to work as usual and I tried to run the world from a hospital bed...
My doctor continued to test my urine and blood pressure and it kept creeping in a dangerous direction. He decided he would induce me on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Until then, I would sit and enjoy the remaining hours of "free time" I would have for the next many decades :)
Wednesday night rolled around and I was told by my OB that he was going to get the ball rolling that evening around 7pm. I was going to take a pill that would soften my cervix over the course of about 8 hours and then I would be formally induced the next morning (Pitocin, etc.). I took the pill and snuggled in for 8 hours sleep about 10:30pm after watching the first half of the season premiere of "Nashville". Around 11pm...I heard a loud pop and felt a gush of fluid (TMI, sorry!). My husband looked and confirmed that I hadn't just peed myself (as I thought I had). We informed the nurses and they informed my OB and their words to me were "Don't worry, induction takes forever and first babies take forever. You won't have her until 24 hours from now at a minimum." I'm thinking, okay-that's what I figured, I will go back to sleep. They gave me a small dose of Pitocin and sent me to dreamland. Sleep I did for about 15 minutes. It was not long before I began noticing some aggravating pain. That aggravation became total and complete agony within an hour. I labored pretty "hard" for lack of a more awkward term until about 4am. Finally, at four in the morning, after suffering contractions every 3-4 minutes and Camelback contractions at that, I begged for mercy. The gave me a smidge of morphine-which is like throwing a pebble at a freight train and expecting it to stop. It did nothing. So then they checked me around 5:30 and I was about 4cm. They told me I could have my epidural if I was ready. Erik and I had decided beforehand that I was going to attempt to get to 5cm before having an epidural and I really wanted to stick to that goal...but. I. Just. Could. Not. Take. It. Anymore. So I agreed to the epidural. The Anesthesiologist came in and gave me the juice before his shift change about 6am. by 6:15 I felt no pain. I was happy, elated even. I never felt more comfortable and relaxed. I just wanted to settle in for my nap since my delivery was still 18hrs away (per the nurses). I just dozed off and my OB came in to see me about 7:15am. He checked me...7cm! Yay. He told me he would go perform some surgeries and come back to deliver me around lunchtime. He was gone maybe 15 minutes when I had just dozed off again. Suddenly the nurse came and checked me in this frantic state. She said the baby's heart rate dropped and that indicated she had descended into the birth canal. She said I was 10cm. Just like that! Holy moly. I couldn't believe it. She told me to just sit and wait because they had no doctor to deliver me-so she would have to call in the on-call doctor! About 8:20 or so, a doctor finally arrived and I began to push. After some pushing and a bit of suction, Elin was delivered by the on-call physician at 9am. She was 6lb15oz. Not bad for being three weeks early! All in all, it was an easy and smooth experience. I couldn't believe I had done it, and it wasn't bad at all.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Pregnancy and Such...Part 1
For those of you who do not know, my pregnancy was mildly eventful! I had a relatively standard 5 months of severe morning sickness. Once those days had passed, I thought the worst was over. In some ways...it was the worst and it was over! Nausea is a force to be reckoned with. It is overwhelmingly awful and unbearable. If you know me well, you know I am a throw up phob... so this + morning (disclaimer: ALL DAY) sickness is a problem.
Around month 6, I ended up in labor & delivery having what I might have guessed was preterm labor. Instead it was just kidney stones...thank God. I never thought I would be so grateful for such an agonizingly painful experience, but alas...I was. When they sent me home with my little granular friends, I had no idea what to expect. What came to be was 6 days of bouts of pain and no pain. What I have come to understand about the kidneys is that they are attached to your ureter and when you put a stone into your ureter, it is painful because the stone is irregular shaped and doesn't typically fit in the narrow ureter very nicely. In addition, the ureter has three points in which it is extremely narrow and typically the stone hurts the most in those three areas. SO the first day of pain consisted of 5 hours of agonizing discomfort. Its not so much pain, it is discomfort like you would not believe. You cannot sit still, you cannot lay down, you cannot talk, you cannot think. I would just pace around the house and suck down Tylenol with codeine which is REAL effective (not so much). Then as soon as the horrific pain comes on, it is gone and you think you are free. Until about 48 hours later when the stone gets caught in the second narrowing and you are dying again for 5 hours. Break. Repeat.
Finally on the last cycle of biting pain, it broke free and I peed it out about an hour later. The pain was gone, I felt like a survivor. My stone was approximately 5mm. This makes me a champion in the kidney stone world. The end.
Months 6ish-7ish were great. No sickness, no kidney stones, I was still relatively small (belly) and I was feeling good. I went back to work in the fall and was trucking along toward my due date nicely, when suddenly...the swelling began. Yikes. This wasn't pretty. Overnight practically, I had Miss Piggy's legs and face and it continued to worsen over the next few weeks. By the end of what I call "the great swelling", I was unable to fit in any type of shoe or sandal. I had to wear size 9.5 slippers or be barefoot. One other thing, my blood pressure was SKY high. It kept slowly ticking up, up and up. I did not have any protein in my urine at my OB appointments so as far as the medical experts were concerned, I was just a fat, pregnant woman! Eventually (around October 1, 2012) my blood pressure got high enough that my OBGYN didn't feel comfortable with me returning to work. I fought him, tooth and nail. He won and I stayed home...sort of. I spent some time running errands and working around the house. Finally, Monday-October 8th rolled around and I went for what would be my final OB appointment.
Part 2-Next Post
Around month 6, I ended up in labor & delivery having what I might have guessed was preterm labor. Instead it was just kidney stones...thank God. I never thought I would be so grateful for such an agonizingly painful experience, but alas...I was. When they sent me home with my little granular friends, I had no idea what to expect. What came to be was 6 days of bouts of pain and no pain. What I have come to understand about the kidneys is that they are attached to your ureter and when you put a stone into your ureter, it is painful because the stone is irregular shaped and doesn't typically fit in the narrow ureter very nicely. In addition, the ureter has three points in which it is extremely narrow and typically the stone hurts the most in those three areas. SO the first day of pain consisted of 5 hours of agonizing discomfort. Its not so much pain, it is discomfort like you would not believe. You cannot sit still, you cannot lay down, you cannot talk, you cannot think. I would just pace around the house and suck down Tylenol with codeine which is REAL effective (not so much). Then as soon as the horrific pain comes on, it is gone and you think you are free. Until about 48 hours later when the stone gets caught in the second narrowing and you are dying again for 5 hours. Break. Repeat.
Finally on the last cycle of biting pain, it broke free and I peed it out about an hour later. The pain was gone, I felt like a survivor. My stone was approximately 5mm. This makes me a champion in the kidney stone world. The end.
Months 6ish-7ish were great. No sickness, no kidney stones, I was still relatively small (belly) and I was feeling good. I went back to work in the fall and was trucking along toward my due date nicely, when suddenly...the swelling began. Yikes. This wasn't pretty. Overnight practically, I had Miss Piggy's legs and face and it continued to worsen over the next few weeks. By the end of what I call "the great swelling", I was unable to fit in any type of shoe or sandal. I had to wear size 9.5 slippers or be barefoot. One other thing, my blood pressure was SKY high. It kept slowly ticking up, up and up. I did not have any protein in my urine at my OB appointments so as far as the medical experts were concerned, I was just a fat, pregnant woman! Eventually (around October 1, 2012) my blood pressure got high enough that my OBGYN didn't feel comfortable with me returning to work. I fought him, tooth and nail. He won and I stayed home...sort of. I spent some time running errands and working around the house. Finally, Monday-October 8th rolled around and I went for what would be my final OB appointment.
Part 2-Next Post
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)