This entire slice is going to be nothing but the details of Max�s birth and our hospital stay experience so if you�re not interested in a reading a very long story about medical emergencies, feel free to skip this one. For those of you sticking around to read, please know that it�s only about 60% of the story. I�m sharing it now anyway because I have a feeling I could spend the rest of my life saying, �oh yeah� and then adding something - I�m not so sure this story could ever be completely finished. Also, make yourself aware that all of the time stamps (with the exception of Max�s birth time) are only approximate...
January 12th, 9:00am (just shy of being 32 weeks pregnant) - I woke up with a SERIOUS headache that just wouldn�t go away. I figured it wasn�t going away because the only thing you�re allowed to take during pregnancy is Tylenol, but I can�t take that because I throw up every time I do. I suffered with it while trying to take naps, using some aromatherapy stuff, and just about any other natural headache remedy I could find on the interweb!
January 13th, 8:00am - I woke up and STILL had the headache but my blood pressure was still normal.. I have a blood pressure monitor at home because my bp has always been on the high end of normal so my OB wanted me to keep an eye on it between appointments just to make sure that it stayed normal for me. Sometime around 5pm I checked my bp again only this time it was high (172/108) so I called my OB and filled her in on the whole 36-hour-headache-and-sudden-spike-in-blood-pressure-thing. She, of course, told me to come on in to the birthing center.
While I was there they hooked me up to monitors and asked a zillion questions. They gave me a shot of morphine in my ass for the headache and, believe it or not, IT DIDN�T HELP - the headache was THAT bad! They then started me on a small dosage of Aldomet which is apparently the only bp medication you can take while pregnant. My bp dropped back down to an acceptable range but ONLY when I was laying on my left side - being in any other position caused it to shoot right back up.
January 15th, 1:00pm - They discharged me and said it was probably (um, probably? what?) just pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) and told me to consider myself on bedrest but that I didn�t actually have to stay in the bed. I was told to just REALLY take it easy and to spend most of my time sitting or laying down. They then gave me a list of symptoms to watch out for that would warrant me calling them back. So when I got home I took a nap and woke up to get something to eat and to watch Desperate Housewives. During the show I started to feel a pain on the upper right side of my abdomen. When my show was over (yes, I�m an idiot) I called my OB again and explained what I was feeling and she had me check my bp...it was 177/110! She, of course, told me to come back in immediately. That�s right, after spending 3 days in the hospital I only got about 8 hours of freedom before having to go back!
While I was there this time they gave me a magnesium drip to help prevent seizures because my bp was still very very high. I wouldn�t wish that loading dose on my worst enemy - it was 20 minutes (that felt like 20 years) of feeling so incredibly hot that I can�t even begin to explain it. They gave me a cold cloth to put on my face and my husband was fanning me with papers - I was soooo hot that I actually felt delirious! They also gave me the steroid shot that helps speed up lung development in the fetus - I forget what it�s called but they give you two injections (again, in the ass) 24 hours apart. They gave me the shots and told me it was a �just in case we have to deliver you early, we wanna make sure the baby has everything we can give him to help him.� They also collected all of my urine for a 24 hour period to check for protein.
January 18th, 7:15am - I page the nurse because I was having more pain in my chest and I felt like I was having trouble breathing. I could still breathe, it was just uncomfortable to really take a full deep breath.
1:00pm - My world collapsed. I suddenly REALLY couldn�t breathe so the nurse came in and hooked me up with a nasal cannula (the little prongs that go up your nose and give you oxygen) and called in the doctor. The next thing I knew I REALLY REALLY couldn�t breathe and the gave me an oxygen mask which actually made things worse for me - it was hot and moist and actually made me feel like I couldn�t breathe at all. The only way I was able to be somewhat comfortable with that thing on was if I used my hand to hold it away from my face instead of having it �sealed� over my mouth and nose. At this time a whole bunch of nurses and doctors wheeled me VERY quickly through the ER and into some room where they gave me a chest x-ray and a CT scan (they actually asked me to hold my breath during parts of the CT scan - yeah right!). After that they wheeled me back to my room and I told them that I had to have something other than the mask because I still couldn�t breathe. They switched me to something they called �the tent� which was basically a plastic shield that went under my jaw and extended up to my eyes - it didn�t make any actual contact with the skin but it certainly pumped in lots of oxygen and I could BREATHE - ahhhhhh!
Once �the tent� was in place a pulmonologist came in and explained that I had a lot of fluid in and around my lungs (so THAT�S why I couldn�t breathe!) but he wanted me to have ultrasounds of my heart and the veins in my legs before making any decisions about treatment. He said he would probably, I forget what the procedure is called, stick a needle in my back and drain the fluid from my chest cavity. During the examination of my heart the pulonologist very calmly said, �yeah, that�s heart failure.� WHAT?!? He said it almost in passing as if having heart failure was the most normal thing in the universe!
5:30pm - During all of this I was still having the aforementioned pain on the upper right side of my abdomen (where the liver is) and some serious pain in the middle section of my back (where the kidneys are). Finally my OB comes in with 2 other OBs - never a good sign. They explained to me that they hadn�t know what was wrong with me because when they were doing all the tests I wasn�t having any of the symptoms that one would have. For example, with pre-eclampsia, one ends up having 4+ grams of protein in the 24 hour collection of urine and I had basically none. And normally you have edema (swelling/water retention) rated at a 4 or a 5...mine was only at a 1 which is perfectly normal, expected, and acceptable during pregnancy. Turns out they called a perinatologist in Minneapolis who knew immediately what was wrong and what needed to be done. He said, �this is an atypical presentation of severe pre-eclampsia - the baby has to come out NOW!�
6:45 pm - They packed me up into an ambulance to move me 5 blocks to the other hospital since it just so happens to be THE newborn intensive care unit for this region. During this they were telling me that I would be having an emergency c-section. The husband and I, stupidly I suppose, asked when we�d be having the baby and they said, �There�s an OR waiting for you right now, you�re having him as soon as we can get you over there.� GREAT! So of course I�m getting a little freaked out because I know I�m only 32 weeks and 3days pregnant at this point but I couldn�t let myself cry because I knew it would just make my nose all stuffed up and make my breathing problems worse.
7:00pm - I�m in a hospital room answering questions and signing forms and my husband is being told that he may or may not be allowed in the OR. The next thing I know I�m being wheeled towards the elevator and as the doors were closing I stared at my husband�s face and wondered if I�d ever see it again. As I�m being wheeled into the OR I still don�t know if I�m going to be knocked completely out or not and whether or not my husband is going to be allowed in. I don�t think they knew yet either because they had him put scrubs on and then changed their minds at the last second. They�re prepping me for the surgery and I hear someone say that my bp was 245/137 and that�s the last thing I remember.
7:32pm - Max is born (though I had no idea since I was completely out) and he didn�t transition well. He needed to be bagged and his APGARS were 3 and 5. He was then immediately rushed to the NICU.
7:45pm - The doctors come out of the elevator with Max in an isolette. They told the husband that Max was going to be fine and that he should meet them in the NICU. He asked about me and the best answer he got was �we don�t know.�
8:00pm - Justin is in the NICU with the baby and still has no idea what my situation is. Doctors and a priest came to talk with him and explained that I had liver failure, kidney failure, heart failure, and that I had lost a LOT of blood. They told him that it was more likely than not that I would need to be put on transplant lists and need dialysis...they even went so far as to give him the whole �single fathers can be good fathers� talk.
I was in the ICU and my husband wasn�t being allowed to see me.
January 19th, 3:00am - I woke up alone in a dark room (the ICU) on a ventilator not knowing if my son was alive. I�ve never experienced anything so frightening. I had so many IVs and things in my arms and was in a new hospital/new bed/etc. so I didn�t know where the button was to page a nurse.
4:00am - My husband and sister were allowed in to see me. They told me that Max was fine but that he would need to stay in the NICU for 4-6 weeks. Thank goodness for knowing a little bit of ASL so I could spell out questions to Justin - I wanted to know things like Max�s weight since I knew that the bigger he was, the better chance he had. He was 4lbs, 1/2oz. And 18" long.
6:00am - DH and my sister came back to see me (after seeing Max again) and this time they brought me two Polaroid shots of Max that the nurses had taken...this was the first time I saw my son, who, at this stage, was simply �Baby Boy� since we thought we still had 2 months to settle on a name.
8:00am - They took me off the ventilator and had me back on just a nasal cannula...my throat hurt, but I could TALK!
January 20th, 9:45pm - I was finally allowed to be wheeled down to the NICU to see my son. You read that correctly (if anyone is still reading this - lol), I didn�t get to see my son in person until he was over 50 hours old and all I was allowed to do was stick my hand into the isolette and touch his hand. After a little bit I actually got to hold him but only for a few minutes. I got to spend a total of maybe an hour in there before being sent back to the ICU. I ended up spending a full week in there and was only allowed out to see Max twice a day for about an hour or two each time - talk about TORTURE.
11:30pm - The lactation consultant comes in with a pump and we get started on that (my body was too weak to start any sooner). I never produced colostrum and went straight to milk. She actually said to me, �Now please don�t think I�m being vulgar, but you�ve really got excellent hardware� - HAHA! Because of all the medications I was on I had to pump & dump...so I pumped for 20 minutes every 3 hours and then watched a nurse dump it down the sink.
January 24th, 10:30am - I was finally moved from the ICU to the maternity ward. I had to stay in the ICU so long because of one of the medications I was one - it was an IV drug that you can�t be on unless you are on heart monitors and the like. We referred to it as �the black bag of death� since the liquid was inside of several black bags - turns out that if it�s exposed to sunlight it turns into cyanide - great! I also found out that during the first 24 hours post-surgery that I passed (via catheter) 9 LITERS of fluid...take a minute to visualize that, I�ll wait. I�m not sure how much more I passed after that first 24 hours but that�s a hellofalotta fluid! And by the way, 12 Liters = drowning in your own fluids.
While in the maternity ward I had free reign to go down to the NICU (via wheel chair) as much and as often as I wanted! Yeah!
January 25th, 8:00pm - I asked the lactation consultant to come in and see me because I wanted to stop with the pumping. There was just no way in hell I could see myself pumping round the clock for 6 months (the amount of time the estimated I would have to be on non-breast milk-friendly medications) just to dump it out...especially since it would be possible to find out then that I have to stay on the medication anyway. She insisted on talking to me about my feelings and I assured her that I was 100% ok with Max being a formula-fed baby and that I didn�t feel like a failure or anything along those lines. Why do people try to make you feel like you�re giving your baby liquid poison if you�re giving them anything other than breast milk?!?
January 26th, 8:00am - They tell me that I can home the next day. I didn�t know how that was going to work seeing as how I was maxed out on 7 different bp pills and also had some kind of patch and nitrice paste stuck to my chest.
January 27th, 9:00am - We were in the NICU when I started to feel dizzy - I told DH that we should head back to my room and that someone should call the nurses to give them the head�s up. Yeah, I passed out for about 40 seconds in the hallway - thank goodness I was in the wheelchair!
12:00pm - A nurse came in for a bp check (I got VERY used to this as a majority of the time I had to just leave the cuff on and it was automatically checking it every 15 minutes - at one point it was even checking every TWO minutes!) and my bp was 84/52 - nice! Do you think it was time to cut down my meds perhaps? The pulmonologist came in and said, �it seems the pre-eclampsia stuff is done and your body is starting to regulate itself again� so he cut me down to just two medications - 80mg daily of an ACE inhibitor and 10mgs daily of a beta blocker.
9:00pm - They send me down for another ultrasound of the veins in my legs and a CT scan just to make sure I�m still ok.
January 28th, 3:00pm - I FINALLY got discharged!
January 28th-February 15th - We basically lived in the NICU. We had to wear ID bracelets until Max was discharged because it was our only way in and out of the hospital and the NICU...it was nice to be able to see him 24 hours a day and that rules for visiting hours didn�t apply to us.
The NICU is one hellascary place to be - we kept staring at our tiny little baby in the box and other parents were all, �OMG! Your baby is HUGE!� There were several other parents in there with babies who were 2ish pounds (born in the 26-27 week range) so I guess Max was pretty gigantic in comparison.
And how NOT comforting is it to be shown how to stimulate your baby for when his breathing stops and his heart rate drops? Not if, WHEN. I was sooooooo relieved when Max finally outgrew those spells. The 32 week mark is about the time babies practice breathing in utero but if they get tired, they can stop and it�s no big deal. However, in the outside world they can�t stop (duh) which was, obviously, not fun to experiernce...especially when it would take longer than normal to get him out of a spell and the nurses would have to run over and intervene.
February 15th - We did an overnight hospital stay with Max as sort of a trial run. You get awfully used to having monitors and such attached to the baby to show whether or not he was ok. They wanted us to experience a �wireless� baby and to do ALL of his feedings alone. It�s one thing to be with your preemie when you know you have doctors and nurses just inches away and it�s another to suddenly be home alone with him so I�m glad they made us do the overnighter.
February 16th, 10:00am - Max got a final checkup and we got tons of instructions but then? Then we finally, after four weeks and one day, got to take him home!!!
My pulmonologist and I are in the process of weaning me off of the medications and I�m already down to 10mg of each drug - ideally I�ll eventually be on nothing, but we�ll see how that goes.
It's still scary to think about how close I came to dying, in fact, I'm not 100% sure it's even really hit me yet. My doctor even shook my hand and congratulated me on not dying...he said that being 26 is what saved my life and had I been any older I probably wouldn't have made it. I was fairly certain that we were only going to have one child going into this pregnancy, but it's a strange feeling to have someone else, a stranger, finalize that decision for you. They told me I have a 50% chance of this happening again, that it would most likely mean delivering even earlier than 32 weeks, and that me being older would put me at even more risk so yeah, Max will be an only child.
The scariest thing is that my whole pregnancy was absolute perfection up until I got that headache!
And thank goodness we have great health insurance! The total bill for Max and I seems to be around $250,000 and the only thing we�re responsible for is 20% of my ambulance ride which worked out to be $150.94.
As horrific as our birth experience was, I�d do the whole thing over again because Max is complete and utter perfection :-)