Instead of filling Andrew's arrival blog post with bitching and complaining I thought I might separate them and bitch here and make his post a little more light-hearted! So here it goes, the final days of pregnancy:
I started cleaning carpets on Saturday afternoon, May 29th. Greg and I had had a few disagreements over the past few weeks and I had just about had it. The kids were crazy, the house looked like it had been ransacked by the Tazmanian Devil and his 12 siblings, and it was dirty. The lawn looked like crap and the garden was barely going. Greg had taken so much time to deconstruct the yard in order to put down bermuda grass and it wasn't doing a thing. We had so many weeds in the garden that it started to look like a nature preserve or the very green friendly people's house down the street (AKA--they don't do CRAP to their yard except grow weeds). Money is always a fun thing to discuss when you're about 9 months pregnant! $400 for carpet cleaning, $200 for mulch, Greg wanted a new area rug for the living room (?!?!?!) are you kidding me?, not to mention baby stuff, medical bills and potentially getting a minivan. EFFF I was stressed.
So I took it upon myself to borrow Robert and Suzanne's carpet cleaner to save some money and got to work. I moved furniture and cleaned every inch of Charlie's room on Saturday night. Sunday morning I got up, cleaned Samuel's room and the hallway and then in the afternoon I did the master bedroom. Monday, I made Greg mulch. He wanted to have it delivered on Tuesday. I don't think that he grasped the concept that I was going to possibly go to the hospital on Tuesday to have a baby. He thought that I was over reacting. Anywho, both of us were exhausted and hot. I think Monday was the hottest day of the year so far. Greg had a massive hangover and thought that he would take it easy on Sunday, so that was his payback! I just cleaned and try to do as many loads of laundry as I could. And scrubbed a bathroom. Tuesday brought lots of apprehension and anxiety on my part. I cleaned the bonus room carpets, showered and headed to the docs.
In previous weeks my blood pressure had been a roller coaster ride; up a little, down a little, up a little, down a little. I never had any proteins in my urine so we thought all was well. Thursday, my pressure was up to 151/94. That was pretty high for me. Anything over 90 diastolic is no bueno. They sent me for a HELLP panel to make sure my organs were still functioning and said they would get back to me with results and they would see me on Tuesday. No results Friday, so I assumed everything was fine....HA! By Tuesday, I was spilling a +1 protein, which means that my kidney's were being stressed. Not much, but enough for me. Dr. Gantt told me that she didn't think that I HAD to have the baby that day but that she would want me back on Friday to check BP and proteins again. I was OK with this diagnosis. I took it pretty easy that afternoon, just trying to straighten up and reassemble furniture and stuff in the bonus room. I finally hooked up my computer again and started researching +1 protein or proteinuria. I was technically pre-eclamptic. All night I had bad dreams of my water breaking or these giant proteins shutting my body down, it was weird!
Wednesday I awoke at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I was anxiety ridden. Why was I waiting to get sicker? My head still hurt, my bp was up, proteins are not gonna go away. Why was I going to take a risk? Well, here it is...I'm not. I called the doc. Greg thought I was crazy. He basically under-minded me but said he would support any decision I made. I heard back from the doc and they said to go to triage and get checked out, have a HELLP panel drawn, have urine read again and bp's taken regularly. Here's the thing....I was only 36 weeks and a few days, so this is called CYA by the doctors. If I were 37 they would have sent me on Tuesday. Because 36 weeks is not a full term baby. So here is the time line of things as I can remember....
10 am: Get call from Kelly @ WakeMed Specialty to go ahead and go to triage.
10 am-11:30 am: Get kids packed up, house straightened, showered, bag packed, kids off to Caroline's, clothes put away and stuff ready for guests.
11:30 am: off to the hospital.
12 pm-1 pm: arrival at the hospital. Give urine, get bp done, blood taken and info processed. Given tylenol to see if headache would go away.
1 pm-1:30 pm: Wait for results. Blood work comes back border line EVERYTHING! My liver functions are down but not terribly, my platelets are at 140, normal is 160 and bad is below 100. Kidneys are still a +1 protein, bp is sticking around 140/90. Dr. Chancellor checked my fluid level and it was a 6, 5 would be low. She eventually just said to us, "If you headache doesn't go away, that is a major symptom." HINT, HINT!
2 pm: Told docs, headache is not going away. I am admitted finally!
2:30 pm: Find out my Strep B test is positive which delays the process even more b/c now I can't have my water broken until I have had 4 hours of antibiotics. My IV line is placed and the antibiotics are started.
3 pm: Place orders for mag, pitocin and a delivery room.
4 pm: Everything is rolling. They actually gave me Zofran, so I wouldn't throw up during the initial dose of the mag sulfate. It worked. I just got SUPER hot. I felt like I was on FIRE from the inside out. It is insane what medication can do to you!
4:30 pm: Pitocin is cranking and it was uncomfortable but not awful. Thank God for the NCIS marathon that was on. Greg was reading a book and totally ignoring me :) It was great. Silent, except for the constant beeping of my bp!
6:30 pm: Broke water.
7:30 pm: Epidural administered. The mag sulfate makes me yucky. So I sat up to get the epidural and I started to sweat, I mean enough sweat that it was puddling on the floor. I yelled at Greg who was sitting in the chair reading a book to get his ass up and start fanning me. Then the vomiting started. Here is the TMI: SKIP THIS PART if you don't want to know me THAT personally.....that's when the amniotic fluid started shooting b/c I was vomiting so hard. All I could think of to say when it hit the floor was, "That's not vomit!" It was excited to tell them that, but then I realized that it wasn't any better then vomit, and truth be told it probably would have been better if it was vomit. I got both Greg and the nurse. I am sorry. Renee, my nurse, really had a tough four hours with me. I apologize. But when she left, I felt better.
8:30 pm: Started to feel better and could relax a little.
9 pm-12 am: Constant checking. I wasn't dilated too terribly, only 5 cm, so they decided to pull the magnesium sulfate. My BP was staying relatively stagnant and the mag seemed to be fighting the pitocin, so I went off!
12 am-2:45 am: Constant checking and restlessness. Greg was getting a smidge tired. Thank God there was and NCIS marathon on USA! Dilated fairly quickly after that!
2:45 am: My FANTASTIC nurse Jazmine checked me and I seemed to be pretty close to fully dilated. Then she realized that the baby was sunny-side up. Dr. Gantt said that she would check back with me in about a half an hour to see how the baby was doing. They wanted to be sure to monitor him/her carefully. Greg finally went for coffee. Jazmine rolled me onto my side and directed me to pull my top leg/knee up towards my chest and that would help. She stood at the monitor/computer and just watched and kept talking. She could see my contractions and knew that it was all about to go down.
2:56 am: Not sure if this is truly the time that it happened but it was a good guess...I felt lots of pain and pressure. I knew he was moving. All of a sudden I thought he was falling out. I suggested, firmly, to Jazmine that she call Dr. Gantt and find my husband, who went on a 30 mile trek to find coffee. I swear I thought the baby was gonna shoot out.
2:58 am: Greg walks in the door. Jazmine is preparing the table, just as calm as can be...I WAS FREAKING OUT! I was panicked that Dr. Gantt was not going to make it back into the room. But she strolled in, got her gown on and told me to push. I pushed through two major contractions and on the third contraction the baby was out!
