Well, it has been a long week and a half. Johnathan did a great job at keeping everyone informed so I don’t have a lot of facts to add. I’ll mostly stick to my perspective.
When I first encountered “the issue” at 3:30 am last Sunday, I almost dismissed it. . . or at least I almost decided to wait and see what happened. But something told me that it wasn’t okay so I hollered at Johnathan. The next hour or so is kind of a blur of calling the doctor and packing a bag. I think we were blessed that the emergency room was completely empty on a Saturday “night”. We were whisked immediately up to labor and delivery where they started by checking to see if it was amniotic fluid. I could tell by the look on the nurses faces and the way they looked at me that they were pretty sure even without the tests. That’s when I think it really hit me that the baby was coming whether we liked it or not. The most unfortunate thing was knowing that we would be going home at some point without our baby. I had been saying all along that I just wanted to get to 37 weeks. At 37 weeks, you are considered full term. But as He has before, God called me to just have faith that everything would be okay. I received lots of shots and lots of medication that day, but through it all, there is one memory that I will hold dear to my heart until the day I die. Lindsey called that night. There was a large group in our prayer room at church that wanted to pray for us. They put us on speakerphone. Johnathan leaned up next to me as close as he could so we could both hear. By they time they were done, I was so emotional, I was speechless. Johnathan had to thank them for us. Just knowing that we had so many people loving and supporting us was such a blessing.
The first drug they put me on didn’t slow the contractions much. But the time the on-call doctor got there at 5:30 pm, I was still having them 3-7 minutes apart. That’s when they decided to put me on magnesium. I will commend them for being honest. They told me that it was going to be bad. But, from what I understand, they put me on a high dose so I’m sure that didn’t help. They eventually got the contractions down to 1 an hour or so, but I didn’t sleep at all that night. Johnathan slept like a log. . . at least one of us needed to keep our strength up. That night he pulled his “bed” up next to mine. The nurses had to move him to check my blood pressure and draw blood and stuff. I need to stop here and thank my wonderful husband. He did so much, especially in those first couple of days. He helped me through a lot of “firsts”. . . first bed pan, first sponge bath, first catheter. . . the list goes on. (I will tell you though, after a couple of nights in the hospital, his bed got further and further away from mine. haha By the last night, he didn’t even know that anyone else had been in the room all night.)
I don’t remember much from Monday. I remember waking up feeling awful. I remember hurting between my shoulder blades, which, if you know the story, ended up being my lungs. And I remember Dr. Perales saying that we would have a baby by the end of the week. If I didn’t go on my own once I came off the magnesium, she would only let me go for a couple more days before inducing me. I was still overcome by sadness that we would leave the hospital without our baby. The last thing I remember about Monday night is coughing up blood and puking up my purely liquid dinner. By this time, I had been in bed for over 40 hours. My magnesium had been dropped considerably so I was also having contractions again. Around 2:00 am on Tuesday, I finally asked what could be done for pain. I had already had 2 shots previously, but I didn’t like the fact that it made the baby’s heart rate drop. It was too early for an epidural so in the end, we consented to another dose of painkiller. I knew that I would be laboring that day (something told me that one the magnesium wore off, I was going) and needed some rest. I think I slept for a solid 2 hours before I started feeling contractions again. If you’re counting, at this point, I have had very little sleep since Friday night because my water broke early Sunday morning. . . so Saturday night doesn’t count. ;)
Tuesday was the chaotic day. Gina “the wonder nurse” came in. I was still coughing up blood, and I was in pain (if you’re still counting, I have been having contractions for over 48 hours now). Within 2 hours, I had been diagnosed with pulmonary edema, but I had been cleared for my epidural so I was good to go. The epidural proved to be a little harder than anticipated. It migrated to the left for some reason, and Henry (my “bartender”) couldn’t change it. He tried a couple of times, but just couldn’t get it to go straight. Fortunately, gravity can help that situation so I was soon laboring peacefully, tilted to the right. . . at least for a while. Because of the lung trouble, they wanted to keep me on a low dose of meds. . . apparently, they liked me still breathing. Plus, I had a fever and so many other things going on that I was metabolizing the meds differently. Henry had to come back every hour or so to pump me up because I would start feeling the contractions again. Around 6:00, he had to pull out “the good stuff” because he had to go to surgery and wouldn’t be as readily available. This stuff rocked and lasted a lot longer. At about 6:45, Gina came in and said that she had called Dr. Perales. She was noticing what she called “lates”. They are supposed to see “earlies”, which is where the baby’s heart rate goes up before a contraction. Our baby was going late. This meant she was getting tired. Dr. Perales got there around 7:20 to check me out. As she was examining me, she decided to have me push a little. I guess that did it, because the next thing I knew, she was screaming at me to push hard! Little did I know, our family was standing just outside our delivery room door (I had instructed them to go the waiting room. . . so much for my wishes). Gina had to run and tell them to go down the hall. . . it was going to be a while. Nothing in the room was prepared for this delivery. The next thing I knew, Johnathan had one leg, Gina had the other and 15 people were running in and out of the room getting ready for this arrival. (Incidentally, Dr. Perales admitted to us later that I had surprised her. She thought she was going to check me, go have a burger and come back. . . that explains why she disappeared and came back with peanut butter and crackers. . . at least she offered to share.)
The delivery was actually pretty great. I only pushed for about 30-35 minutes. I met the neonatal doctor in between contractions. I told him that I wanted him to tell me that my baby could go home with me. He said he was a man, and he could lie. But I told him that he wasn’t a woman so he couldn’t change his mind. Henry came back to join the party. He said I timed it perfectly. I delivered right as I ran out of medication in my pump. I love it when a plan comes together. ;)
Once the baby was out, Johnathan told me that we had Mallory. She was whisked right past him to the baby doc. They gave her 3 pumps of oxygen, and she was good to go (those steroid injections are a wonderful thing). They handed her to Johnathan, and he held her down so I could see her and touch her. I was immediately overwhelmed by the task that God had just set before me. What was I thinking?? What am I suppose to do with a baby?! I guess I will just take comfort in the fact that God doesn’t make mistakes. Besides, she’s beautiful. ;) I think we’ll keep her.
We delivered on Tuesday and finally got to leave the hospital late Friday night. I could tell you a few other stories from those days. . . like the fact that my husband, who had been so supportive for the first 3 days, thought he was going to get away with feeding our child her first bottle without me (I’m sure those nurses had never seen a woman get out of bed so fast with so many things attached to her to waddle down the hall to the nursery.) Or I could tell you about how massive my legs got (think Nutty Professor). Or I could tell you about Johnathan putting latex gloves on his head (cabin fever comes to mind). But I think this is long enough for tonight, and I’m exhausted. Tomorrow, I promise to try to catch you up on what has happened since.