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| 36 weeks |
Some of you may have read the brief and scattered updates on facebook as to how we got to where we are today. For this post, I am going to go through the first little bit and let you know our story of how we became a family of 3.
As I mentioned in my last post, I had not been feeling well and had been experiencing high blood pressure for a week or two. On President's Day, I saw a doctor and did a round of labs, as well as a 24 hour urine collection. Those results came back on the normal end, although some labs were slightly elevated. When I went to my centering group on Thursday, my blood pressure was 161/100 and it stayed around that for a few other tries. The doctor ordered another round of labs and another 24 hour urine collection. I had the labs done on Friday morning and turned in my collection on Saturday and continued with my weekend. On Sunday, the swim club had a team lunch, so Phil and I went to that. After that, we had a relaxing afternoon and about 9pm, I started getting ready for the next morning. At 9:15, my phone rang and I recognized the number as the hospital in Sioux Falls. When I answered, it was my doctor from centering and she said that she saw my lab results and some of them were elevated, so I needed to come to the hospital. All I could do was hang up and sit on the stairs and cry. Phil helped calm me down, then we started to pack our bags for the hospital. Since I had no idea if I was going for observation, a long bed rest or what, we packed for a few days. The one hour drive to the hospital was full of phone calls, text messages, prayers and lots of worry.
I checked into the hospital around 11pm and they took me upstairs to labor and delivery. I knew something wasn't right when I had 2 nurses in the room and one immediately drew my labs and the other started filling out the necessary info. The doctor was soon in my room letting me know why I was there. A typical person's platelet count is around 140,000 and mine was 76,000 on Friday. Protein in the urine shouldn't be higher than 225 and mine on Saturday was 3900. So needless to say, I wasn't doing very well. I was quickly admitted and told that they were going to induce me. I don't think I had time to break down since it happened so quickly. My blood pressure was still pretty high (how could it not be?!?), so they started me on magnesium sulfate. That has a risk of seizures, so they told me that I would have to stay in bed for my whole labor. And since my platelet level was so low, the anesthesiologist did not feel comfortable doing an epidural on me. For those of you who know me, I am still the girl that passes out when I donate blood and who thinks that IV's are a painful experience. When I was told that I was only going to get a little pain med to help with pain, I knew that this was going to be a scary process.
The doctor started the pitocin at midnight and I began to have contractions pretty soon. At 3am, the doctor broke my water. I continued to have contractions as the morning went on. I don't remember much of what happened for the next few hours. I do remember hearing Phil sniffle at one point and asking him if he was crying. He told me he was sniffling because the room was so cold. One side effect of the magnesium is that I felt hot, so I guess I kept asking the nurses to turn down the temperature in the room. No one complained since the rule is that the mom controls the temperature. At one point, I guess I asked for it to be cooler again and a nurse recommended a fan. Phil said a lot of people were very thankful when they found the fan and that seemed to satisfy my hot flashes. I do remember crying, being in pain and asking them to please give me stronger pain meds. There was also a few requests to have a c-section and a few choice words (I was good during some points and uttered the phrase 'frickety-frick-frick' multiple times... but there were also times that I used another choice 'f' word). Tamra, my labor nurse, was absolutely amazing and between Phil and she, they were my all-star team. I could not have done it without their support and encouragement.
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| Happy family of 3! |
Phil and I had talked about names before she was born but hadn't decided on 'the one.' The choices were Madison Anne or Olivia Grace and as Phil was walking out the door with her, a doctor asked if we had a name. Phil looked back at me and we both said Olivia at the same time. So, that's where our adventure began!
Unfortunately, since I was on magnesium to control my blood pressure, I was told I was not able to get out of bed for at least 24 hours. While Phil juggled his time between Olivia's room and my room, I tried to rest and process the whole situation. My mom ended up driving through the night once I told her my lab results. She got there around 1:30pm. Phil's parents were there that morning, and my aunt also drove from Rochester and got there that afternoon.
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| Baby's first bath |
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| Bath time! |
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| Mommy and Daddy help with bath time |
During labor, my platelet count dropped to around 10,000. The doctor told me I had something called HELLP syndrome, which is a pretty severe thing. After delivering Olivia, many doctors and nurses commented on how extreme my labs were and how lucky I was to be doing as well as I was. It was a pretty scary situation and I'm glad they told me enough while I was in labor for me to understand that I needed to have the baby, but not enough to completely freak me out. In other posts, I'll let you know how the recovery went for the next week or so. But until then, we are loving our little girl and looking forward to the day that she comes home!
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