Our Little One is Here!
I never did get around to posting here that we were expecting. Things seemed to happen fairly quickly, even though we had been trying for awhile. We found out the morning of July 4th 2007 that I was pregnant. First part of pregnancy wasn’t too bad, a little bit of morning sickness, but nothing out of the ordinary. Second trimester hit and I still couldn’t stomach eating though. It wasn’t normal morning sickness, as that would have been nausea and typically would have been gone by now anyway. After another 2 months of not being able to eat hardly anything (and having lost about 15 pounds by that time), the doctor determined it was my prenatal that was making me have such a strong food aversion. So we switched over to a different vitamin and the next couple months were great. In October we had our Ultrasound and found out we were having a little boy. I felt wonderful and could actually stomach eating again, though having gone so long without eating much, I couldn’t stand to feel overly full, and with so little room in my stomach with the baby growing, I still wasn’t eating a whole lot. But I was pretty much maintaining my weight by that point and the doctors weren’t overly concerned, so neither were we.
The week after my shower in January, however, things turned a corner and quickly. The day after my shower I woke up with the baby having crawled under my ribs and completely above my belly button. After awhile he was finally coaxed down, but after that I was in a lot of pain. We thought it was due to him climbing up so often, as that wasn’t the last time, though it was the only time he was completely above my belly button. I went to the doctor since we were concerned about just how severe the pain was, but he did some checking and at the time my BP was still ok (they had been monitoring me for pre-eclampsia since mom had it), and nothing indicated any problems with my heart. So the doctor told me to go ahead and take Tylenol for the pain.
Things never got better, just decidedly worse in the next 2 weeks. The pain in my chest was so bad that even taking as much Tylenol as I was allowed, it barely kept the edge off, and I couldn’t breath because it hurt so bad. On top of that, I was starting to swell pretty badly. By the time my next appointment came around on Feb 8th, I had gained 20 pounds in the last 2 weeks due to water retention. My BP was 186/100 and my protein count was 3+ (none is good). The dr. sent us up to the hospital and they were going to put me on BP meds and monitor me for 24 hours to see how I responded. After doing some other testing when we got there, they determined that not only was I suffering from severe pre-eclampsia, but HELLP syndrome as well (a rare condition that can occur with severe pre-eclampsia). It means that your red blood cells are being destroyed, the liver is failing causing the enzymes to elevate, and the blood platelet count is dropping. After seeing I wasn’t responding to the BP meds, they were initially going to get me ready to induce at the end of the weekend. After the other test results came back and my platelet levels, etc were determined, they decided we couldn’t wait that long, as they weren’t sure I would make it through normal delivery or surgery without bleeding out if we waited any longer.
Things became a blur after that, as things moved so quickly. We had only been there a few hours and I was being asked to sign tons of forms and being prepped for surgery. Needless to say panic was definitely there, since it was still 5 weeks before my due date. I was so swelled that it took them 5 tries and 3 different people before they could find a vein for the IV (usually they don’t have problems finding veins on me either), and it took several tries and doses of meds in my spine before I couldn’t feel anything and they could start surgery. It was very unnerving knowing I was going to be awake while they cut me open and took out the baby. All I can say is thank God Chris was there and not out of town for work or I think I would have lost it completely, everything was so overwhelming. I started blacking out when they took the baby out and his cry sounded like it was miles away, as my hearing became so distant. I came back from it though, only to have the dry heaves while they were sewing me up, and Chris telling me the baby was fine.
I told Chris to go with the baby as they had to do a bunch of tests since he was so early. Thankfully, we were extremely lucky and despite him being 5 weeks early, he didn’t need any NICU care. His lungs and everything were fully developed; he was just tiny, 4 lbs 13 oz, but 18 inches long, making him a scrawny little thing, but beautiful. The next few days were a blur to me, as they had to put me on magnesium for 24 hours to help prevent me from having a stroke or seizure. On top of the surgery, the mag makes you feel like you have the flu, and you aren’t allowed to eat or drink anything either, just a few ice chips every couple hours. Both families were allowed to come up the next day, but I recall very little about everyone being there, just that they were there mainly, I was so out of it from the surgery and all the meds. I do remember the first time they got me out of bed after surgery being the most painful thing I’ve ever had to endure, and it took 2 nurses to help me out of bed I was in so much pain and so weak. Since we were planning on finishing the shopping and nursery that weekend, Chris was scurrying around getting the nursery done and the things we needed to bring him home from the hospital (including a bunch of preemie clothes) when he wasn’t at the hospital. We were in the hospital 6 days all told. Brenden was ok, but my BP was so high we were there an extra day.
Feb 13th we were both given the clear to go home finally. Brenden was at 4 lbs 5 oz when we left the hospital, having lost weight as most babies do right after birth. We had to take him in every day for the first few days and then once a week for a couple more just to do weight checks to make sure he was gaining ok. I was put on a lot of restrictions, the only thing I was ok to do was take care of the baby. I couldn’t lift anything heavier than him either for 6 weeks. It was a good thing Chris had been cleared to take 2 months of leave with us, since I definitely depended on him a lot those first few weeks. It took about a month for my BP to go back to normal so I could go off the meds and for the swelling to go down. All told I lost about 30 pounds being pregnant lol But all in all, what matters most is we are both home now and he’s growing by leaps and bounds (Sunday at ~14 weeks he measured at 12 lbs, a far cry from the little bundle we brought home) and doesn’t appear to be lagging in development either as so many preemies do, most likely because he was healthy when he was born. He’s started being full of smiles now and has figured out he can kick and will just lie in his bassinet or on the changing table kicking and “talking”. So there’s our story, a little more dramatic than we would have liked, but now that it’s over, it does make for a good story to tell since everyone came through it fine 