Sunday, June 10, 2012

Carter's Birth Story: Part 1

This is going to be long, but I want to write it all down while I can remember what happened so one day we can look back at Carter’s birthday. It will likely be broken down into two or three posts.

Thursday, May 31 I was discharged from Labor & Deliveryafter my cerclage removal and told to come back when my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart lasting at least 40 second per contraction.  The McDaniel family went out to eat at Saltgrass Thursday night as a belated celebration for Matt and Stephanie’s birthdays from the week before.  I remember feeling really full really fast at dinner and my feet had started to swell again.  We went home and I took a bath in hopes of relieving some of the swelling and went to bed shortly after midnight.  I had been having some trouble sleeping in recent weeks and I remember lying down and thinking how strange it was that I was this tired so early in the night.

I woke up Friday, June 1 around 8:00am and immediately felt the pain in my hands from the overnight swelling.  I had taken my wedding ring off a few days before just as a precaution and replaced it with the first ring Matt ever got me from James Avery.  I had to work some magic just to get that ring removed without cutting it off.  I got up and almost couldn’t walk to the bathroom my feet were so swollen and then noticed that even my face was starting to show signs of swelling.  I ate breakfast and got back in bed as Matt was leaving for work so I could keep my feet elevated.  I ended up falling back asleep for a few hours, which was strange still since I had 8 good hours of sleep already.

When I woke up at noon I knew the swelling was not normal and I needed to call my doctor, especially since it was a Friday and I didn’t want to wait until Monday to see someone.  I made an appointment for 1:10pm and used the next hour to clean up some of the house and pay some bills.  Oh, how I wished I had used this time to take a shower!  I should have known something was up after we took this picture- I KNEW I looked extra big.  

The first thing they did at my appointment was take my weight.  When I left the hospital on Thursday I weighed right at 140 pounds, and I typically was putting on a pound per week the previous few weeks of pregnancy.  Imagine my surprise when I stepped on the scale and it said 150 pounds!!! I knew that couldn’t be right, as did my nurse, so I stepped off and stepped back on and it was still 150!  She had me go to the bathroom and then she re-checked me on another scale and I was still 150.  We were shocked, and I knew something had to be wrong for me to go up 10 pounds almost overnight.  The bad news was almost confirmed after she took my blood pressure (which is normally in the 115/60 range) and told me I would have to wait in a room so someone could come talk to me.

My favorite nurse, Kim, came in and checked out my swelling and told me I was showing signs of pre-eclampsia and needed to go back to Labor & Delivery to be monitored.  I knew the only way to handle pre-e was to deliver the baby and asked her if this was “it” and she said it really depended on my blood work and that they would draw my blood once I was in L&D.

I raced home and packed our hospital bags just as Matt was getting home from work.  I caught him up and told him this could or could not be the real thing, but we needed to get packed, just in case.  The night before I had sat down and typed up my hospital bag list, and I’m so thankful I had that to look off of because my brain was going 150 miles per hour at that point.  We didn’t even have the car seat installed so we threw the boxes in the back of the truck as we left and prayed we would be sent home so we would have some more time to prep some things back at the house.

We called our moms on the way to L&D so they would know what was going on.  Honestly, I had just checked out of a 3-day stay at L&D so I’m sure they weren’t really thinking anything of me going back.  I told them both that there was a very real chance I would deliver today, and a very real chance they would send me home if my blood work looked okay.

To Be Continued...

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