Carter's Birth Story: Part 2

Part 1

We got checked into L&D right away, monitor on, urine sample taken via catheter (ouch!), blood work drawn and then just had to wait 45 minutes for the results to come back from the lab.  In the meantime my nurse, Vanessa, was taking my blood pressure every 10 minutes and I was looking way better that I did while I was at the office.  Matt and I breathed a sigh of relief and thought we were probably going home. 

You can see how swollen my face was getting at this point

At 5:00pm on the dot Vanessa walked back in and handed me the phone and said Dr. P wanted to talk to me.  I immediately knew that wasn’t good.  Dr. P proceeded to tell me that I had all the signs of pre-eclampsia: the swelling, protein in my urine, the rapid weight gain and the high blood pressure.  She said the blood work tests for something in my liver and my blood platelet count, among other things.  I think she said my liver enzymes were high and my platelets low, and I was past pre-eclampsia and had a very serious condition called HELLP Syndrome.  She said we needed to deliver the baby right away, and she was in the car on the way to the hospital for my c-section.  I asked about a vaginal birth and she said her fear was that by the time I had dilated to 10 centimeters and was ready to push the damage to my liver would be so severe and I might be looking at a life-or-death situation.  Yikes! After we hung up I told Matt what she said, and I remember being really calm about the entire thing.  It was like as soon as she told me I needed a c-section I relaxed and knew it was all in God’s hands and He was going to take care of things from here on out.  And we were going to meet our baby!

After that things got fast and furious.  Matt called our moms back and the nurse threw scrubs at him.  We had 2 more nurses come in my room and Vanessa started my IV while I signed consent forms and another nurse hooked up all sorts of machines.  Vanessa walked me through what was going to happen which made me feel a lot better.  She also mentioned that after the c-section I would have to go back on the magnesium for 24 hours to reduce the pre-e/HELLP.  That piece of news was more discouraging than the c-section news because I knew how I would feel on the magnesium and that is NOT how I wanted to spend my sons first 24 hours with him.  She assured me it would be a much lower dose since we weren’t using it for pre-term labor and were instead using it for HELLP.  (They had me at a level 5 magnesium drip the previous 3 days in L&D and this time I would only be on a level 2 dose for the first 12 hours, then down to a level 1 dose.)

Dr. P

By 6:00pm most of our family was there and both sets of parents came back to see us.  We took a few pictures and prayed together in a circle around my bed, which really helped me.  Minutes later Dr P was ready and they had me walk back to the operating room.  By that point the swelling was so bad it went all the way up to my hips and I couldn’t bend my knees.  I had to walk like a peg-leg back to the OR which was funny to me at the time.

I walked into the OR at 6:23pm.  They left Matt outside while I got my spinal, which did not hurt at all except for the position you have to sit in for the needle to be inserted.  I seriously didn’t feel anything and then they had my lie down and started prepping everything.  I remember thinking (as my legs were quickly falling asleep) that it felt like I was at Seattle Grace Hospital from Grey’s Anatomy and Dr. McDreamy was about to walk in the room, lol!

Once they pulled the sheet up in front of my face I got really scared.  I started shaking really badly and thankfully Matt came back at that time with Dr P.  He was so cute in his scrubs!  Dr P asked me how I was doing and I told her I was scared and I thought I could still feel everything.  She told me she was pinching my belly with special tweezers right then and I wasn’t feeling it, which helped just a little.  They didn’t strap my arms down and I was shaking so badly I had to hold onto the metal bars that were holding the curtain up.  

To be continued...