"A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for. "
When my baby finally came into this world, it was a miracle. When I think about all the obstacles and EM related troubles he had to fight, he really is a miracle. Once again, EM tried to take away something from me and luckily it did not succeed. Once again, I had to go through what seemed like a horrible nightmare! I remember thinking in labor, why oh why can't I have just one thing that is easy? Guess that is not my fate, but my baby makes it all worthwhile in the end. But, I don't wish my labor on anyone...
Erythromelalgia is such a strange and horrible disorder that keeps finding ways of trying to kill me with pain and suffering and no one knows much about it!! I went from being super pregnant lady wth really low blood pressure to severe preeclamptic in 1 week. I went in for my 36 week pregnancy checkup and my blood pressure was 145/93 and I thought that was strange because my normal pregnancy BP is 100-110/50-60 ish range and that is after walking/running 30 blocks to the docs office. They checked my BP again when I left the doctors office just in case it was a fluke but it was still the same. Hummmpfffh. ? So, I went home and looked up preeclampsia and there it was staring me in the face. There is a correlation between preeclampsia and "blood vessel" disorders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and when I was reading all the side effects, I realized I had most of them!@ ???? The doctors office didn't seemed concerned earlier, but I instantly was. Something just didn't feel right. I was having this sharp pain under my right ribs which I thought was weird... I had a nightmare that it was the placenta detatching but I didn't mention it to the doctor because everytime I mentioned something I was experiencing he would just say to me thats normal. I also was having swelling in the face, eyelids and hands. I thought all swelling was normal, but I guess face/eyes and hands to my extent, was NOT NORMAL. I had actually made a joke to a friend earlier in the week that even my eyelds were swollen. SO NOT FUNNY NOW. THen during Thanksgiving, as I was cleaning, my hand swelled up like a baseball mitt and wouldn't go down!!! until after a while and cold water. This is the tricky bit.... EM makes you swell up. So how am I supposed to know the difference between normal pregnancy, EM and preeclamptic swelling?????????? not to mention this past week, I was getting horrible migraine type headaches with the aura and the bright lights. I should have known it was different because I haven't had migraines in many years really, and these ones, the aura and bright lights would stick around with the head ache pain, and previously would go away. Sunday morning, I get 6 calls from my doctor frantically asking me to come in to his office for another BP/urine test. I guess he hadn't realized my BP had stayed up during the checkup. SO Dan and I go in and once again, BP is 147/96 ish and I had +1 proteins in urine... all signs of mild preeclampsia. My doctor then orders us to the hospital for monitoring... SIGH... NOT AGAIN!@!!!@@@##$$@!@ I hate going to the hospital to be monitored. BLECH> I am so glad I ate something this time around...but i wish it was more than just a cream cheese bagel, because I wouldn't be eating for 3 days!!! Should have pigged out on everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We get to the hospital and I get hooked up to machines again... yay me. They come and do the urine and lab tests and my BP gets taken every few minutes...but the time I am out of the hospital I think they measured my BP 1000 times at least!!! They decide with all my symptoms to keep me overnight for hospitalization. My BP hit 154/110 as the highest, but it didn't stay that high the whole time, it hovered around 140/90's which is mild preeclampsia. The doctors didn't seem too concerned but they just wanted to keep me to be safe. I thought for sure they would send me home the next morning and was annoyed that I was in the hospital AGAIN...
but it turned out to be extremely lucky that I was in the hospital because if I had gone home, something terrible could have happened. The doctors did their rounds and labs, and next thing I know I am getting induced because I went from mild Preeclampsia to SEVERE preeclampsia overnight... This is where I got scared, would this kill me? would this kill my baby? The only way to stop preeclampsia is to deliver the baby but what if it was too late? STUPID EM!!! Why?????? Please baby, be ok. So they started the Pitocin drip and Magnesium (I HATE THIS STUFF) and my doctor said it was go time... but I knew I was in for A LONG LONG LONG LABOR. I'm going to call my doctor OB1... :) put this balloon contraption inside that helps get you dilated faster... once you push it out then it helps speed things along. Several hours later, I FINALLY PUSHED OUT THE BALLOON... along with the mucous plug... ew... but then I started throwing up. I threw up so many times, it was horrible!! They kept telling me it was a good sign and I kept wanting to punch them in the face... how can throwing up be good?? I hit 6 cm dilated and STAYED THERE FOR what seemed like an eternity!!!! apparently magnesium for blood pressure slows labor down and pitocin speeds it up, so you have to find a balance. They broke my water which was kind of funny because I had a high amount of fluid and I was gushing like niagara falls!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Literally, it was all over the place!! :)
Right about now my epidural falls out... ??????????????????? The anethisiologist tech actually said, "how does that even happen?" This is where it got UGLY. I started to feel excruciating pain and they wouldn't give me another@@!! They kept denying it was out and tried other drugs and none of them worked!! The tech kept telling me that the epidural would not take away the "PRESSURE" FEELING...just the pain... and I was getting mad because I WAS IN PAIN!! At one point she actually pushed me with her finger and asked me what that felt like... ???? PAIN YOU IDIOT. I know the difference between pressure and pain...and THIS WAS PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! How about I punch you in the face and you tell me if it is just pressure??? I will admit, I had turned into the dreaded "b-tch" and I didn't feel bad about it at the time. Every time a contraction hit, I would scream bloody murder! It literally felt like someone sawing me in half. I was getting really upset at the nurse who kept trying to tell me to push.... how the hell can I push with this pain? I know what you might be thinking.... I must be a wuss.... BUT ON THE CONTRARY... I live through extreme pain. I didn't even feel my ruptured appendix until it was almost too late. ? So when I say it hurts...IT BLOODY HURTS. Turns out there is a reason for my pain...see below. Finally, the anesthisiologist comes back in. He decides to put another one in after I begged him to just kill me. THANK GOD. They are wonderful things... don't judge me. I didn't want an epidural at first, but I had no choice and there was no way he was coming out without one.
Finally, I was 10 cm dilated and it was time to push! 18 hours later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once the epidural was back in, I was fine and ready to push. The pushing wasn't that bad because all I felt was pressure.... (haha) but after Luke came out. The doc said I was hemmoraging and couldn't stop the bleeding and was frantically stitching me up. He looked like a mad scientist. This is the bit where it all went wrong for me. But, Luke Benjamin, was perfect. It was scary because he wasn't crying at first like they are supposed to. It was because the drugs I was on affected him and made him very sleepy. He finally cried and looked so cute and I got to hold him. I was still out of it because of the drugs... but all that mattered was that he was ok. I will spare you the horrid details, but I ended up with a gazillion stitches and he left a lot of damage to my insides that I am still recovering from. I had to stay an extra night in the monitoring room, but the next night we paid for a private room. IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!! The food was excellent and I didn't have to share the room with anyone else.
Luke Benjamin Hacking was born on November 30, 2010 at 6:38 am. He weighed 6 lbs 2 ozs and was 20 1/2 inches long. He was born 4 weeks early and really skinny!!!!! He ended up with jaundice and had to stay an extra night under the tanning lights. He also lost almost 1 lb partially because of the magnesium, and he was tongue tied.... (another blog post). Poor little man! But we finally got to take him home.
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