I can still remember watching in shock as two lines appeared on the pregnancy test. I screamed as soon as I saw it and ran downstairs to tell my husband the news. And then we just sat there, shocked and talking about how one tiny little extra line had changed our lives forever.
We had been planning at 10-day cruise for months and coincidentally, found out we were expecting 1 week before the we left on the trip. We had given ourselves a little babymoon without even knowing it. And THANKGOODNESS cruise ships have unlimited pizza because all I wanted were carbs, carbs and more carbs. It's still fun to look back on those vacation pictures and know a little baby was growing inside of me.
It started getting real when we started going to the Doctor appointments, especially hearing the heartbeat and seeing the baby in the early ultrasound. The baby's due date was May 30, 2012. We made the decision to not find out the sex of the baby, which everyone around us hated. LOL. "All you will get are green and yellow clothes...." We heard that a lot.
January 2012
March 2012
In February, I started having high blood pressure. As a first time mom, I had no idea what that meant. I had really only heard of gestational diabetes and pre-term labor. (I tried really hard to stay off of webmd while pregnant so as to not freak myself out about anything). In March, my blood pressure was even higher than before and the Dr seemed concerned. I started doing non-stress tests in April and was unexpectedly admitted to Labor and Delivery after one appointment. The baby wasn't moving like they wanted and my blood pressure was too high to go home. I was there for a few hours and sent home.
I was planning on working until May 11th, to maximize my maternity leave. I was also switching departments at my job when I came back from maternity leave, so the last few weeks of work were preparing for someone else to take over my job. I was sad to be leaving an office I had called home for 6 years. the Dr started to schedule extra appointments in April with more non-stress tests. It was becoming routine at this point. On April 17th, I had a meeting with my boss to go over my job duties and open projects (she was amazing through this process and made sure I was checking my BP throughout the day to stay on top of my health). I had an appointment later that day and she prophetically asked, "Are you coming back?" What a silly question, I thought.
At that appointment, I was put on bed rest. I came back to work with my note, crying. It was very emotional to me. All of the sudden, I was leaving a group of coworkers who had known me longer than my husband, who were there when I graduated college, got engaged, got married, bought a house and now pregnant with my first child. I felt like I was letting them down because I had this condition that caused me to leave work earlier than I had anticipated. And more then anything, I was freaking out that there really could be something wrong with me and/or the baby. The Doctor literally told me to go home and lay in bed with the blinds closed. Nothing to stress me out or raise my blood pressure.
For the next few weeks, we were at the doctor twice a week for appointments and NSTs. Twice I had to do a 24-hour urine catch because the protein levels in my urine were too high. Not FUN. On Tuesday, May 8th, we went in for our regular Tuesday appointment at 10:30am and got settled in to do the NST. The Doc wasn't liking the baby's movements, so in the wheelchair I went, down to Labor and Delivery. While the wheelchair part was scary, this was my 7th time being admitted due to lack of movement so it didn't feel new. But ohhhh how it was.
In L&D, I changed into my gown and got monitored up. After a few hours, they decided that I needed to start the labor process because the baby needed to come out. We were given a room, preparing for an induction and started calling our families to share the news. It was all quite surreal.
In the early evening, I was given Cervidil because my body wasn't even close to being ready for labor. They told us an induction could last several days and to prepare for the baby not even coming until Friday. FRIDAY! It was Tuesday, ugh. I told Aaron to head home for the night because obviously nothing was going to happen with the baby. Also, my hospital bag was at home and we had a dog that needed tending to. So reluctantly, he headed home around 10:45 pm.
I laid in bed and watched tv for a bit. It was Friends, which I always enjoyed watching. At about 11:30pm, a room full of nurses rushed into my room, laid me down flat and gave me oxygen. They told me that the baby was having decels. That was pretty scary. After a few minutes, everything went back to normal, but they told me that if it happened again, they would go straight to an emergency c-section.
I called Aaron right away to come back to the hospital. We lived about 30 minutes away at the time. The rest of the night was rough. I had to wear the oxygen mask, lay a certain way in the bed, and had to constantly get up to go to the bathroom because of the IV drip. The next day I felt a little better and they started me on pitocen. We had a few family visitors and that was nice. They broke my water in the afternoon- but there was no fluid. It was at that point, they decided to do an emergency C-section. From that moment, it was a whirlwind. They prepped me for surgery, Aaron got his scrubs on and I went into the operating room. I got a spinal- EK - and laid on the table. I had a bad reaction to the meds and began shaking profusely. What a sight it must have been for Aaron walk into the room to see me on that table like that.
The entire staff was so great and Aaron sat next to me the entire time. He got brave and looked behind the screen at one point. Later he told me it looked like a 'meat locker' with all of my organs hanging up. EW. At 5:48 pm on May 9th, 2012 Lucas was born weighing in at 4 pounds, 13 ounces and 18.5 inches long.
Later the doctor told me that there was no amniotic fluid left and it was good they did the delivery when they did.
Because of his size, Luke had to stay in the Special Care nursery, in an incubator for a week. He was too little to regulate his blood sugar. He also had jaundice.
I was able to stay in the hospital the entire time he was there. Once I was discharged after my recovery, they let me stay in a vacant room to be with my baby. I could come and go as I pleased, I wasn't under doctor care any longer, but I could stay close to visit baby Luke often. I think in the 5 days of this, I left once to go eat dinner with my husband. It was an awkward feeling to a) see the sun, I had been in the hospital for 8 days all said and done and b) leave the hospital knowing my baby was still there.
Visiting him in the SC Nursery was good for my recovery because it got me up and walking every few hours to the back of the L&D wing.
On our last night in the hospital, they let Luke stay in my room to see how he would do. It was such a blessing to finally feel like I had my little baby boy in my arms as much as I wanted.
Asleep at home.
We took our newborn pictures 5 weeks after he was born, he was finally the size of a newborn :)
Turns out I had Pre-Clampsia and Inner Uterine Growth Restriction. Luke was born at exactly 37 weeks, but was wearing preemie clothes. He is now a thriving 5-year-old who has more then caught up in his size.
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