what a few weeks this has been
crazy, amazing, scary, insane. That's all I can say
Eli is here. His birth was quite an interesting experience to say the least.
things had been perfect the entire pregnancy. I was having slight pain
in my right side but the dr said it was just stretching pain and nothing
to worry about. Then on the 26th of December, while Paul and I were
trying to get our car out of impound (more on that in another time), I
had a huge amount of blood while going to the bathroom. I freaked. We
went home and the dr told me to see if I had contractions and if I did I
was to go to Labour and Delivery.
So my contractions
started at about 5 minutes apart then went to 2. So we went to the
hospital. I was given meds to stop the labour and told I had a UTI, that
the blood was only in the urine and i was not dilated at all. The blood
stopped over the next few hours and things were fine.We had a fun
weekend and then the excitement started on Sunday evening.
Paul
went Home teaching and I finished cleaning up. My back was killing me
(not abnormal for me) so i laid on the floor. By the time Paul got home I
was in agony, i couldn't figure out why. There was no contractions but i
was going to die. I googled it :) I figured I had a kidney stone, by my
symptoms and that I had a supposed UTI. We went to the ER because I was
screaming
Once at the hospital, they hooked me up to
monitors, saw no contractions, baby was fine and i wasn't dilated.They
gave me morphine, i've never been so happy to have drugs :) They did an
ultrasound and told me that I had a 9 mm kidney stone (ouch, normally
they are about 3 or 4 at most), but that it was in my kidney so it
shouldn't really be causing any pain.
The baby was
still doing fine. No contractions, strong heart beat and no dilation. I
stayed on the morphine and sat in the hospital while the urologist tried
to decide what to do. The normal treatment for kidney stones is
radiation but you need a CT (not safe for pregnancy). They weren't
talking induction yet, they said let's wait it out. That was the 31st.we
celebrated the new year (joyful in the hospital) and my pain started to
get better... okay..
Then the fun started ( I know it was already fun, right). 8 PM I get up to go to the bathroom and on the way back I start getting pain in my right side (not my kidney's
like the pain had been before).I'm in too much pain to put the monitors
to check Eli so they wait since they think it's just the kidneys still.
9:45 PM The excruiating pain starts - i never hurt this bad, and I've
experience it all i promise I start screaming, writhing around in pain,
and generally freaking out - think the exorcist - the nurses have no
idea what is wrong. this part got weird, My mind was clear sort of, I
could nearly look down on myself and see what I was doing, but I
couldn't control myself, another part of my brain was out of control...
They give me morphine (double the normal dose) and it does NOTHING. My
right side feels like it is tearing inside, and my back feels like
someone has a knife in it. I'm praying with all my heart for someone to
help me. They call the dr who starts bringing up induction in the
morning, and treating with stronger meds until then... They give me the
staydol (or whatever it was called)and I finally calm down. then they
put the monitors on.... uh oh
The baby is in distress.
His heart rate drops from 140 to 90. It won't go back up. It is moving
around (normal) but wont raise to normal levels. They decide to do an
emergency c section. by 11:44 PM Eli was born. I'm lucky that I had a
good anesthesiologist ( he was able to give me a spinal 3
vertebrae lower than normal in a fused back - took him 4 hits but he did
it) and i was able to be awake. They had me prep-ed by 11:38 and Eli
was here within 6 minutes. He cried almost immediately - it took them
FOREVER to tell me his gender, we hadn't found it out - but he was here
and he looked great. He was 5 lbs 11 oz and 19.5 inches (considering he
was 5 weeks early, that's impressive).
They sewed me
up - took them forever and i didn't get to see him, that part was
probably the hardest for me since I didn't even think that much about
the baby, he was just there. I felt very disconnected from the whole
experience. It went so fast. The room was cold, no one was really
talking to me and i couldn't move.
They never did
figure out what happened. Why I was in pain, why Eli was in distress,
but I'm chalking it up to a miracle. If i hadn't started to be in pain
they wouldn't have checked Eli for another 6 hours (they were only doing
it every now and then since he looked so good and I was feeling better)
he might not have survived the distress. But he's healthy. He didn't
even have jaundice (amazing according to the drs) and the pedi said " he
doesn't even know he's a preemie"
I had the CT
scan and they found 2 stones, both over 1 cm .My kidney stones were
removed on the 3rd (general anesthesia and a 40 minute surgery) with
radiation and i had a stint placed (I get to have that removed next week
- joy). We came home today (the 4th). Everyone is fine, thankfully but
what I crazy week. Grateful to have my health and a healthy baby, this
could have gone completely different, thank the Lord that it didn't.
