The Full Story

Well, just in case in the craziness anyone missed the pieces and parts about how we got here, this is the full story.

I had noticed in the past few weeks that I had been swelling a lot but assumed that it was all part in parcel with the pregnancy process but when I suddenly gained 10 pounds in three days I went in to see my doctor. At the time my blood pressure was a little high but not completely out of bounds. They ran a test to see if I was dumping protein into my urine. A normal output would be somewhere around 100 and women with preeclampsia measure over 300. My tests came back at over 3,000. I was put on bed rest and I had two steroid shots to increase the babies lung capacity. We were still hoping to milk the pregnancy out to 37 weeks.

By the next morning I had gained another 10 pounds. Another call to the doctor had me back in the hospital for medically monitored bedrest. I was poked and prodded and another protein test was ordered. The following afternoon my doctor stopped by and we were discussing options when a nurse came in with my protein results, they were over 12,000 and my liver platelets were falling. My doctor said that he hadn't seen numbers like that in over 15 years. So, yea me.

We were immediately transferred to a different hospital because the NICU where we were was full. They started me on a magnesium drip to control my blood pressure (now measuring around 190/120). It was so completely awful. I shook uncontrollably for 8 hours. I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine that would go off every 15 minutes and a nurse would come in every hour to check on me. It felt like my eyes were burning from the inside out and I had this horrible dry cough. They had also begun to give me medication to start inducing labor.

When my doctor came back in the next morning I had not dilated at all and that it could 10-15 hours before I was dilated enough to deliver. We decided to go ahead with a c-section. Within 45 minutes Sydney was born. The delivery was maybe the easiest part of the process. My doctors were great and her first little cry was perfect.

They wheeled me by to see Syd on the way to recovery but I was too out of it between the magnesium and the operation, plus my BP was still sky high. From recovery they moved me to a labor and delivery room. I was pretty out if it for about 24 hours. I couldn't control my internal temperature and was hovering around 95. They had to use this thing they called a "bear hugger" to try to increase get control. It was like laying under one of the cheap swimming pool floats and I felt like I was burning up and I still had to go another 12 hours on the mag.

Finally, two days later, my BP stabilized and yesterday I was released.

Through all this Sydney has been a rockstar. They tried to put her on oxygen but she wanted no part of it. She has been on the "tanning lamp" until today and is on a feeding tube. They are increasing her feeds and she should be growing exponentially in the next few weeks. Hopefully she will be home with us by September.