Sunday's Arrival

Now that I've had a few weeks to recover, I thought I would recap Sunday's birth story before I forget!

At 37 weeks, I went in for my usual OB check up to find out her growth rate hsd slowed. She went from being in the 40th percentile to the 5th and my dr was concerned there was an issue with my placenta so he recommended an induction for that weekend. We were to call in on the Sunday to find out what time to come in.

If you've never gone for a scheduled induction its much like ordering your own baby. You call in and pick what time you'd like to deliver. I chose 1pm so we'd have some time to relax.

Once we went in, we were put in a back room ( which smelled so old and musty!) and were told to wait as they were very busy. An hour later a nurse came in to take my vitals. She pointed out that my blood pressure seemed high and said she would take it again to double check. I was also asked to provide a urine sample. I was reading a magazine at that time and she suggested I put the magazine away and get some rest. I shouldve taken that as a sign of things to come.

Within a few minutes we were told we were moving rooms and were assigned a few more nurses. Once we got into the new room (which was much more spacious with no musty smell), we were overwhelmed with an entire team of doctors and nurses who all started inserting tubes into my arms. It turned out that my blood pressure was climbing past 200 and there was protein in my urine, both signs of something called HELLP syndrome. My placenta was basically deteriorating in my body and started releasing toxins that was overwhelming my liver. I was likely to have a stroke due to my blood pressure if they could not get it down quickly and so they had to start high dosages of meds through IV in addition to monitoring my pressure through my artery. The anesthetist was also checking my back for the epidural and I also had to get a catheter to monitor my urine output. I felt like a pin cushion.

Unfortunately the meds made me extremely ill and my liver was causing such extreme pain in my chest I started to throw up while they were inserting my epidural. I was already at 3cm so the Ob was hoping he could deliver the baby naturally without a csection. Once all the bp meds were in they started the oxytocin in order to progress labour. All of this excitement started around 3pm. By 6pm, I was only 5 cm dilated. By 8:30, I had only progressed another cm but luckily the epidural took away the chest pain and although I could still feel contractions, they were a walk in the park compared to the liver pain.

At that point Gerwyn realized our parking had well past expired so he went down to move the car. I was feeling stronger contractions by then so asked him to send in the nurse to check on his way out. When she came in to check, I had progressed to 10 cm within the last 15 mins and was ready to push. They quickly called Gerwyn back from the parking lot and all of a sudden, the team of drs and nurses were back in my room telling me to push. Gerwyn got back just in time to grab my leg and with 4 or 5 pushes, my tiny girl was out. I still felt so nauseous from all of the meds I started throwing up again. I barely remember them putting her on my chest.

It was a whirlwind of activity again as they closely monitored my blood pressure and added more meds to the mix. I ended up staying in that room (pretty much attached to the bed) for 3 days. I finally had all of the tubes removed after day 3 and was able to go to the bathroom all by myself. I felt so free! Unfortunately it was short lived as I still needed to stay in the hospital another 3 days to monitor all of my vitals. Luckily during the whole ordeal, Miss Sunday was perfectly fine and passed all of her tests. She was sucking back formula and happy as a clam while hamunee took care of her.

I admit, the experience of being hospitalized was awful. It was the first time in my life I have ever been really really sick (near death even!) but the staff at Mt. Sinai were very reassuring and made me feel like I would be taken care of. They never told me how serious it was until afterwards and during the scary parts were very calm and supportive. I was very lucky to have gone into the hospital that day and am thankful to have been in their care.

I'll be on the road to recovery for awhile but am already feeling much better and am slowly being weaned off all my meds! The saying about having your health really is true, without it, I felt pretty hopeless and I will definitely remember not to take it for granted.

Now that its been almost 3 weeks, ive had sufficient time to bond with my newest daughter, make up for lost time with my oldest daughter (I cant believe she's a big sister now, she used to be my baby!) and remember what life is like with a newborn (The lack of sleep, explosive poos, and sore boobs!)

Time to enjoy maternity leave! Who wants a cupcake?