What a long strange trip it's been...
OK. I finally have a little time to start writing down what has happened this past week with me.
Here is the story of how Felix was born.
Tuesday, Feb 26, I was feeling pretty darned crappy. I hadn't been feeling very well most of the week before either...though none of the symptoms were anything that anyone could read as anything not to be expected as "typical" for the last month of pregnancy. I think the biggest problem was that no one else I talked to had all the symptoms at once...and the sum of the individual aches and pains seemed to just add up to more than all the individual ones. Most folks were telling me everything was fine and to be expected. Floyd was trying to get me to go get myself a massage to feel better, my mom even told me that maybe what I needed was to go get my hair done or see a beautician or do something to make myself not feel "so pregnant".
But Tuesday I had hit my limit. At about 10:30 am, I gave up and called the doctor's office because I had been throwing up, not holding down food for almost a week, and the only times I seemed to get any relief was when I had taken Tylenol and floated in a warm pool. I wasn't sure how much Tylenol I could take, and was worried because my pee (and my bile from throwing up) had started to have an orange tint. They say your pee is supposed to be lemonade color...so I thought either I was just throwing up more than I could re-hydrate myself, or perhaps the colored TUMS or maybe even the Tylenol was somehow affecting the color. The contractions I had been feeling off and on were still happening, but not at all painful and at nothing that could be considered a worrisome rate: they were very inconsistent, some 45 minutes apart, others 20 minutes, then a break for an hour... etc. Plus they didn't in themselves really hurt much, it just felt like my stomach was getting tight. The one thing I wasn't at all worried about was little Felix. He had been spunky and kicky as usual.
The nurse asked me some immediate questions: headaches, blurred vision, spots in front of my eyes, that would have caused concern...but I wasn't experiencing any of these. She told me that a doctor would call me back - when I asked how long (I was really desperate for immediate comfort) she said by around lunch time.
I spent the next few hours on the couch waiting by the phone. At one point my mom called and I told her I wanted to keep the phone line clear, so we instant messaged a bit. It was the first time my mom had tried using the instant messenger with me, so I was trying hard to type out full sentences which was really hard to do considering how I felt... I told her how crappy I was feeling and so on, and then I suddenly had to go throw up. Unfortunately, I hit my laptop on the way, and my keyboard was all messed up afterwards for the next few hours, so I had to shut down and just sit by the phone and wait after that. I hadn't even had time to make another post about how crappy my day was continuing.
I woke up at 2 pm realizing I had been laying on the couch groaning for the last hour and got flustered and teary and called the doctor's office back. The nurse who answered said she was surprised someone told me my doctor was going to call me back because my doctor wasn't even in town. I started to get all hysterical on the phone and she told me to go ahead and come in right away so they could do a urinalysis on me.
I called Floyd to let him know I was going in, and took the car and drove myself to the doctor's office. When I got there, the parking lot was as usual during the week, very full. I ended up across the parking lot on a floor above the main walkway to the offices, only to get to the elevator to find it out of service. I was so exhausted and unhappy, and went down the stairs. A woman saw me in the stairway and asked if I was OK, and I told her yeah, that it was just bad timing for the elevator to be broken.
When I got to the office they told me that since I had a normally scheduled appointment with my doctor (Dr. Suzanne Slayton-Milam) the next morning, that they would just do the whole exam today instead. I would be seeing some other doctor (Dr. Ralph Lewis) instead, and now Floyd wasn't here with me for it. I called Floyd on my cell and was pretty upset, because this appointment was going to be when the weekly meetings started and she was going to do a full physical on me..and I wasn't sure how I felt about having a stranger start with this on me, especially without Floyd there to support me. But there wasn't going to be time to get Floyd to come join me. They called me in to see Dr. Lewis, and a nurse took my blood pressure. I was all semi hysterical and crying about how bad I felt and about the stupid elevator and the nurse told me that my blood pressure was a bit high. My urine sample was nothing new...again with the trace amounts of protein in it, but nothing particularly threatening or unusual for late pregnancy. She wanted me to calm down a bit since I was so tired and exhaustion and crankiness could easily have caused those readings. She had me lay down a bit and went to get the doc and they would take my blood pressure again in a bit. A while later the doc came in and I was a bit more calm. Dr. Lewis turned out to be a very no-nonsense kind of guy. I wanted to start at the beginning of when all my real troubles seemed to start, so I started with the Tuesday before, explaining about how I had called and found out I could take Tylenol and so forth. He sort of snapped at me, saying..."this was a week ago!" and then was very short with me (not in a nasty way, just in a "let's get to the point" sort of way).. He took my blood pressure again and it was still a teeny bit elevated, and then he started poking and prodding my back to see if I hurt in certain places. I didn't, but he told me he wanted me to go to the hospital across the street right away anyways, and check myself into the maternity ward to get an IV hooked up because I was a bit dehydrated, and he wanted a blood test done on me. He told me he would come meet me there afterwards.
So far, it still didn't sound particularly bad, and I was frankly relieved that someone was going to do something to make me feel better soon. Plus it meant Floyd would have time to get there in time for the rest of the normal appointment. I called Floyd on my cell again on the way over and he said he'd hop the bus and join me.
I got to the hospital and checked myself in. They got me a nice small room and laid me down and hooked up a monitor to me. Baby was doing just great and I was having contractions but not at any rate that was really unusual or worrisome. I was being a complete sissy about the needle for the blood test and when it came time to hook up the IV I was really getting ornery. (This is now extremely funny to me considering what later developed)
I asked about needle size for the IV, and the nurse explained that there are really 2 different sized needles they could use. I told her I wanted the smaller one, and she said that for re-hydration that would be fine, but that in the worst case scenario, the blood tests would come back with something bad and they might have to induce labor, which would mean they'd need to start another IV with a bigger needle for that. But, we told each other, that's not going to happen...it's extremely unlikely...so she agreed to just use the smaller needle. Still, even the smaller needle was freaking me out - I had never been hospitalized for anything before. I started to cry saying I wished Floyd was there, and just after I said that he came in.
Shortly after that, things started to get really hairy, really fast.
Doctor came in and told us that my blood test results showed some really serious things.
Number one: I had a very serious form of disease commonly called toxemia, or preeclampsia, except that the more common version of toxemia affects the kidneys and can eventually lead to a complete kidney shut down. What I had was an extremely rare form of the disease called HELLP syndrome which was bordering on critical. In addition to worries of my kidneys shutting down, HELLP syndrome also messes with the liver.
To make matters worse, my last platelet count had been up at a nice healthy 365(k). They were now down to 55. The doc then told us, no one knows what causes the disease, and the only way to cure the disease is to get the baby out. He was saying that with my platelet count so low, he wanted it done that night because I was in very serious condition. He ordered a second blood test right away to verify the platelet count. While we waited for those results, he then explained what needed to happen.
The HELLP was bad enough that they were extremely worried that I was going to start having seizures, so they needed to pump me full of magnesium to keep those seizures from coming on.
Because the platelet count is what causes your blood to clot..and the number was very very bad, doc said they didn't have time to induce labor because that would take too long so it was going to have to be a C-section. In addition, the platelet count was so low that there was considerable risk if they were to try to do a normal epidural or spinal C-section because it could cause bleeding into the spinal chord, so it was going to have to be done under emergency general anaesthesia.
I started to panic...I could feel the urgency in the voices and actions of the doctor and nurses around me, and Floyd was asking if we could at least call my regular doctor to hear it from her too. My baby wasn't due till April 2... I was in the 35th week, 35 days away from the due date, and we had luckily learned enough about general C-sections to know that it was now done only under extreme circumstances, and it was one where they sent the husband out of the room to wait in the lobby while they did all this scary stuff. But my doctor, it turned out, was in Texas, where her husband was apparently getting treatment for stage 3 Hodgkins disease... but they all assured us that she would have told us the same thing. I wanted to call my mom, I was absolutely terrified. My mom was supposed to fly to Brussels, Belgium the next morning for a NATO science for peace panel meeting and my dad was already on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic going to Geneva for an unrelated business trip. Had this happened only a few hours later we wouldn't have had any way of contacting my family at all for a solid week.
I called my mom and was freaking out, crying and scared. Floyd was terrified as well. My mom with her medical background understood enough of the technical jargon they were telling us to know that matters were very serious though she had never heard of HELLP syndrome before and we still didn't know exactly what it was, other than it was very serious and that if they didn't treat me right away, they were worried they could lose me.
We told her we'd call her back when we got more details, and shortly afterwards everyone came running in to tell me that now my platelets had dropped further down to 50.
We need to have you on the operating table within a half hour they told me. They were already pumping me with magnesium, getting blood matches brought up and special IVs ready for transfusions should I need them during the operation.
All sorts of needles started getting poked into me and all I could think of was that I still had an appointment to sign my new life insurance policy papers on Wednesday morning and wasn't leaving Floyd prepared if I were to die.
Floyd called my mom as they were preparing to wheel me away, and I hugged and kissed him and we cried as they took me out of the room.
The nurse that had been with me from the start, Loreena, was holding my hand and soothing me as they prepared me for the operation. Because the general anaesthetic could not be handled by the baby, they couldn't ease me into it the way most patients are made to "fall into sleep" because they had to have me out and take the baby out right way before anything could reach him. The anesthesiologist told me they were going to drape a curtain in front of me and I saw a paper tent thing block my view of what was going on below my chest. I could feel something heavy like a rubber mat getting roughly laid out on my belly along with various medical tools and could sense all the urgency and speed with which everyone was moving. Then the anesthesiologist told me that I was going to feel a light pressure on my throat which was his finger, and that I would then fall asleep.
I felt him pressing on my esophagus and then he said Now, take a deep breath, and suddenly it was like my lungs had been stopped. I was still awake, I could see and hear what was going on though I couldn't move, but I totally couldn't breathe. I tried to take that deep breath but nothing would happen and I thought my god, I'm dead, and they just haven't figured it out yet. and then everything went away.
The next few hours are hazy at best. Floyd said that the doctors came out and told him that the baby was born at 8:52 pm. He was 4 pounds, 13 ounces, but spunky and active and apparently doing pretty well. Still, because he was so early, they had him in the Level 2 nursery for observation.
Floyd was told the baby and mom were doing ok, and that he could go see the baby. He said that it was extremely surreal and frightening looking at this baby and not knowing how I was doing.
Apparently, the few platelets I had were said to be extremely "functional" and I didn't bleed as much as they had expected, nor did I end up requiring the blood transfusions.
I know they told me that the baby was doing OK but I don't think that the fact that there was a baby involved in all of this really registered until quite a few hours later since I was still dealing with shock. At about 4 am I started to feel extremely weird. They were pumping me with magnesium and morphine, and I started to feel like I was losing touch with my lower body. I was trying to tell them I didn't feel right but I don't think anyone registered how not right it was until the doctor came in. The doctor realized I had no reflexes whatsoever in my legs, and I couldn't get my brain to send my legs or feet signals.. I could feel that they were touching my legs, but I couldn't remember how to tell my toes to move anymore. I was also suddenly not sure I remembered how to breathe anymore, and the nurses started doing breathing exercises like the ones they taught us in child birthing class, except not to control contractions but rather to give me something concrete to pay attention to in order to keep me breathing normally. My vision went completely double, and I was hallucinating like crazy.
I had apparently overdosed on Magnesium now, and so there was a second wave of extreme scariness while they tried to restabilize me again. They had to completely cut off the magnesium and it wasn't till late afternoon, maybe around 4 or 5 pm, that they could re-start the magnesium dosage at a halved rate again. All of Wednesday is now extremely hazy to me. I remember only small snippets, like the nurse Loreena crying at my bedside and holding my hand telling me how much I had scared everyone, and my doctor saying that they only gets a case like mine about once every 10 years or so. I remember some hallucinations, weird visions like a monkey made of slices of banana, and telling the nurses that I thought they were naked while they were doing a blood test on me, and something about melting trees and another one where I was in a large room filled with ladies boots.
I know that around 11:30 am, I remembered that there was a baby somewhere and asked about it. Floyd went to the nursery for me and brought me some Polaroids so I could see what the boy looked like, but it was really hard to connect myself to these pictures.
Things didn't start looking more like a labor and feeling less like an auto-accident or something like that, until shortly before my mom arrived. She had canceled her trip to Belgium and managed to catch the first flight she could get to Portland to be with me instead...arriving around 7pm. Shortly after she got here, Floyd went home really quick to grab some stuff and feed the cat and when he came back, they had just brought me the baby for a short half hour so that I could at least see him with my own eyes and touch him. It was almost 24 hours after the baby had been born.
It was the most magical experience I had ever had. Shortly before they had brought me the baby the nurses were telling me that they were going to have to take the catheter out the next day sometime. I had started to completely panic because I hadn't even been able to roll over in bed without help and couldn't even imagine having to get up to go to the bathroom. When they brought the baby in and I held him in my arms, he immediately latched onto my breast and started to suck. The nurses were simply astounded. Apparently, most babies at 35 weeks haven't got the cognitive development far enough to learn how to breastfeed, and this little guy was doing so well, normal full term babies could have been taking a few pointers from him. Floyd took some pictures like this one at that first meeting. I was so high off hormones and adrenalin that after they took the baby back I was able to, with some help, actually sit up, and then even stand.
The next day I was able to get up and sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled to the nursery, and by Friday I was doing so well, I was skipping the wheelchair altogether, for some of my trips.
One of the nurses who had been there on Wednesday morning when things were still extremely hairy saw me on Saturday and told me she almost didn't even recognize me.
By Sunday afternoon, the docs felt good enough about my progress to discharge me from the hospital. Felix was to stay in the Level 2 nursery for a bit longer. They had him on antibiotics, just in case, and were monitoring his breathing. He had had some minor de-oxidization stats that were normal for a kiddo this early, but they wanted to be ultra paranoid with him. That was fine with me, since paranoia probably saved my life.
We got a room in the nurses dorms in the hospital so that I would have a place to nap between feedings. His feedings were every 3 hours and by the time one was done and I got home I would have had about 20 minutes at home before I would have had to turn around and go back.
Felix was allowed to come home with us on Tuesday.
All in all, the experience was extremely unreal. It was terrifying and traumatic, and absolutely nothing like what you'd expect a labor experience to be like. I gained an incredible new perspective on all parents who'd gone through childbirth, because regardless of all the literature and videos and classes and anecdotes, there was simply nothing in the universe that could really compare to the actual experience having a baby and how much change that brings on. I think for most, the experience is quite different, with a gradual build up as the woman is preparing for the labor and then there's the labor and then theres the realizing that the baby is finally here, whereas I missed all that buildup time. Plus I faced a completely different kind of crisis at the same time so I'm sure that it was not your usual birthing story...
I'm so incredibly relieved now that we have this beautiful and healthy baby boy to look at and hold in our arms. It almost feels like Tuesday and most of Wednesday I was undergoing a life-changing crisis that had to do with facing mortality, and then, on Wednesday night, sitting there holding this perfect, incredibly adorable sweetie, I had a baby.
Links:
Felix's Baby Pictures and Videos
HELLP Experiences
Here is the story of how Felix was born.
Tuesday, Feb 26, I was feeling pretty darned crappy. I hadn't been feeling very well most of the week before either...though none of the symptoms were anything that anyone could read as anything not to be expected as "typical" for the last month of pregnancy. I think the biggest problem was that no one else I talked to had all the symptoms at once...and the sum of the individual aches and pains seemed to just add up to more than all the individual ones. Most folks were telling me everything was fine and to be expected. Floyd was trying to get me to go get myself a massage to feel better, my mom even told me that maybe what I needed was to go get my hair done or see a beautician or do something to make myself not feel "so pregnant".
But Tuesday I had hit my limit. At about 10:30 am, I gave up and called the doctor's office because I had been throwing up, not holding down food for almost a week, and the only times I seemed to get any relief was when I had taken Tylenol and floated in a warm pool. I wasn't sure how much Tylenol I could take, and was worried because my pee (and my bile from throwing up) had started to have an orange tint. They say your pee is supposed to be lemonade color...so I thought either I was just throwing up more than I could re-hydrate myself, or perhaps the colored TUMS or maybe even the Tylenol was somehow affecting the color. The contractions I had been feeling off and on were still happening, but not at all painful and at nothing that could be considered a worrisome rate: they were very inconsistent, some 45 minutes apart, others 20 minutes, then a break for an hour... etc. Plus they didn't in themselves really hurt much, it just felt like my stomach was getting tight. The one thing I wasn't at all worried about was little Felix. He had been spunky and kicky as usual.
The nurse asked me some immediate questions: headaches, blurred vision, spots in front of my eyes, that would have caused concern...but I wasn't experiencing any of these. She told me that a doctor would call me back - when I asked how long (I was really desperate for immediate comfort) she said by around lunch time.
I spent the next few hours on the couch waiting by the phone. At one point my mom called and I told her I wanted to keep the phone line clear, so we instant messaged a bit. It was the first time my mom had tried using the instant messenger with me, so I was trying hard to type out full sentences which was really hard to do considering how I felt... I told her how crappy I was feeling and so on, and then I suddenly had to go throw up. Unfortunately, I hit my laptop on the way, and my keyboard was all messed up afterwards for the next few hours, so I had to shut down and just sit by the phone and wait after that. I hadn't even had time to make another post about how crappy my day was continuing.
I woke up at 2 pm realizing I had been laying on the couch groaning for the last hour and got flustered and teary and called the doctor's office back. The nurse who answered said she was surprised someone told me my doctor was going to call me back because my doctor wasn't even in town. I started to get all hysterical on the phone and she told me to go ahead and come in right away so they could do a urinalysis on me.
I called Floyd to let him know I was going in, and took the car and drove myself to the doctor's office. When I got there, the parking lot was as usual during the week, very full. I ended up across the parking lot on a floor above the main walkway to the offices, only to get to the elevator to find it out of service. I was so exhausted and unhappy, and went down the stairs. A woman saw me in the stairway and asked if I was OK, and I told her yeah, that it was just bad timing for the elevator to be broken.
When I got to the office they told me that since I had a normally scheduled appointment with my doctor (Dr. Suzanne Slayton-Milam) the next morning, that they would just do the whole exam today instead. I would be seeing some other doctor (Dr. Ralph Lewis) instead, and now Floyd wasn't here with me for it. I called Floyd on my cell and was pretty upset, because this appointment was going to be when the weekly meetings started and she was going to do a full physical on me..and I wasn't sure how I felt about having a stranger start with this on me, especially without Floyd there to support me. But there wasn't going to be time to get Floyd to come join me. They called me in to see Dr. Lewis, and a nurse took my blood pressure. I was all semi hysterical and crying about how bad I felt and about the stupid elevator and the nurse told me that my blood pressure was a bit high. My urine sample was nothing new...again with the trace amounts of protein in it, but nothing particularly threatening or unusual for late pregnancy. She wanted me to calm down a bit since I was so tired and exhaustion and crankiness could easily have caused those readings. She had me lay down a bit and went to get the doc and they would take my blood pressure again in a bit. A while later the doc came in and I was a bit more calm. Dr. Lewis turned out to be a very no-nonsense kind of guy. I wanted to start at the beginning of when all my real troubles seemed to start, so I started with the Tuesday before, explaining about how I had called and found out I could take Tylenol and so forth. He sort of snapped at me, saying..."this was a week ago!" and then was very short with me (not in a nasty way, just in a "let's get to the point" sort of way).. He took my blood pressure again and it was still a teeny bit elevated, and then he started poking and prodding my back to see if I hurt in certain places. I didn't, but he told me he wanted me to go to the hospital across the street right away anyways, and check myself into the maternity ward to get an IV hooked up because I was a bit dehydrated, and he wanted a blood test done on me. He told me he would come meet me there afterwards.
So far, it still didn't sound particularly bad, and I was frankly relieved that someone was going to do something to make me feel better soon. Plus it meant Floyd would have time to get there in time for the rest of the normal appointment. I called Floyd on my cell again on the way over and he said he'd hop the bus and join me.
I got to the hospital and checked myself in. They got me a nice small room and laid me down and hooked up a monitor to me. Baby was doing just great and I was having contractions but not at any rate that was really unusual or worrisome. I was being a complete sissy about the needle for the blood test and when it came time to hook up the IV I was really getting ornery. (This is now extremely funny to me considering what later developed)
I asked about needle size for the IV, and the nurse explained that there are really 2 different sized needles they could use. I told her I wanted the smaller one, and she said that for re-hydration that would be fine, but that in the worst case scenario, the blood tests would come back with something bad and they might have to induce labor, which would mean they'd need to start another IV with a bigger needle for that. But, we told each other, that's not going to happen...it's extremely unlikely...so she agreed to just use the smaller needle. Still, even the smaller needle was freaking me out - I had never been hospitalized for anything before. I started to cry saying I wished Floyd was there, and just after I said that he came in.
Shortly after that, things started to get really hairy, really fast.
Doctor came in and told us that my blood test results showed some really serious things.
Number one: I had a very serious form of disease commonly called toxemia, or preeclampsia, except that the more common version of toxemia affects the kidneys and can eventually lead to a complete kidney shut down. What I had was an extremely rare form of the disease called HELLP syndrome which was bordering on critical. In addition to worries of my kidneys shutting down, HELLP syndrome also messes with the liver.
To make matters worse, my last platelet count had been up at a nice healthy 365(k). They were now down to 55. The doc then told us, no one knows what causes the disease, and the only way to cure the disease is to get the baby out. He was saying that with my platelet count so low, he wanted it done that night because I was in very serious condition. He ordered a second blood test right away to verify the platelet count. While we waited for those results, he then explained what needed to happen.
The HELLP was bad enough that they were extremely worried that I was going to start having seizures, so they needed to pump me full of magnesium to keep those seizures from coming on.
Because the platelet count is what causes your blood to clot..and the number was very very bad, doc said they didn't have time to induce labor because that would take too long so it was going to have to be a C-section. In addition, the platelet count was so low that there was considerable risk if they were to try to do a normal epidural or spinal C-section because it could cause bleeding into the spinal chord, so it was going to have to be done under emergency general anaesthesia.
I started to panic...I could feel the urgency in the voices and actions of the doctor and nurses around me, and Floyd was asking if we could at least call my regular doctor to hear it from her too. My baby wasn't due till April 2... I was in the 35th week, 35 days away from the due date, and we had luckily learned enough about general C-sections to know that it was now done only under extreme circumstances, and it was one where they sent the husband out of the room to wait in the lobby while they did all this scary stuff. But my doctor, it turned out, was in Texas, where her husband was apparently getting treatment for stage 3 Hodgkins disease... but they all assured us that she would have told us the same thing. I wanted to call my mom, I was absolutely terrified. My mom was supposed to fly to Brussels, Belgium the next morning for a NATO science for peace panel meeting and my dad was already on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic going to Geneva for an unrelated business trip. Had this happened only a few hours later we wouldn't have had any way of contacting my family at all for a solid week.
I called my mom and was freaking out, crying and scared. Floyd was terrified as well. My mom with her medical background understood enough of the technical jargon they were telling us to know that matters were very serious though she had never heard of HELLP syndrome before and we still didn't know exactly what it was, other than it was very serious and that if they didn't treat me right away, they were worried they could lose me.
We told her we'd call her back when we got more details, and shortly afterwards everyone came running in to tell me that now my platelets had dropped further down to 50.
We need to have you on the operating table within a half hour they told me. They were already pumping me with magnesium, getting blood matches brought up and special IVs ready for transfusions should I need them during the operation.
All sorts of needles started getting poked into me and all I could think of was that I still had an appointment to sign my new life insurance policy papers on Wednesday morning and wasn't leaving Floyd prepared if I were to die.
Floyd called my mom as they were preparing to wheel me away, and I hugged and kissed him and we cried as they took me out of the room.
The nurse that had been with me from the start, Loreena, was holding my hand and soothing me as they prepared me for the operation. Because the general anaesthetic could not be handled by the baby, they couldn't ease me into it the way most patients are made to "fall into sleep" because they had to have me out and take the baby out right way before anything could reach him. The anesthesiologist told me they were going to drape a curtain in front of me and I saw a paper tent thing block my view of what was going on below my chest. I could feel something heavy like a rubber mat getting roughly laid out on my belly along with various medical tools and could sense all the urgency and speed with which everyone was moving. Then the anesthesiologist told me that I was going to feel a light pressure on my throat which was his finger, and that I would then fall asleep.
I felt him pressing on my esophagus and then he said Now, take a deep breath, and suddenly it was like my lungs had been stopped. I was still awake, I could see and hear what was going on though I couldn't move, but I totally couldn't breathe. I tried to take that deep breath but nothing would happen and I thought my god, I'm dead, and they just haven't figured it out yet. and then everything went away.
The next few hours are hazy at best. Floyd said that the doctors came out and told him that the baby was born at 8:52 pm. He was 4 pounds, 13 ounces, but spunky and active and apparently doing pretty well. Still, because he was so early, they had him in the Level 2 nursery for observation.
Floyd was told the baby and mom were doing ok, and that he could go see the baby. He said that it was extremely surreal and frightening looking at this baby and not knowing how I was doing.
Apparently, the few platelets I had were said to be extremely "functional" and I didn't bleed as much as they had expected, nor did I end up requiring the blood transfusions.
I know they told me that the baby was doing OK but I don't think that the fact that there was a baby involved in all of this really registered until quite a few hours later since I was still dealing with shock. At about 4 am I started to feel extremely weird. They were pumping me with magnesium and morphine, and I started to feel like I was losing touch with my lower body. I was trying to tell them I didn't feel right but I don't think anyone registered how not right it was until the doctor came in. The doctor realized I had no reflexes whatsoever in my legs, and I couldn't get my brain to send my legs or feet signals.. I could feel that they were touching my legs, but I couldn't remember how to tell my toes to move anymore. I was also suddenly not sure I remembered how to breathe anymore, and the nurses started doing breathing exercises like the ones they taught us in child birthing class, except not to control contractions but rather to give me something concrete to pay attention to in order to keep me breathing normally. My vision went completely double, and I was hallucinating like crazy.
I had apparently overdosed on Magnesium now, and so there was a second wave of extreme scariness while they tried to restabilize me again. They had to completely cut off the magnesium and it wasn't till late afternoon, maybe around 4 or 5 pm, that they could re-start the magnesium dosage at a halved rate again. All of Wednesday is now extremely hazy to me. I remember only small snippets, like the nurse Loreena crying at my bedside and holding my hand telling me how much I had scared everyone, and my doctor saying that they only gets a case like mine about once every 10 years or so. I remember some hallucinations, weird visions like a monkey made of slices of banana, and telling the nurses that I thought they were naked while they were doing a blood test on me, and something about melting trees and another one where I was in a large room filled with ladies boots.
I know that around 11:30 am, I remembered that there was a baby somewhere and asked about it. Floyd went to the nursery for me and brought me some Polaroids so I could see what the boy looked like, but it was really hard to connect myself to these pictures.
Things didn't start looking more like a labor and feeling less like an auto-accident or something like that, until shortly before my mom arrived. She had canceled her trip to Belgium and managed to catch the first flight she could get to Portland to be with me instead...arriving around 7pm. Shortly after she got here, Floyd went home really quick to grab some stuff and feed the cat and when he came back, they had just brought me the baby for a short half hour so that I could at least see him with my own eyes and touch him. It was almost 24 hours after the baby had been born.
It was the most magical experience I had ever had. Shortly before they had brought me the baby the nurses were telling me that they were going to have to take the catheter out the next day sometime. I had started to completely panic because I hadn't even been able to roll over in bed without help and couldn't even imagine having to get up to go to the bathroom. When they brought the baby in and I held him in my arms, he immediately latched onto my breast and started to suck. The nurses were simply astounded. Apparently, most babies at 35 weeks haven't got the cognitive development far enough to learn how to breastfeed, and this little guy was doing so well, normal full term babies could have been taking a few pointers from him. Floyd took some pictures like this one at that first meeting. I was so high off hormones and adrenalin that after they took the baby back I was able to, with some help, actually sit up, and then even stand.
The next day I was able to get up and sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled to the nursery, and by Friday I was doing so well, I was skipping the wheelchair altogether, for some of my trips.
One of the nurses who had been there on Wednesday morning when things were still extremely hairy saw me on Saturday and told me she almost didn't even recognize me.
By Sunday afternoon, the docs felt good enough about my progress to discharge me from the hospital. Felix was to stay in the Level 2 nursery for a bit longer. They had him on antibiotics, just in case, and were monitoring his breathing. He had had some minor de-oxidization stats that were normal for a kiddo this early, but they wanted to be ultra paranoid with him. That was fine with me, since paranoia probably saved my life.
We got a room in the nurses dorms in the hospital so that I would have a place to nap between feedings. His feedings were every 3 hours and by the time one was done and I got home I would have had about 20 minutes at home before I would have had to turn around and go back.
Felix was allowed to come home with us on Tuesday.
All in all, the experience was extremely unreal. It was terrifying and traumatic, and absolutely nothing like what you'd expect a labor experience to be like. I gained an incredible new perspective on all parents who'd gone through childbirth, because regardless of all the literature and videos and classes and anecdotes, there was simply nothing in the universe that could really compare to the actual experience having a baby and how much change that brings on. I think for most, the experience is quite different, with a gradual build up as the woman is preparing for the labor and then there's the labor and then theres the realizing that the baby is finally here, whereas I missed all that buildup time. Plus I faced a completely different kind of crisis at the same time so I'm sure that it was not your usual birthing story...
I'm so incredibly relieved now that we have this beautiful and healthy baby boy to look at and hold in our arms. It almost feels like Tuesday and most of Wednesday I was undergoing a life-changing crisis that had to do with facing mortality, and then, on Wednesday night, sitting there holding this perfect, incredibly adorable sweetie, I had a baby.
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