Zoe is here!
It's been a busy week, and it's kinda hard to type at length on a laptop, especially since my nails grew like mad in the hospital, go figure.
I think things pretty much got started at the baby shower. Had quite a few comments about facial bloat, but it seemed like everyone thought it was normal, so no big deal. Then we went out Sunday, April 3rd for our anniversary. Had Chili's and went to Babies R Us, Target and Walmart to try to get some of the stuff we hadn't gotten at the shower. My car still had a jumper in the backseat and big boxes of wipes, a baby tub and changing pad in the trunk when I went to my 34 week appointment Monday the 4th.
As usual, my blood pressure played around. But this time, I was stuck there until noon (appointment was 9:30am) trying to get my bp down. What was funny was I told Joe to not drive to NJ until I gave him the word, cause I had a feeling. Ended up I was driving myself to L&D around 1pm to get checked in and observed. Joe met me there a bit after I arrived. Blood tests and pee tests and fun stuff like that. I ended up with another IV before they admitted me to do a 24 hour urine test. There was talk about induction that night, but they waited for the test results. Spent all day Tuesday peeing like crazy and watching TV. My mom and Joe stayed in the room Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night. The 24 hour results came in as really high (I think the count they used was average is 3, I was 8 or something nuts). I was never told if it was Pre-e or PIH, all I knew is the doctor on call Tuesday did a surprise cervix check (very painful for someone who was on pelvic rest most of the pregnancy) and they put in a cervadil. Also, I got magnesium, which made me feel like I had the flu and was on fire (there was mag and something else, the combo was awful). Tuesday night was okay, Wednesday was miserable. I was bawling by the end, just wanting it done with since I felt like they had to give me the flu to get the baby out. Another cervix check at stupid o'clock revealed I was making progress (3 centimeters!) and that I had probably been having contractions a while, but they didn't register since they were all really, really low, like pubic crease low. They broke my water (nothing much happened with that except more fire/pain feeling, then I got my epidural. Seriously, life turned completely around with the epidural. I had visions of floating on clouds in a royal blue sky and just happiness. Was very odd. Sadly, that stalled labour, and dipped my skyrocketing blood pressure from hanging around 200/100 to something as nuts as 90/60 in a very quick manner, which made baby go "WTF?" and freak out. Everything ended as I suspected, with a c-section Thursday morning.
That was also weird. They moved me to a stretcher, handed me a cap for my hair, rolled me to the ER and it was over pretty quick. I just kept my eyes shut (the pain meds were making me hallucinate) and kept telling myself I could sleep when I heard her cry, which was actually really quick. She came out LOUD. Someone got a cool picture of me seeing her for the first time, which I really didn't see very well since I was hallucinating anyway, but the photo is awesome. She came out 4lbs 1.16oz, screaming, completely able to suckle (surprised the first nicu lady who fed her, who expected Zoe to take forever to eat a tiny bottle, but instead Zoe sucked it down in no time flat). The only things that have gone wrong with her since she was born was a brief period of high bilirubin, which didn't surprise Joe or me; we had both been jaundiced as babies. Right now she's back to her birth weight, allowed to eat whatever volume she feels like. She has only monitors on, no IV or breathing apparatus at all. She's basically there until she can gain weight without sliding backward and while maintaining her body temperature. She basically kicked my ass, but I'm fine with that since she's having a much easier time of things.
I also feel a bit better about having a second kid down the line, since if a second pregnancy goes toxic like this one did, I'd probably go right to c-section without having to appease a few people by trying to go for a vaginal delivery (36 hours of attempting it).
Photo!
http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt278/Juel79/zoe%20dee/zoefirstview.jpg
I think things pretty much got started at the baby shower. Had quite a few comments about facial bloat, but it seemed like everyone thought it was normal, so no big deal. Then we went out Sunday, April 3rd for our anniversary. Had Chili's and went to Babies R Us, Target and Walmart to try to get some of the stuff we hadn't gotten at the shower. My car still had a jumper in the backseat and big boxes of wipes, a baby tub and changing pad in the trunk when I went to my 34 week appointment Monday the 4th.
As usual, my blood pressure played around. But this time, I was stuck there until noon (appointment was 9:30am) trying to get my bp down. What was funny was I told Joe to not drive to NJ until I gave him the word, cause I had a feeling. Ended up I was driving myself to L&D around 1pm to get checked in and observed. Joe met me there a bit after I arrived. Blood tests and pee tests and fun stuff like that. I ended up with another IV before they admitted me to do a 24 hour urine test. There was talk about induction that night, but they waited for the test results. Spent all day Tuesday peeing like crazy and watching TV. My mom and Joe stayed in the room Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night. The 24 hour results came in as really high (I think the count they used was average is 3, I was 8 or something nuts). I was never told if it was Pre-e or PIH, all I knew is the doctor on call Tuesday did a surprise cervix check (very painful for someone who was on pelvic rest most of the pregnancy) and they put in a cervadil. Also, I got magnesium, which made me feel like I had the flu and was on fire (there was mag and something else, the combo was awful). Tuesday night was okay, Wednesday was miserable. I was bawling by the end, just wanting it done with since I felt like they had to give me the flu to get the baby out. Another cervix check at stupid o'clock revealed I was making progress (3 centimeters!) and that I had probably been having contractions a while, but they didn't register since they were all really, really low, like pubic crease low. They broke my water (nothing much happened with that except more fire/pain feeling, then I got my epidural. Seriously, life turned completely around with the epidural. I had visions of floating on clouds in a royal blue sky and just happiness. Was very odd. Sadly, that stalled labour, and dipped my skyrocketing blood pressure from hanging around 200/100 to something as nuts as 90/60 in a very quick manner, which made baby go "WTF?" and freak out. Everything ended as I suspected, with a c-section Thursday morning.
That was also weird. They moved me to a stretcher, handed me a cap for my hair, rolled me to the ER and it was over pretty quick. I just kept my eyes shut (the pain meds were making me hallucinate) and kept telling myself I could sleep when I heard her cry, which was actually really quick. She came out LOUD. Someone got a cool picture of me seeing her for the first time, which I really didn't see very well since I was hallucinating anyway, but the photo is awesome. She came out 4lbs 1.16oz, screaming, completely able to suckle (surprised the first nicu lady who fed her, who expected Zoe to take forever to eat a tiny bottle, but instead Zoe sucked it down in no time flat). The only things that have gone wrong with her since she was born was a brief period of high bilirubin, which didn't surprise Joe or me; we had both been jaundiced as babies. Right now she's back to her birth weight, allowed to eat whatever volume she feels like. She has only monitors on, no IV or breathing apparatus at all. She's basically there until she can gain weight without sliding backward and while maintaining her body temperature. She basically kicked my ass, but I'm fine with that since she's having a much easier time of things.
I also feel a bit better about having a second kid down the line, since if a second pregnancy goes toxic like this one did, I'd probably go right to c-section without having to appease a few people by trying to go for a vaginal delivery (36 hours of attempting it).
Photo!
http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt278/Juel79/zoe%20dee/zoefirstview.jpg
