ChuckyG's birth
Im going to write ChuckyG's birth story now.
It started on Friday 28 Nov, 2014 when I was in a training day at work. I was seeing weird patterns in front of my eyes. They looked a lot like this:
And kinda grew over time like this:
I didn't think much of it, and kept on at the training.
The next day, it was my work Family Christmas party at the zoo. I spent a warm morning walking around the zoo with Miss Pants and Tom. I was quite the waddler at this point, and the day hit 34oC or something similar. I was pretty hot by the time we were done and I went home to lie down. I had a stinking headache, and felt I had over done it in the morning, and there was a cool change coming, so that explained the headache, right? The cankles had expanded a lot by this stage too - so feet up for the afternoon it was.
I was getting grumpier by the minute, and Miss Pants was trying my patience. She desperately wanted to crawl onto my lap, and I desperately did not want her there. She got more physical, and so did I. It may have ended up with Miss Pants thrown to the floor and crying and me beside myself in anger and frustration and pain. I went to bed.
Next morning was a bit startling. I opened my eyes to not be able to see out of my left one. Thinking it was just eye gunk I wiped my face and felt that my eye was swollen shut. Erm. Not good. Got up and looked in the mirror and found my entire left side of my face was swollen. A bit of googling we found that this kind of thing was not unheard of, but probably not great. I posted to my online mothers group asking advice. My SIL suggested taking my blood pressure in case the pre-eclampsia had come early. So I did.
195/150
That cant be right, so Tom took his (normal) and I took mine again
195/150
I called the local doctors who were open on a Sunday, there was no one in, so we went straight there. Tom with no socks, me in summer gear and Miss Pants without anything if she had a toilet accident.
Local doctor confirmed that my BP was through the roof and called my Obstetrician while I did the pee on a stick test (checking for protein levels in urine). Protien levels way high as well. My Oby, Guy, said to meet him in delivery suite of the hospital ASAP. Oh. "Can I go home and get a bag?" "No." oh.
By this stage it was about 11am when I walked into the delivery suite. I was greeted by a grinning Guy. I reminded him that he thought he should take a week off this time when I had the baby. He laughed and started work.
I was descended upon by about 5 or 6 people. Undressing, sticking needles in me, setting up equipment, doing observations (BP still high and climbing). SOMEHOW they got a catheter in me (that was not fun due to a large amount of swelling, and it required escalation to senior nurses to complete *twitch*), stuck me with steroids to quickly develop ChuckyG's lungs and took about 100 litres of blood to test... once they found a vein. I was very swollen, and my blood was thick as mud so they struggled to find a vein to pull it from. At one point in all this, they took it from my foot.
By 12noon everyone had gone. Just me and Tom and Miss Pants and the midwife who was not leaving my side. Tom prepped our parents in case someone had to come collect Miss Pants.
2pm the room swarmed with people again - the blood results were in. Gail, you are having a baby at 3pm by Cesarian. You better get Miss Pants home. So while I got prepped for surgery, Tom got Miss Pants to his mum. It was close because she didnt realise that she could just come and park at the door - she went to find a parking spot and walked to the hosptial *sigh* anyway Tom got back just in time.
Meanwhile, I was whisked to level 1 theatre. At one point I had an anethetists on my right arm, a nurse doing BP to my left arm, someone doing something to my right leg, someone doing someone else to my left leg, someone prepping the surgery site - and all of them talking to me at once. I actually had to say "Guys, I can only hear one of you at a time! You are all talking at once!" That was a bit of a stress breaker for them as much as me.
I get in the room, I am hooked up to all the machines that go bing, they get the arterial line in for BP. I look over my shoulder and see the numbers 278/170. I look down at Guy and his oby assistant he called in.
"Am I seeing that right? BP is 278/170?"
"Yep, but that's Mandel's problem not mine" Guy gives the anesthetist the cheekiest grin and gets a grunt in response.
"I will have it under control"
There apparently was serious concern about me "stroking out" on the table. "Stroking out" means exactly that - having a stroke due to blown blood vessels in the brain. Afterwards, Guy said it wouldn't have been fun not having the use of one side of my body, I threw back at him that MS does that regularly, so I was used to it. But, I guess that's why there were so many people in the theatre with me helping.
Epidural goes in, Tom hightails it back to the theatre and within minutes there's a tiny squawking human put on my chest.
Words cannot express how WEIRD a cesarian is. To be able to feel people ferreting around in your insides looking to pull out a tiny squirming human from you is just ... WRONG. No other word for it except it was wrong. It didnt hurt, there was nothing bad... but that was the point my body panicked. I started shaking and freaking out as soon as they started cutting. I was twitching uncontrollably I assume as my body went into some kind of shock, maybe it was just enough to tip the eclapmsia that was shadowing over me. And my brain finally lost it. Tom dutifully held my hand, said all the right things and took photos. He knew I would kill him after if he didn't take photos. I have video of ChuckyG on my chest, and Tom went up with him to the SCN while I got stitched up and medicated out of my brain.
I didn't see ChuckyG after that for 3 days.
I went back to the delivery suite, because that's where all the equipment needed to keep me alive was situated. I was progressing rapidly to what was probably eclampsia if they were not careful. My kidneys had shut down almost completely, and the other organs were not happy either. It took many conversations about whether to move me to ICU (some were for, others against. I had quite a few senior people looking at me, looking at my test results, looking at my obs, trying to help get my kidneys online again) and a few conversations about moving ChuckyG to NICU before it was decided that both of us would stay where we were.
I don't have much to say about what happened to ChuckyG in this time, I was pretty out of it. In my recent post natal appointment, Guy told me that I am very funny when delirious. Obviously, I have no idea and don't remember! I was given magnesium to stop the seizures and muscle spasms (yes, yes, much like Downton Abbey, but the magnesium meant I didnt stop breathing or progress to full blown eclampsia), and they were trying to get my kidneys working again. Took over a day of experimenting for the meds to actually shock them back into life. When they did, my urine went from looking like beer (my Oby's description) to free flowing about a litre an hour.
Now this was just as dangerous as my kidneys NOT working, as all my internal organs had swelled up. Suddenly draining them of fluid would break them pretty bad and probably break me. So I was on ALL the saline. They had to gently deflate my internals, and by gently they mean REALLY FAST and LOTS OF WEEING. Yay for catheters. I peed out about 15L (no exaggeration here, it really was about that much) of fluid from my body apparently. Thats a good 15kgs of baby weight I lost just by peeing, let alone all the other pregnancy related stuff.
My BP was still through the roof, and no one really knew why, but it seems Guy had a suspicion pretty quickly, and a Nephrologist was called in. David started experimenting with BP meds to get my BP from 200+/150+ down to something more normal. This took a LOT of mucking around - trial an error seems to be the only way to do this. In retrospect, that's kinda scary. So Monday was spent getting kidneys on line, then after that dealing with BP. Oh yeah, and getting NO sleep becuase I was having my BP and temp taken EVERY HALF A FUCKING HOUR!
During all this, on the Tuesday I had a physio come visit. The physio was trying to get me to stand up and walk around. Now, think about this for a moment. Here I am, not eaten in 2 days (magnesium stops your muscles working, and thus my guts stopped working), got BP going up and down like a yoyo, and just had abdominal surgery. She practically FORCES me to try to sit up so she can get me to walk. I tell her in no uncertain terms that I am not doing so until I feel comfortable and safe. She starts banging on about blood clots after a CS, and I still refuse. At this point the head nurse of the (I think) hosptial walks in to check on me (she had been across the entire disaster). Hears my concerns, and basically manhandles the physio out of the room with a promise "Yes, she will get walking as soon as possible". Quietly has a chat with me after they have left saying that while it is important to get moving, my other health concerns are a priority, not the maybe of a bloot clot in the cesearian. WHEW! Voice of reason!
Wednesday comes around and I am walking, BP is still up and down like a yoyo, but my kidneys are finally pulling out all the fluid from my body and seem to be working normally again. I finally get to see ChuckyG, who is totally fine, if a bit small, and I am moved back into a normal ward. David the Nephrologist realises he doesnt have all the information he needs and I give him a full run down of my medical history. He starts asking me questions like "have you had any skin issues? have you had joint pain?" I ask him why he is asking me about auto immune disorder symptoms. He looks a bit surprised and starts treating me a little bit differently - ie not like a complete ignoramus.
Thursday and the post partum blues hit at exactly the same time as I am told by David the Nephrologist that I need a kidney biopsy and he will organise it for Monday, but not why. I assume the worst and start freaking out that I need a kidney transplant. Also, start crying at the drop of a hat. When Tom and Miss Pants went home that night I cried for half an hour. After that, I start freaking out about the biopsy.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday I start feeling a lot better, and just want to go home. However, Sue the Awesome Nurse, gets me an upgrade into the presidential suite on the 4th floor, which is totally marvellous and makes me feel much more comfortable and able to get a better nights sleep.
Monday comes around and I am a quivering mess about this biopsy - no idea why, just am. I have never been so afraid of a procedure in my life. David does his best to reassure me by telling me his RCH story (clearly well rehearsed). It doesnt help. The biopsy comes and goes, it's not as bad as my mind made it out to be, obviously, and that is the story I was telling myself to keep me calm. But I tell you what, KIDNEY BIOPSIES HURT AFTERWARDS. David didn't tell me THAT. I felt like I had been corked in the back with a wet tennis ball while playing brandy. So I had a CS in the front, and my abs were sore as anything, and NOW I had a sore back from the biopsy. I was stuck on a bed unable to move in either direction! Helpfully, David said afterwards, Oh yes, it hurts like you have been kicked by a horse, that's why we waited a week.
Thanks, David, I think.
Anyway, Tuesday brings the biopsy results which show Class III lupus nephritis and SLE. I've probably had it a while. It probably caused the pre-eclampsia with Miss Pants as well as other pregnancy related complications. But with a diagnosis comes a treatment plan and I am allowed to go home.
The medications for the Lupus meant I had to stop breast feeding. This was a load off my mind to be honest, as I was not sure I was going to be able to do it, same as with Miss Pants. This time the decision was taken away from me and I just fell back into old bottle habits. It really was much easier.
That's it. Everything went "smoothly" after that. ChuckyG came home after a month, when we were told at least 6 weeks. He was powering on, and as Guy said at the time "He's better out than in".