Not all sunshine and roses

This face. Oh my GOSH this face.

She was exactly three weeks early, because I was lucky enough to get the first pregnancy that EVERYONE wants. (Heavy sarcasm intended.) 

When we found out that I was pregnant, we also found out that my body wasn't producing enough progesterone to support the baby. So onto daily supplements and biweekly blood tests it was! My body finally kicked in around the 20 week mark, just in time to find out that her placenta was covering the cervix. Also thankfully temporary, that went away around week 26. Then around 32 weeks, I was put on preeclampsia watch.


For those who don't know, preeclampsia is a condition in pregnancy that is often heralded by high levels of protein in the urine and high blood pressure. If left untreated, it can cause seizures, blood clots, unstable high blood pressure, and bad liver problems. It's dangerous for both the mother and the baby. The cure? Delivery.

I had suddenly swollen feet in September, a possible symptom of preeclampsia. For a while, everything seemed fine — that was my only symptom, so I would possibly be OK. But on Friday, October 16, I went in for my appointment to off-the-charts protein levels and high blood pressure. I was promptly ordered to the hospital so they could monitor my blood pressure. My doctor said they would probably send me home that night with orders to collect urine over 24 hours and then bring it back to check the protein levels. If they were above a certain level, I'd be leaving with a baby.

I got to the hospital around 11:30 AM that morning. They did some blood work to check on my liver, hooked me up to several monitors, and had me do another urine test. I was somewhat bored, since ALL I had with me was my purse and...that was it. I was supposed to go to work! Life was supposed to be normal!

The on-call doctor came in around 3:30 and said that they were diagnosing me with preeclampsia on the spot. The protein levels from my doctor's appointment and then the sample in the hospital were high enough that they didn't need to send me home with a bucket, and I needed to deliver as soon as possible. They were currently debating whether I would be allowed to go home overnight and come back in the morning to be induced, or if they were going to keep me and start inducing me right away. At 4, I was informed that I was staying and would be delivering by Monday.

Things moved really quickly after that. I was hooked up to an IV with magnesium sulfate to try to keep the preeclampsia from progressing before the baby was born. Shane went home to pack a bag for the hospital (we had three more weeks! It was going to happen that weekend!) and buy a car seat (see the three weeks early comment).

And...starting around midnight, I was inconsistently feeling contractions. I was also starting to get kind of loopy and feel remarkably crappy. This was entirely due to the magnesium sulfate, but my options were the magnesium sulfate...or...the magnesium sulfate. My water broke with a vengeance around 6 AM on Saturday the 17th, when I started feeling EVERY contraction (2-3 minutes apart). Things...get fuzzy after that. With feeling awful from the magnesium and different attempts at pain management, plus the fact that I didn't actually SLEEP all night with the contractions, I was sleeping between contractions and gradually moving up the "scale" of pain management options, from laughing gas to (finally) the epidural. That took us to around...4? I think? I was pretty out of it.

I only pushed for half an hour. I'm told that's remarkable for my first baby. I dunno, it felt like forever. Other things did happen before that, but it feels like I woke up at 4 and started pushing not long after. (Obviously that wasn't the case, since she was born at 8:08 PM.) After she was born, they had to manually remove a bunch of clots from my uterus. (According to Shane, some of the clots were larger than the placenta.) That process? SO much more painful than actually giving birth.

But then they brought Kathryn over to me, and all was right with the world as far as I was concerned. Sure, my blood pressure didn't stabilize until morning, and I was on the magnesium sulfate for 24 hours after she was born so I continued to feel like death warmed over, but she was here and healthy! Completely healthy, actually, and while she was down to 4 pounds 15 ounces when we left the hospital on Tuesday, she was back to her birth weight six days after we got home.

The whole situation barely had a nodding semblance with "ideal" (it gets the semblance because she remained healthy throughout the pregnancy, the problems were all on MY end), but this little girl?

Completely, totally worth every second.

~~~

All images taken by James Green Photography.