The day they said "let's have a baby!"

I woke up on Monday, August 30, to get ready for another ultrasound and doctor's visit. Lee had a particular amount of energy this morning and I found him unloading the dishwasher and checking the car seat (again) to be sure it was installed right. We had been told to come to every doctor's appointment with bags packed to be ready in case induction was going to happen. The ultrasound showed a healthy baby girl who was breathing up a storm. sOnce we got checked into the doctor, my bp was up to 151/110 and protein was showing in my routine urinalysis. My preeclampsia had gone from "mild" to "severe" and we were off to the hospital to be induced. They checked me at the office and I was dilated to 2 cm! We went straight to the hospital and got checked in. We were so excited to see Rhonda (my nurse from the preeclampsia stay) working and got to meet Shauna, my nurse for the day shift. The midwife came in to check me and I was already to 3 cm. I had dilated a centimeter in 45 minutes! (We're convinced I was on my way to going into labor on my own anyway) They broke my water, started pitocin, and we were off! Debbie Crowder (the midwife) informed me that they would need to start magnesium to keep my preeclampsia in check and to fight off possible seizures. I knew that mag wasn't a good thing. I knew it would make me loopy and probably make me throw up. I asked her how low my bp needed to be to avoid it. She said my bottom number needed to be in the 80's. The 80's?! Was she nuts?? I hadn't seen it that low since June! We get on the horn and start calling people to pray for that very specific need. I told Debbie to give me 20 minutes and if it wasn't down, I'd let her start the mag. Praise Jesus, it instantly started to go down and never again went above 88. Crisis avoided! Shauna left the bag of magnesium beside my bed so that we could continue to have a prayer point.

Labor continued like it should. Contractions on pitocin made me nuts (as I had heard they would) and I got my epidural when I dilated to 6 cm. I was able to start to get some rest, as did mom, and I let Lee cuddle with me while I enjoyed being pain free. At this point, I had met my night nurse (soon to be a friend), Misty, who was with us every second of the delivery process. When I got to a 9, I started to feel the contractions again and quickly went to a 10. I had been told that the urge to push was one of the strongest urges you'll ever feel, and man, were they right. But finally! Something could be done with the pain! With Lee, mom, and Misty with me, I started pushing at 3:15. What a surreal feeling! I remember thinking, "holy cow! I'm having a baby!" The midwife, Zion, was brought in and at 5:21, Nina Claire Boso was born weighing 6 lb 11.6 oz and measuring 19 inches long. She was perfect. The look on Lee's face when she was born was something I will never forget. I was still in shock as to how easily I could breathe and that I had just had a baby!

After we had all admired this new little wonder, Zion brought in Dr. Wolfe to help finish up with things. This is when things started to go downhill. About 40 minutes after delivery, my ears started ringing and I started seeing spots. At this point, a massive hemorrhage started from my uterus. I was an idiot who knew no better (heck, I'd never had a baby before!) and I laughed it off and apologized to everyone. I began to feel a tad more normal again and then a few minutes later, more hemorrhaging. At this point, I feel like I'm on an episode of ER. Nurses are buzzing everywhere, they call for O- blood stat, my blood pressure keeps falling (it was as low as 40/20), Nina is taken out of the room, I was in and out of consciousness, and I continued to ask Shauna (who was coming back on shift) if I was dying. (Typing about it just feels so weird that it was happening to me.) They apparently stuck me to draw blood and no blood came. The blood and fluids were started and I was wheeled down to the OR for immediate surgery. I have been told that I was a gray'ish green color and I continued to ask my OR nurse (I think her name was Cindy) if I was going to die. (Why did I harass these poor women and make them answer a question that they weren't sure of themselves??) There were anesthesiologists, nurses, and doctors everywhere. I knew I was dying, but was too sick to care.

The next thing I know, I'm in recovery. After being there for a while, I am taken to my room that has been turned into an ICU room in Labor and Delivery. Shauna was my nurse all day and I was hooked up to so many machines! I found out later that I had a condition called "placenta accreta". This is where the placenta adheres to the uterine wall and causes trauma after delivery. Most of these cases are in post-C-Section cases. Unfortunately, there is no way of diagnosing or predicting it. The accreta had left part of the placenta in my uterus that they were able to remove during surgery. After they determined they were able to save my life, a hysterectomy was considered, but luckily avoided. After surgery, I was considered "stable but not out the woods yet". I had been given 4 units of blood during surgery and 2 more the next day. By Friday, I was able to surprise my doctors and was sent home, on medicine, but home nonetheless.

I delivered when I was 37 weeks and 3 days. Who knows if the accreta would have caused more problems if I had gone the full 40 weeks. Also, I was told that magnesium could have increased my bleeding and made things much worse (could they have gotten worse??). Lucky for me, my hemoglobin was already at a 12 (12-14 is considered normal) before I went into labor giving me as much blood to work with as I could. I swear there are no coincidences in this world. God put every nurse, midwife, and doctor where He did in that 18 hours because they would be instrumental in saving my life. It has been 3 1/2 weeks and I still find myself washed with emotion to God's faithfulness. I can't sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" without sobbing on the line "Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me".

When we were driving home from the hospital, I realized I had been given a new lease on life. I saw the horizon differently. Things that used to upset me seemed so small in the joy of new life for me and my tiny bundle of joy (did I mention that she was perfect??). God's faithfulness to me and my family can't be expressed. and the faces that were with me (Dr. Rainey, Dr. Wolfe, Misty, Shauna, and Rhonda) will never be forgotten. Instead of looking on that week with horror, I look at it gratefully for the deliverance that we experienced and the love I was given.

3rd trimester

Well, I have no excuse for my lack of posting since I was on bedrest... or maybe that WAS my excuse since I did absolutely nothing! For most of July and the first part of August, I was on "activity restriction" due to my blood pressure being up. I really missed walking and doing some of the basic things, but took it in stride. I think I've seen every episode of every show TLC has ever made. I had 2 awesome baby showers (one at Summersville Baptist and one at Breckenridge Baptist), we went to the beach (what a fiasco with me!), and I watched other people remodel my bedroom. The beach trip was awesome with the family, but I wasn't allowed to do much and my body let me know if I did too much. Generally, I woke up, laid by the pool, sat in the pool, took a nap, went to dinner, went to bed. One day, we went to the outlets and after 45 minutes, my feet wouldn't fit in my shoes. Such a bummer!

I started to notice something might be more than "a little high blood pressure" after I saw pics from my shower at BMBC. My nose had swollen so much that I barely recognized myself. Having a close friend who had had preeclampsia, I knew that was a symptom. I continued to be on weekly doctor's visits and they kept a close eye on everything, but there still was no protein in my urine. (I totally hate that word). I spent one day not on my butt all day, and that was the day Sarah Beth and Matt got hitched; what an awesome weekend! But by the end of it, I was pooped and had a rather bad headache. I took my blood pressure regularly for the next 2 days and it continued to stay up, really up. I went to teacher's first day of school and awaited a phone call back from my OB. When I heard from him, he wanted me to be seen the next morning and he told me to bring clothes for a possible hospital stay (ugh). He was right, they checked me in for monitoring and to do a 24 hour urine (eww) collection. That was such an awkward test! I had to pee in a hat, and then pour it into this container and store it in a cooler in my bathroom (a tailgating nightmare). After 24 hours, they tested all that had been collected for protein and voila! protein. I had a case of mild preeclampsia and was officially on real bedrest. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm not good at being still. I looked forward to my biweekly doctor's visits where I had monitoring once a week and an ultrasound once a week. I would shave my legs, straighten my hair, do anything that made me feel like a human again. Just awaiting the words "lets have this baby!".

The bedrest helped with some of my swelling (eventhough I didn't recognize myself and I laughed when Lee told me I was beautiful). Lee brought as much of his work home to help me out as he could. He was a champion who never said "Do you really need another glass of water??". I took Benadryl at night to try to get some sleep between my 6 pee breaks a night. But still, being pregnant wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. The worst part, for me, was being concerned for Nina's safety if my bp went up and they wanted to take her before shew as ready. Just a waiting game at this point...