I had my baby!
Joey was born on August 8, 2017 at 1:42 in the morning via emergency c-section.
He unexpectedly arrived roughly a month early, at 36 weeks gestation, due to me having severe preeclampsia which developed into HELLP syndrome.
I know birth stories aren't exactly everyone's bag, so please feel free to skip this post if you aren't into that kind of thing!
The day had started out normal enough for a woman at 36 weeks pregnant - I napped about because I didn't sleep at night. I had a doctor's appointment at 2:45 that so I lounged and waited.
When we got to the doctor's office we were stuck for a good two hours before I was even seen, which is pretty typical for the clinic I was at. I met another really cool mom in the waiting room and it made the time go by even faster.
Everything started out fairly normal. Weight check, pee in a cup, blood pressure. The doctor will see you as soon as they can.
Then things got fun.
The midwife, a new one I'd never seen, was concerned that there was protein in my urine. That's generally a sign of preeclampsia, especially when it's paired with high blood pressure. I'd had semi high bp the entire pregnancy because of my anxiety so that wasn't unusual for me. I also had swelling in my ankles and feet, also not unusual. One of the concerns was the swelling in my hands paired with my other symptoms.
The midwife wanted me to go to the hospital for observation since she didn't like the symptoms I had. I didn't particularly want to go to the hospital that night, honestly. I wanted to go home and sleep. For two weeks I'd had pain in my shoulder from yanking the dog away from the jackass cat, and headaches on and off.
Both my boyfriend and I were irritated. It wasn't the way we wanted to spend a Monday night, especially since the hospital is an hour away in an area that isn't exactly that savory. I was already uncomfortable and wrote off most of the issues I'd been having as typical pregnancy irritations.
By the time I'd gotten what I wanted together, just a blanket and my phone charger since I didn't expect to be there for more than twenty four hours, it was just around five. We gassed up the car and away we went, arriving at the hospital just after six.
Once I finally got into a room (there was some confusion at first) and got settled, I kicked back and was ready to relax for the night. Blas and I found something to watch on television, I got the monitors on and ready (they are annoying as hell, btw), and I started to get to know my nurse, Cathy. She would be there with me for the long haul, so I may as well get to know her, right?
It started simply enough. I was going to get a cup to pee in for twenty four hours and they'd check the protein levels.
Then they ran the first set of labs.
And another set.
And another.
And another.
I started to get worried when I was moved from the tiny room I started in to a larger room in the L&D ward. I can say that the room, what I remember of it, was nice. It had a nice large cabinet full of blankets and all sorts of other supplies, and I think there was a mini fridge. The neatest thing was the chair - it flattened out into a little bed!
Once I'd gotten comfortable the midwife came back in and shit started to get real.
It was determined that I had severe preeclampsia and they were going to induce me. I was absolutely terrified! On top of that they started giving me magnesium on drip to fend off seizures. The mag made me feel really woozy and super hot. What's even worse is my blood pressure kept rising because of anxiety. I was only 36 weeks along! I hadn't even had a baby shower. I hadn't had my maternity photo shoot. The only things I had for the baby were a bassinet and a few boxes of clothes that wouldn't even fit him if he came early, a few packs of diapers that wouldn't fit him yet since he was so small.
Much of the time after that was a blur, thanks to the magnesium. One of the side effects is it makes things pretty fuzzy. So I slept and waited. They were going to give me a drug called Cervidil to start the process of bringing my son into the world. Cue major freak out - I wasn't ready At. All. They gave me a Vistaril to calm me down (didn't do crap) and then a steroid shot to help prepare my son's lungs, and then more labs.
When I yanked off the tape that was holding down the cotton pad from the previous labs I bruised almost instantly. I watched my already abused inner elbow go from white to bright purple. I wish I'd been coherent enough to get a picture of it. It was so bad that they couldn't see veins to get more blood so they started taking blood from my hand. Of course that bruised like hell, too. Everything made me bruise.
It was then that the medical team got worried. After that last set of labs it was determined that I had HELLP syndrome.
Preeclampsia is rare enough as it is. In the US there are only about 200,000 cases per year. The key signs are high blood pressure, swelling of the hands and feet, and protein in the urine. When caught early enough it is completely manageable to an extent through medications and other treatment. Birth, of course, is the only sure fire way to take care of it. If you're toward the end they can easily induce and your baby has a better chance, especially if you have a great NICU. I was far enough along that it was determined that I could safely have my son and he would be ok even though he wasn't full term yet.
HELLP syndrome is where things start to get scary.
HELLP stands for hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelet count, and falls into the very rare category, with only about 20,000 cases a year in the US. The scariest thing about HELLP is it can go very bad very quickly. It's not uncommon for a mother and child die from HELLP. It's also not uncommon for the liver to rupture, kidney failure, seizures and random bleeds. The global rate for maternal death from HELLP stands at about 25%. Going into things knowing these numbers I was terrified.
The pain in my shoulder that I thought was from the dog was really my liver swelling. They told me at the specialist I was seeing to be weary of upper right quadrant pain. I wasn't thinking shoulder at all, since URQ pain is abdominal. What I didn't know was the pain in the shoulder was something called referred pain. I also had some pretty intense vomiting issues, always at around two or three in the morning. I thought it was from the intense pain, but it was another sign of preeclampsia and HELLP. The headaches I'd been having I wrote off as normal, as I get migraines and the medication I was taking would make them go away.
Around midnight I had another doctor I'd never met come in and ask if I knew what HELLP syndrome was, which I did because of the pamphlets I'd received from the doctor's office in addition to the research I'd done on my own. He told me the only cure for HELLP was delivery, and we didn't have time to induce so I was going in for an emergency cesarean section. In a way I was relieved because I was absolutely terrified of vaginal birth and wanted a c-section to begin with (give me all the drugs!). Then I got nervous because I thought I would be getting a spinal. I was terrified of those things, too, because of the potential for migraines and potential chronic back pain after the fact if they don't do it right. That was taken off of the table because of how emergent everything was. A spinal or epidural would have caused me to bleed to death.
I have little memory of the OR itself, other than it being very bright. They had me down on the table and several teams were getting things set up at the same time. One of the last things I remember is them putting up a barrier, getting splashed with iodine, and then the mask going on.
What they didn't tell me is how bad I was.
On average, a healthy person has between 150,000 and 450,000 platelet count.
When I went into surgery mine were at 30,000, meaning I had class I HELLP, the most severe form.
They didn't tell me there was a very good chance I could bleed out during surgery.
They didn't tell me that I was, in the words of my amazing nurse, circling the drain.
I was dying.
At 1:42AM my son Joey was born by emergency c-section. He weighed only 3.14lbs!
I was taken back to my L&D room after my surgery, which was considered a great success because I was still alive and didn't need any extra care, where I was in and out of consciousness for the next twelve plus hours.
That time is a complete blur. I was still on magnesium and coming out of the anesthesia, plus the Dilaudid I was given for the pain. What was wild is I even had a button to push when I wanted more pain medicine. I'd never had patient controlled analgesia before, and it was fantastic. I'd feel bad, I'd push the button, the machine would beep and I'd feel warmth running through my veins.
Putting it bluntly, I was stoned as fuck.
I remember Cartoon Network was on, and Blas was watching Teen Titans Go. The clock was right under the TV so I would wake up and watch a little bit and swear that the clock was moving backwards.
My stay there was the first time I'd ever encountered the disposable pulse oximiters. It was basically a sticky bit that was easy to move out of place, especially if you're sweaty from the mag and scratching the steroid injection site on your ass in your sleep 😐
I thought I'd died several times thanks to that faulty monitor, which Cathy eventually replaced.
The entire day on the 8th, and most of the night, I was in and out so I don't remember much.
I do remember a nurse from the NICU bringing me a few pictures of him. I couldn't believe that he was my son.
I kept these pictures on my bedside table until they moved me yet again.
At 6AM on the 9th I was finally moved to a room in the postpartum wing. Blas had gone home the night before because he had to work so I did it all alone.
The nurse that moved me was amazing. I wasn't prepared at all for the amount of bleeding post c-section. I also wasn't prepared for how my body looked. Because of the HELLP I looked like a ghost. My skin had no color, I had insane dark circles. I didn't take picture because I felt terrible. I was still processing everything that had happened.
I still hadn't met my baby at this point, mind you, so I all but demanded that someone take me to the NICU where my son was.
If you've never had a child there, the NICU is a scary place. Lots of monitors, crying babies, hustle and bustle if it's a level III because that's where the critical cases end up. There were some extremely small babies there.
Joey was only there because he was small and very lethargic from the magnesium they had me on. He wasn't eating on his own. He was trying, but he would only take a few mls at a time before he'd fall asleep. He also had problems holding his body temperature so he was kept in a heated crib.
It was a bit shocking to me to see him with his NG tube and IV. I'm glad they took me to see him in a wheelchair because I ended up all but falling back into it after meeting him. I wasn't in the NICU very long at all, but I just had to see him. The heat from the heated crib he was in quickly overheated me and made me feel suddenly sick. On top of it I felt guilty that I popped in and left so quickly.
After meeting him I returned to my room. I was alone that day so I was left to my thoughts, and the string of various doctors and nurses that popped in to see me. I felt like a damn science experiment. I suppose that is the ropes when it comes to having a very rare condition.
I had to come to terms that I didn't get the birth experience that I'd hoped for. I had to come to terms that I was alone in my room while the other women on the ward were in their rooms with their families and healthy babies, that I could hear those babies from my own room and when I walked down the hallways. The television helped to drown out some of the clatter.
I was covered in bruises. No one had prepared me for how I'd look, or how I was going to feel. I didn't even want to look at myself in the mirror but I was forced to since the mirror in the bathroom was right in front of the toilet and I was confronted with my haggard image every time I had to pee, which I swear I did every five to ten minutes with the amount of water I was consuming to attempt to produce breast milk and keep my kidneys in good working order.
I wish I'd have taken more pictures, I just didn't feel like myself.
I was depressed. I just wanted to sleep.
As the days went on, I figured out he had certain nurses that he preferred. Joey's personality started to come out more and more. The nurses said he was a chatter, which isn't all that uncommon for preemie babies to be a bit noisy. He may have been small, but his lungs were strong! (That still rings true, by the way. No one can deny that his lungs are super healthy with how loud he can scream.)
I started to enjoy the time I had in the NICU. The nurses helped me learn how to take care of him, how to handle him safely with all of his wires and sensors, the easiest ways to change him and feed him. They tried to teach me to swaddle him with a blanket but I sucked at it. (Swaddle sacks are the best for those of you who suck at swaddling like I do.) I even started to form little friendships with the other parents there. When you see these ill babies day after day you really become invested in how they are doing. I still think about some of those babies, and wonder how they are faring.
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to share and subscribe!
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| August 9, 2017 |
He unexpectedly arrived roughly a month early, at 36 weeks gestation, due to me having severe preeclampsia which developed into HELLP syndrome.
I know birth stories aren't exactly everyone's bag, so please feel free to skip this post if you aren't into that kind of thing!
The day had started out normal enough for a woman at 36 weeks pregnant - I napped about because I didn't sleep at night. I had a doctor's appointment at 2:45 that so I lounged and waited.
 |
| Last pic I have pregnant, lounging with Sherman |
When we got to the doctor's office we were stuck for a good two hours before I was even seen, which is pretty typical for the clinic I was at. I met another really cool mom in the waiting room and it made the time go by even faster.
Everything started out fairly normal. Weight check, pee in a cup, blood pressure. The doctor will see you as soon as they can.
Then things got fun.
The midwife, a new one I'd never seen, was concerned that there was protein in my urine. That's generally a sign of preeclampsia, especially when it's paired with high blood pressure. I'd had semi high bp the entire pregnancy because of my anxiety so that wasn't unusual for me. I also had swelling in my ankles and feet, also not unusual. One of the concerns was the swelling in my hands paired with my other symptoms.
The midwife wanted me to go to the hospital for observation since she didn't like the symptoms I had. I didn't particularly want to go to the hospital that night, honestly. I wanted to go home and sleep. For two weeks I'd had pain in my shoulder from yanking the dog away from the jackass cat, and headaches on and off.
Both my boyfriend and I were irritated. It wasn't the way we wanted to spend a Monday night, especially since the hospital is an hour away in an area that isn't exactly that savory. I was already uncomfortable and wrote off most of the issues I'd been having as typical pregnancy irritations.
By the time I'd gotten what I wanted together, just a blanket and my phone charger since I didn't expect to be there for more than twenty four hours, it was just around five. We gassed up the car and away we went, arriving at the hospital just after six.
Once I finally got into a room (there was some confusion at first) and got settled, I kicked back and was ready to relax for the night. Blas and I found something to watch on television, I got the monitors on and ready (they are annoying as hell, btw), and I started to get to know my nurse, Cathy. She would be there with me for the long haul, so I may as well get to know her, right?
It started simply enough. I was going to get a cup to pee in for twenty four hours and they'd check the protein levels.
Then they ran the first set of labs.
And another set.
And another.
And another.
I started to get worried when I was moved from the tiny room I started in to a larger room in the L&D ward. I can say that the room, what I remember of it, was nice. It had a nice large cabinet full of blankets and all sorts of other supplies, and I think there was a mini fridge. The neatest thing was the chair - it flattened out into a little bed!
Once I'd gotten comfortable the midwife came back in and shit started to get real.
It was determined that I had severe preeclampsia and they were going to induce me. I was absolutely terrified! On top of that they started giving me magnesium on drip to fend off seizures. The mag made me feel really woozy and super hot. What's even worse is my blood pressure kept rising because of anxiety. I was only 36 weeks along! I hadn't even had a baby shower. I hadn't had my maternity photo shoot. The only things I had for the baby were a bassinet and a few boxes of clothes that wouldn't even fit him if he came early, a few packs of diapers that wouldn't fit him yet since he was so small.
Much of the time after that was a blur, thanks to the magnesium. One of the side effects is it makes things pretty fuzzy. So I slept and waited. They were going to give me a drug called Cervidil to start the process of bringing my son into the world. Cue major freak out - I wasn't ready At. All. They gave me a Vistaril to calm me down (didn't do crap) and then a steroid shot to help prepare my son's lungs, and then more labs.
When I yanked off the tape that was holding down the cotton pad from the previous labs I bruised almost instantly. I watched my already abused inner elbow go from white to bright purple. I wish I'd been coherent enough to get a picture of it. It was so bad that they couldn't see veins to get more blood so they started taking blood from my hand. Of course that bruised like hell, too. Everything made me bruise.
 |
| This is bruising from two days later, partially healed |
It was then that the medical team got worried. After that last set of labs it was determined that I had HELLP syndrome.
Preeclampsia is rare enough as it is. In the US there are only about 200,000 cases per year. The key signs are high blood pressure, swelling of the hands and feet, and protein in the urine. When caught early enough it is completely manageable to an extent through medications and other treatment. Birth, of course, is the only sure fire way to take care of it. If you're toward the end they can easily induce and your baby has a better chance, especially if you have a great NICU. I was far enough along that it was determined that I could safely have my son and he would be ok even though he wasn't full term yet.
HELLP syndrome is where things start to get scary.
HELLP stands for hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelet count, and falls into the very rare category, with only about 20,000 cases a year in the US. The scariest thing about HELLP is it can go very bad very quickly. It's not uncommon for a mother and child die from HELLP. It's also not uncommon for the liver to rupture, kidney failure, seizures and random bleeds. The global rate for maternal death from HELLP stands at about 25%. Going into things knowing these numbers I was terrified.
The pain in my shoulder that I thought was from the dog was really my liver swelling. They told me at the specialist I was seeing to be weary of upper right quadrant pain. I wasn't thinking shoulder at all, since URQ pain is abdominal. What I didn't know was the pain in the shoulder was something called referred pain. I also had some pretty intense vomiting issues, always at around two or three in the morning. I thought it was from the intense pain, but it was another sign of preeclampsia and HELLP. The headaches I'd been having I wrote off as normal, as I get migraines and the medication I was taking would make them go away.
Around midnight I had another doctor I'd never met come in and ask if I knew what HELLP syndrome was, which I did because of the pamphlets I'd received from the doctor's office in addition to the research I'd done on my own. He told me the only cure for HELLP was delivery, and we didn't have time to induce so I was going in for an emergency cesarean section. In a way I was relieved because I was absolutely terrified of vaginal birth and wanted a c-section to begin with (give me all the drugs!). Then I got nervous because I thought I would be getting a spinal. I was terrified of those things, too, because of the potential for migraines and potential chronic back pain after the fact if they don't do it right. That was taken off of the table because of how emergent everything was. A spinal or epidural would have caused me to bleed to death.
I have little memory of the OR itself, other than it being very bright. They had me down on the table and several teams were getting things set up at the same time. One of the last things I remember is them putting up a barrier, getting splashed with iodine, and then the mask going on.
What they didn't tell me is how bad I was.
On average, a healthy person has between 150,000 and 450,000 platelet count.
When I went into surgery mine were at 30,000, meaning I had class I HELLP, the most severe form.
They didn't tell me there was a very good chance I could bleed out during surgery.
They didn't tell me that I was, in the words of my amazing nurse, circling the drain.
I was dying.
 |
| Blas' arm for size comparision |
I was taken back to my L&D room after my surgery, which was considered a great success because I was still alive and didn't need any extra care, where I was in and out of consciousness for the next twelve plus hours.
That time is a complete blur. I was still on magnesium and coming out of the anesthesia, plus the Dilaudid I was given for the pain. What was wild is I even had a button to push when I wanted more pain medicine. I'd never had patient controlled analgesia before, and it was fantastic. I'd feel bad, I'd push the button, the machine would beep and I'd feel warmth running through my veins.
Putting it bluntly, I was stoned as fuck.
I remember Cartoon Network was on, and Blas was watching Teen Titans Go. The clock was right under the TV so I would wake up and watch a little bit and swear that the clock was moving backwards.
My stay there was the first time I'd ever encountered the disposable pulse oximiters. It was basically a sticky bit that was easy to move out of place, especially if you're sweaty from the mag and scratching the steroid injection site on your ass in your sleep 😐
I thought I'd died several times thanks to that faulty monitor, which Cathy eventually replaced.
The entire day on the 8th, and most of the night, I was in and out so I don't remember much.
I do remember a nurse from the NICU bringing me a few pictures of him. I couldn't believe that he was my son.
 |
| That nurse was really kind to bring me these |
I kept these pictures on my bedside table until they moved me yet again.
At 6AM on the 9th I was finally moved to a room in the postpartum wing. Blas had gone home the night before because he had to work so I did it all alone.
The nurse that moved me was amazing. I wasn't prepared at all for the amount of bleeding post c-section. I also wasn't prepared for how my body looked. Because of the HELLP I looked like a ghost. My skin had no color, I had insane dark circles. I didn't take picture because I felt terrible. I was still processing everything that had happened.
I still hadn't met my baby at this point, mind you, so I all but demanded that someone take me to the NICU where my son was.
If you've never had a child there, the NICU is a scary place. Lots of monitors, crying babies, hustle and bustle if it's a level III because that's where the critical cases end up. There were some extremely small babies there.
Joey was only there because he was small and very lethargic from the magnesium they had me on. He wasn't eating on his own. He was trying, but he would only take a few mls at a time before he'd fall asleep. He also had problems holding his body temperature so he was kept in a heated crib.
It was a bit shocking to me to see him with his NG tube and IV. I'm glad they took me to see him in a wheelchair because I ended up all but falling back into it after meeting him. I wasn't in the NICU very long at all, but I just had to see him. The heat from the heated crib he was in quickly overheated me and made me feel suddenly sick. On top of it I felt guilty that I popped in and left so quickly.
After meeting him I returned to my room. I was alone that day so I was left to my thoughts, and the string of various doctors and nurses that popped in to see me. I felt like a damn science experiment. I suppose that is the ropes when it comes to having a very rare condition.
I had to come to terms that I didn't get the birth experience that I'd hoped for. I had to come to terms that I was alone in my room while the other women on the ward were in their rooms with their families and healthy babies, that I could hear those babies from my own room and when I walked down the hallways. The television helped to drown out some of the clatter.
I was covered in bruises. No one had prepared me for how I'd look, or how I was going to feel. I didn't even want to look at myself in the mirror but I was forced to since the mirror in the bathroom was right in front of the toilet and I was confronted with my haggard image every time I had to pee, which I swear I did every five to ten minutes with the amount of water I was consuming to attempt to produce breast milk and keep my kidneys in good working order.
I wish I'd have taken more pictures, I just didn't feel like myself.
I was depressed. I just wanted to sleep.
Later that day Blas got back with my mother and Drina, and we both went to see the baby together for the first time.
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| Drina meeting Joey for the first time |
The NICU nurses were absolutely amazing. They started preparing me for how to care for my son while he was there. That day when Blas and I went together to see him Blas got to change his diaper for the first time (I'm not hurt that we missed the meconium poos!) and we got to feed him for the first time.
Since I was also so ill I got to stay in the hospital for a total of five days. It was nice that my room was on the same floor as the NICU and I was encouraged to go there as much as I wanted. I'd just go in and sit for as long as I could. The first few days were rough, filled with depression. I would sit there with my son and cry because I knew I'd be leaving to go home soon and he'd still have to be there. I knew I needed to count my blessings because I had one of the healthier children in there. His neighbor had been born at 25 weeks and was so incredibly small.
As the days went on, I figured out he had certain nurses that he preferred. Joey's personality started to come out more and more. The nurses said he was a chatter, which isn't all that uncommon for preemie babies to be a bit noisy. He may have been small, but his lungs were strong! (That still rings true, by the way. No one can deny that his lungs are super healthy with how loud he can scream.)
I started to enjoy the time I had in the NICU. The nurses helped me learn how to take care of him, how to handle him safely with all of his wires and sensors, the easiest ways to change him and feed him. They tried to teach me to swaddle him with a blanket but I sucked at it. (Swaddle sacks are the best for those of you who suck at swaddling like I do.) I even started to form little friendships with the other parents there. When you see these ill babies day after day you really become invested in how they are doing. I still think about some of those babies, and wonder how they are faring.
For days my blood pressure fluctuated, and it took almost my whole stay for my platelets to get back to normal. They weren't completely back to normal when they let me leave.
On the 12th I was finally discharged.
I cannot express how depressed I was that I was getting to go home and my baby was staying behind.
I sat in my room all day long surrounded by the things the hospital gave me to take home with me for the baby - two different gift packs from Similac, a pack of diapers, a NICU journal. I had to watch a video on crying, preparing for a baby that wasn't going to be coming home with me.
It was even harder having to leave him there and ride home with his car seat in the back seat without him in it.
Recovering from a c-section was hard enough, but going back to the hospital every day seemed to exacerbate things. When they tell you to take it easy afterward, take it easy. I overdid it the first few days home and had some gnarly pain.
Having a NICU baby really does change you. I don't like leaving him with anyone for long periods of time, even if it's to rest. I think it has made me more patient, as well.
Even though how he came into the world was a little crazy, I wouldn't change it for the world.
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