Remembering back to 3 years ago........... Here are my journal entries from then......
11/24/05 (Thanksgiving)
Since I was given permission to go to my parents for Thanksgiving, that's what we did. I was still supposed to relax and not mess around. So that's what I did. I just relaxed and put my feet up. I took my blood pressure right before we left to go back home and it was 160/110. I called Dr. Davis and he told me to lay down, repeat the blood pressure and call him back. I did. It was still a little high but much better. We went back home and just continued to monitor my blood pressure throughout the night
11/25/05
In the middle of the night, the back pain returned. The pain was right under my sternum in my abdomen and then radiated through my back all over. Nothing was helping. Usually I'd take some medicine and then lay on the heating pad for a while and then I was able to go back to sleep. It took a looonngg time that night. The next morning was I was doing better and Matt went to work. When he came home the pain was returning a bit. Matt told me to call the doctor on call and I really didn't want to because it wasn't my doctor. So he made me promise that if my blood pressure went up to a certain point and the pain increased that I would call. Well that all happened so I called the on call doctor. He told me to go to the emergency room. We headed up there and they treated me for epigastric pain. Then they took some blood for some lab work and when they came back everything moved pretty fast. They told me I was developing HELLP Syndrome and that I'd be admitted to the Child Birth Center for evaluation. Dr. Coates pretty much met us up in my room and begun to "punch us in the stomach." He kind of explained what HELLP Syndrome was (go to the HELLP Syndrome page for more info.) and told us that I'd be lucky to be undelivered by Monday (this was Friday). He also told us that our baby had a very slim chance at life being born so early. He left the room and we all started crying. That was a hard punch and I was so worried about Jack. That was the only thing I could think about. They started me on a steroid. I was able to get two shots for Jack's lungs to help them mature a bit. They also started me on some fluids to get me dehydrated. My liver enzymes were pretty high and my platelets were getting too low. I also had protein in my urine so they had to watch that as well. They were going to evaluate me throughout the night and see what happened with more lab work in the morning.
11/26/05
Blood pressure is better now. Liver enzymes were close to normal and my platelets were stabilized. They hadn't gone up yet, but they hadn't gone down either. I was told I'd be in the hospital until I delivered. I was determined to be there at least another 4-6 weeks so we decided to set up camp. I had everything you could imagine in my room. We even planned on having Christmas at the hospital. Dr. Davis came in that day to see me and he was pretty optimistic about being there for at least 4 weeks and that everything would be okay.
11/27/05
Labs were about the same. No change, meaning I wasn't getting worse. I was feeling pretty good. The abdominal/back pain wasn't there and I thought I was getting better. About 6 pm that evening the pain came back and at full force. All the little things that I had done at home to try to get rid of the pain wasn't working at all. The nurse was trying different things and kept calling the doctor to see what else could be done. Matt insisted that they re-do my labs to make sure everything was still okay and that was finally okayed by the doctor. Well, his instincts were right. My labs weren't okay. My liver enzymes had crept back up and my platelets were down to about 55,000 (normal 200,000-400,000). The pain was excruciating. I was thrashing around in my bed and it was getting hard to breath because of the pain. I had no idea what to expect when the doctor came in but I was ready. I was ready to deliver. I hated to say that, but I couldn't do it anymore. When Dr. Coates finally came in, the first thing I told him was that I was ready, that I wanted him to either induce my labor or deliver me via C-section. I wasn't' sure how things would go. They prepped me pretty fast for surgery and the anesthesiologist came in to talk to us. He wanted to make sure my clotting time was okay to do a spinal so he needed a bit more blood. That was a problem. I was still dehydrated. He tried and tried to get blood out of my arm, but no luck. Then he tried my feet. THAT HURT! He finally got some (not much) and made it work for the test he needed to do. Fortunately we were able to do a spinal. For my benefit as well as Jack's. Matt was also allowed to be in the surgery room if they did a spinal so that was a good thing as well. I was scared to death, I had no idea what to expect out of the C-section and of Jack's outcome.
And how very Thankful I am today on this Thanksgiving night!!!!
I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving!!
There will be lots more posts to come as I have Thanksgiving pictures and I will have birthday party pictures!!!!
Thomas the Train Carnival Cake
Cousin Ali with Jack
Opening Talking Brobee from Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Jamie
YO GABBA GABBA movie
snow boots from Mimi Papa
Tool Bench from Mommy and Daddy
Singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JACK
Jack and his cake.
After bathtime in his Thomas the Train SINGING towel....what will they come up with next?
