A Mighty Shift

So one time I was pregnant. 

I so cleverly snuck that information into a recent post. 

You know. 

'Cause I'm awesome like that.

I decided I was going to wait until I had a good ultrasound picture to announce that I was, in fact, pregnant with another beautiful baby girl. 

Somehow I managed to walk away with only one picture from our 20 week ultrasound--an arm.

Yeah. I didn't really grasp the significance of the arm bone either. Thanks, doc. 

But before I get ahead of myself... let's flash back to week 16 of the pregnancy.

I had some light spotting, but was told that it wasn't too unusual. We decided to just wait and see if it went away on its own. Which it did.

Mostly.

A couple weeks later, though, the bleeding really started to pick up, which prompted our doctor to move up our 20-week ultrasound a day.

It looked like I had a partial placenta previa--something that could potentially resolve on its own, or cause mild bleeding for the rest of the pregnancy. Great. Just when I thought I'd so cleverly managed to take a break from my monthly gift. :)

But the bleeding didn't stop. It got worse. In a pretty hardcore way.

I had another ultrasound because of it. I got great pictures of the baby at this one. :) The problem wasn't placenta previa. It was a subchorionic hemorrhage. The baby was great though. Good heartbeat. Good growth.

Long story short, I was told that as long as I could feel the baby move, things were fine for now. We would just need to keep monitoring the situation, since it could really turn ugly at any time.

Thursday May 5th was a pretty good day. I made Kirby chicken cordon bleu for dinner--DELISH. With cheesy potatoes. Heaven. 

At about 1AM on the 6th I woke up with extreme pain in my lower abdomen that wouldn't release. I hobbled into the bathroom to run a hot bath. It sort of helped. Enough so that the contraction released a little. But it didn't take long for regular contractions to start coming every 2 minutes. I waited for about 45 minutes, timing the contractions in the front room, hoping they would go away.

They didn't.

So I woke Kirby up and he got Emily up and we headed to the hospital.

They tried giving me a couple shots of something to slow/stop the contractions, but that didn't work. So I was admitted to labor and delivery and put on magnesium. 

Nasty stuff. 

But it stopped the contractions. I was on the Mag for 48 hours--long enough for the two steroid shots to take effect in case the baby came early. The steroids help get the baby's lungs ready for breathing in case of a premature birth. 

I also got 4 blood transfusions since my hematacrit was 22. 

I had a hematacrit of 42 in February. 

Turns out going into labor may have saved my life.

My Mother's Day present was getting weaned off the Magensium, and learning that my mom was going to fly out that night so that when (hopefully) I was sent home I could be on legitimate bed rest.

Just when I was feeling fabulous (getting weaned off magnesium will do that for you), I had a relapse. They put me back on the magnesium again, but the dosage I was at before wasn't helping. They bumped up the dosage, and the contractions came less often and were less intense. 

After another ultrasound on Monday, the neonatal specialists felt like it would be the best course of action to move me to a hospital where they were better equipped for earlier babies, and then wean me off the magnesium again and let nature take its course. 

I got to ride in an ambulance, guys. Not speeding with the sirens, but in an ambulance no less.

It's a good thing they had medicine to keep me from getting motion-sick!

Monday night was awful. I felt a little bit better on Tuesday as the magnesium was pulled back. I was finally allowed to eat fluids, so Kirby got me a Jamba juice. A little later I was allowed eat real food, so before the doctors changed their minds Kirby ran to Applebees and got me some chicken wings. Shortly after I downed the wings the contractions started to pick up, and we knew we were on our way. 

I got all epidural-ized, and before long I was moved to the operating room. Unfortunately, the baby's heartbeat was dipping during the contractions, so it was deemed safer to do a C-section.

So Wednesday, May 11th at 2:48am our dear sweet Sydney Lee Davison was brought into this world weighting 2 lbs, 2 oz and measuring 14 inches long. 

She's doing amazingly well. She's on the C-Pap machine, but hasn't needed supplemental oxygen.  

Now it's just a waiting game.

What is estimated to be about a 10-week waiting game. 

I will hopefully be able to hold her tomorrow, and I can't wait.

I'm doing well, too. By tomorrow morning I will be tube-free and hopefully semi-mobile.

It turns out that there are way too many every-day movements that require the use of abdominal muscles.