Monday, March 9, 2009

Blog Backlog! So, this is my birth story!


We already established that I'm a slacker blogger. Basically, once I got all pregnant and happy, I didn't feel as compelled to complain to the world all the time.

Long story short, I ended up being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia at 29weeks. I was in and out of the hospital and delivered at 34w1d.

The babies spent 18 days in the NICU and are now perfectly fine. Sweet things.

I posted my birth story on a few message boards so I'm just going to post it here.

I wrote this in October, so please don't get confused by the fact that its now March.

my blood pressures had been steadily rising and then last tuesday (at exactly 34w) my pressure hit 160/110 for the 2nd time. my team decided that this was not worth playing with anymore due to risk of stroke/seizure. my body was also sore and i woke up with an out of body sort of weirdness the night before and it seems my own body was prepping for labor by making me go #2 every 20 minutes!

at this point no doctor wanted to do a C on me based on medical history. i seemed like the perfect candidate for vaginal delivery.

as we started out, i was already 50% effaced and fingertip dilated. so we starting inducing with cytotek which rapidly put me into basically one long contraction with no breaks. it took FOREVER to get to 1cm dilated.

i was dead against the epidural, but i knew that induction would make it hard for me to keep my resolve. i also was on mag sulfate (to prevent seizures) which didn't make me violently ill, but it did make me very "druggy". between the mag sulfate and continuous contraction, i allowed the team to start the epidural before 1cm. it had seriously been about 12-15 hours of pain and drugs at that point and i couldn't sleep at all. i was promised that the epidural would help me sleep. it did not.

they started pitocin (another contraction drug), but never really turned it up past the minimum and they turned it off very quickly. the cytotek did its job and was causing enough contractions.

still, the staff thought the induction was going to take a long time.

stuff gets blurry for me at this point. i had a weird pain in my pelvis that wasn't a contraction. i asked for more pain relief and i got a shot of more epidural. no one checked my pelvis at this point because i had only been 4cm minutes before

moments later contractions started hurting a lot down low. and then people started rushing into the room and my docs said it was time. they tried to look calm but i could tell they were nervous. i looked over at the monitors and could see that Aurora was at like 50HB (instead of the usual 160 heart rate).

they wheeled me into the OR (as expected).

seconds later they told me to push. and i'm like "push? i can't even feel anything, but okay how about this!" 3 pushes later and a little forceps help and out came Aurora just like that. she cried and i cried.

i never realized til the next day that everything moved so fast that i ended up with a 4th degree tear. (go ahead and google this if you want to freak out)

we started to deliver Nico and all hell broke loose. i pushed a few times to get him lower, which worked, but suddenly his HB was like 30 and i was gushing blood.

thank you preeclampsia, Nico's placenta was abrupting!

then the room got really nervous. my main doc started "softly yelling" that if people didn't hurry up we were going to have a sleeping baby. for a moment they considered trying to turn up the epidural, but immediately we realized that i needed to just suck down the sleeping gas. i sucked like a college student on nitrous oxide.

So 6 hours later, I finally come out of surgery.

Eventually, I learn that both my kids are PERFECT.

However, after Nico was removed, it took 6 hours (and 4 blood transfusions) to figure out how to stop my bleeding

Aside from the abrupted placenta, my uterus has some sort of unique feature that made it not stop bleeding. They ended up having to cut off arteries in my legs and place a balloon to contract the uterus to make it stop.

Thank goodness for having an AMAZING hospital and Amazing doctors to save all of our lives.

After I woke up and for the next 5 days, I had a steady stream of doctors coming by my room just in awe at what we had all just been through, and they were so happy to see that I was okay. I seriously think I scared the hell out of them, personally. Its a weird feeling to have people look at you and you can tell they are thinking "you are lucky to be alive".

My preeclampsia wasn't done giving. The day after surgery I swelled up another 30 lbs with water. i'm still horribly swollen but its getting better. my skin is stretched to its max and even bending my ankles and knees has been painful. I was just PACKED with water. even in my arms and back and everywhere.

Slowly I'm improving. The kids are the champs of the NICU and I bet they'll come home in a week or so. I'm having all sorts of other pre-e related little symptoms, but I'll live :)

One of the hardest parts is dealing with the emotional aspect of such a traumatic delivery. I spent so much time preparing for a more natural childbirth and pre-e took that all away from me. Its been hard dealing with "congratulations" because I feel like so much of the delivery was a disaster and my body put my kids in danger. Baby B hadn't even grown in 2 weeks. He used to be bigger than his sister, but she ended up passing him out and being like 13 oz bigger at birth. Obviously, that placenta was barely holding.

Anyway.. enough bitching. I really do have two most perfect babies now. :) Going to visit them makes all the troubles just melt away!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Worst Blogger Ever Checks in at 23w3d


So.. yeah, I suck.

I was asked how I was doing on a msg board and I figured that my response would make an okay post here. Yes, I'm lazy....

Anyway, I had an ultrasound and ob appt yesterday, everything is all good.

i was in a bit of a panic because i really only feel my baby girl well... baby boy is almost completely muted by my anterior placenta except for at two little spots.... however all is well and they are growing fine...

and despite the fact that i could do a whole one-woman show filled with 1000 comedic complaints about how i pee when i sneeze, the never-ending morning sickness, i can eat protein bars in my sleep and my cats found the new Svan bouncer i bought VERY comfortable when i stupidly left it out, my doctor said that i'm very healthy and so are the babies.

i think i'm the easiest patient he's ever had in his uber-high-risk practice.

my mom and mil are throwing us a shower in early august and they were driving me crazy so i told them to not mention it to me again until the day of the shower. my wedding was less complicated, i swear!

as for my blog its like i've been in too good a mood to post... lol. i'm mostly driven to write or blog when i'm angst ridden and i've been surprisingly rational and serene, despite the ongoing morning sickness, for the entire pregnancy.

anyway... i don't really take too many naked baby belly pictures but i do tend to take pix for my family about once a week... here's the latest "self-portrait" that i took last friday at 22w3d.. my ridiculous fashionista-ism in fully display.. lol

Monday, April 28, 2008

I'm a Crappy Blogger. 11w6d

I haven't been blogging cuz I've been too busy dry heaving and sleeping and complaining and sleeping.

This is HARD!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

7w2d. Some of You Were Right! Unbelievable.

Yesterday was our ultrasound.

We are overjoyed to be carrying twins. Both with a HB of 144, measuring right on time. Joy!

But.

There's a triplet... a Baby C. He's got no HB and he measures at 5w6d so we can only assume he's not making it.

I only transferred two embryos so what we have here is a real identical twinning! A split for Embryo B!

What a fucked up thing. I'm sad because its a life, and a miracle and obviously my child. I'm not even fully sure how I'm going to feel about this yet over the next few days. The shock is still heavy.

But obviously, this also seems like a blessing. Baby C, sacrificed so that Babies A&B could grow strong and healthy.

They say that Baby C will reabsorb. I can't deny that I'm not scared for Baby B. After all this WAS his twin and I hope that structurally/genetically he's okay.

I really need to make a new video blog, but I have to think carefully about this. Do I want to tell Babies A&B about C?

I dunno. This is crazy.

In other craziness my doc told me to stop taking my Estrace. I've been taking Estrace since I was 13. This is SO weird. Supposedly the placentas are making my estrogen now.

4/15 is the last day that I take PIO! Wow!!!!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

5w4d. Stop Scaring Me! :)

Of course we'll be happy with whatever we get... I couldn't do selective reduction. I bring this up because lots of people are warning me that I might be in for trips.. I dunno.. I know my numbers are high, but my betas are also later than most people's.

This could still just be a strong singleton, guys! :)

For example.. Check out these links from the betabase

http://www.betabase.info/showBasicChart.php?type=Single
http://www.betabase.info/showBasicChart.php?type=Twin

I was 24dpo yesterday (5w3d) with the 9939 number.. Sure they are high, but the highest recorded numbers are MUCH higher.

I'm excited for twins, but even that is going to be a difficult pregnancy for me. I have a history of small bowel obstructions caused by adhesions from surgery when I was 12 (to remove my bad ovary)... I have this feeling that when I start to "stretch out" its gonna be VERY painful. I'll probably be eating through a straw by May. Can you imagine Trips?

They would be DARN cute tho!!! :)

Friday, March 14, 2008

19dp5dt... 24dpo... 5w3d.. whatever!

we got the 2nd beta back!!! 9939!!!

yay! we were so worried.

now i get to play the "twins or not" game over on betabase.info... there's always something new to be nuerotic about :)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

5w0d????

So I suppose getting a BFP was the one way to make me shut my mouth. Amazing huh? The amazing thing is how incredibly mellow I am after more than 2weeks of sheer insanity and irrational thought.