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March 12, 2008 my second child a son was born at 25 weeks 2 days |
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March 12, 2008 my second child (a son) was born at 25 weeks 2 days gestation. I have a daughter who will be five years in May and wasn't planning on another child...but as mother nature would have it, my husband and I found out we were unexpectedly expecting a second child who would be making his appearance the end of June 2008. In the middle of the night on January 25, 2008 I woke up with what I thought was terrible heartburn. I took some antacids but the pain became progressively worse. It turned into shooting pains from just below my right ribs...pain so great I couldn't sit or hardly catch my breath. I walked around my living room for nearly two hours praying the pain would go away...finally it did and I fell back to sleep. I called my doctor the first thing the next morning as I didn't want to wake anyone in the middle of the night for terrible "heartburn". I was 18 weeks gestation at this point in my pregnancy but knew (from an ultrasound the week before) that my son was approximately 2 weeks behind gestational age...but none of the professionals seemed to be concerned about his size. My OB/GYN had mentioned HELLP and preeclampsia but said it was extremely rare to have either of these conditions so early in a pregnancy and I didn't have any protein in my urine or high blood pressure...yet. They drew blood for nearly eight weeks straight trying to figure out why my liver tests were THREE times the normal levels. The mysterious night time pains would show up every few nights but nothing near as bad as the first time. The specialist that I had seen back in January wanted a fetal growth ultrasound at 24 weeks...when I went in I had gain 7 pounds from the previous week, my cankles stuck out about 1/2 inch from the edge of my shoes and my blood pressure was 130/92. I was sent home for bed rest and a 24-hour urine collection...something I had become accustomed to over the past six weeks. The next day I was admitted to our local hospital with a blood pressure of 184/106!!! The really scary thing was I really didn't know anything about preeclampsia and I felt "fine". The doctors thought they would observe me, get me on bp medication and send me home for bed rest until my due date...little did I know that two days later I would be woken up in the middle of the night by a nurse to say..."you are being flown to Denver, CO...call your husband!" It was 4:00 am when I arrived at the hospital, I was all alone and scared to death. The specialist who did my doppler when I arrived said there was absent to low blood flow and he didn't think I would be pregnant for more than two more weeks. I was immediately put on mag sulfate, compression boots for my legs, and higher bp medication. I didn't my best to stay calm because I didn't want my bp rising. I was in the hospital more more days and things were looking up. I was two and a half hours away from my family but I was determined to do whatever it took to keep my son inside as long as possible. On the morning of March 12th at 6:00 am I woke up with the worst headache and told my nurse. She brought in the nurse practitioner and as we spoke her face began to disappear!!! She told me to try and relax as I had just been given my medication and they would monitor me...this was the last thing I remember. Twenty minutes later I had a major seziure. Once I was stablized I was sent in for a c-section and my son was delivered at 9:14 am. He weighed only 15 1/2 ounces and measured 11 inches in length. My son made all the other babies in the NICU look good. He held on for 4 days. On May 15th my husband and I held him for two hours as we said goodbye and watched him slip off into a place of no pain, needles, tubes, and invasive procedures. Next to loosing my son, not being awake (due to the seziure) and hearing his one little cry is one of the hardest things I have had to deal with. I have now been told by the specialists, my doctors, and my midwife that I shouldn't even think of trying to have another child as my preeclampsia was so severe and started extremely early that the outcome would be the same if not worse...that I wouldn't survive either. I tell myself that my son is in a better place but I feel guilty as sometimes I think that I was supposed to go with him yet that would leave my daughter here...without her mother! I have so many conflicting feelings and I hate preeclampsia even more just for the fact that it is so unresolved and mysterious. I want answers and I want to know why I had to say hello too early and then goodbye to my precious son. |
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