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Friday, September 1998. I am 36 weeks pregnant with my son. My urine has evidence |
| Friday, September 1998. I am 36 weeks pregnant with my son. My urine has evidence of protein and my blood pressure is elevated. I am told to go to the hospital across the street from my doctors' office. I go to the LDR and the nurses hook me up to machines and I have to pee in a bucket. My blood is drawn and tested. After six hours, I am stabilized and sent home with orders of bed rest for the weekend. I return the following Monday to the doctor's office and they tell me I am having my baby. I go back to the hospital and get hooked up again to machines, and the nurses induce my labor. I had my son 12 hours later at 37 weeks gestation. However, he did not come out screaming and he was a little blue. Apparently a valve in his heart did not close when he was born and he was whisked away to the NICU. After that was resolved, his blood sugar dropped. But he got better and was able to go home after five days. Fast forward to February 2001. My daughter is due in April, but I feel horrible. I cannot describe exactly is wrong with me and I have my mom drive me to the hospital. We are half way there and start to feel better and we turn around. When I go to my next OB appointment, I am being sent to the hospital again with pregnancy-induced hypertension. I am in my 33rd week. My urine is being checked for proteins and my liver is going crazy. Every time a nurse comes in I am told a different story, "you have HELPP," "you have PIH," "you have preeclampsia." A doctor tells me I am having the baby tonight and it is too early to induce and I have to have a C-section. Another doctor tells me they will start the Pitocin after they give me steroids to help my little girls lungs develop. After getting me set up in a Labor Room, they hook me up to Magnesium and start the Pitocin. Then they put in a catheter and give me double Pictocin. My contractions are so bad, that I cannot sit up because of the pressure on the catheter! Even though I have an Epidural, I can feel the contractions and pressure on my cervix. I am only dilated to a six when my baby jumps out on the table after two really bad contractions. Only my mom and my husband were in the room. Quickly, the room fills up with three doctors, six nurses and two Anesthesiologists! Again my baby is whisked to the NICU. Only this time she weight a little under four pounds instead of the robust seven and a pounds my son weighed two years earlier. The NICU nursed dubbed her "Bullet." She was in the hospital nine days and went home weighing a little over four pounds. It took a while for my blood pressure to finally go down, even after delivering my daughter. I am afraid if I were to get pregnant again that the results would be devastating. |
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