It looks like it’s going to take 3 or more posts to tell this story. Otherwise the post will be wicked long. Without further ado, here is part 1.

Warning: If you have never had a baby and plan to someday, you may not want to read this.

In hindsight I should have opted for the c-section. I didn’t. So the following is the events as best I can put them together after talking to all the family that was there. I know some of it is fuzzy, but I need to get it down on “paper” before I forget what happened.

Wednesday morning I woke up with quite a bit of mucous discharge. I called the doctor’s office to see if I should head to the hospital. The nurse told me if there was no blood that it was just normal stuff. I was a little bummed because I thought that was it.

The boys came home from Boston that afternoon. Sparky picked them up from the airport for me and dropped them at the house. We decided they would bring dinner to Gran’s house and then I would get to go home. After I finished eating I took my blood pressure. It was 171/92. I told Neely and Gran and we all decided I would take it again in five minutes. When I did it was 168/88. I called the on-call doctor and left a message. While I waited I took my bp again and it was about the same. When the doctor called back she wanted to know what my normal bp was. I wasn’t sure if she meant before pregnancy, lately, or when it wasn’t high. She finally told me to come on in. YAY!!

We loaded up the car with Neely, Weeman and Gran and headed off to labor and delivery: trip 6. The receptionist got me all checked in and took me to a triage room. I did all the normal stuff: put the gown on, left a urine sample, got in bed, and waited on the nurse. She finally came in and started taking my bp. I couldn’t see it because the computer was behind me, but it was high and they set it to take every 15 minutes. She had me lay on my left side to see if it would go down. The next time the bp cuff went off it was still high.

Dr. G (a resident) came in to see what was going on. This was the third time I had seen her in about a week. I told her we were going to be friends the last time I saw her so we joked about that when she walked in. I told her when everything was over she owed me a margarita. Hee Hee. She told me that I might finally get my wish and be able to stay with them for a while. Hooray! She decided that she wanted to check on my 24-hour urine sample and run some blood work again. The whole time my bp is still running high.

When they were checking on my urine sample they found that the lab had only recorded 24 ml. Dr. G came back and asked how much I had left them. They had given me a big orange jug, I’m guessing it was a half gallon, and I told her it was ¾ full. She told me they only had 24 ml and I almost freaked. I told her I wasn’t doing it again. She went off with her two med students to see what had happened. She finally came back and said it had been entered wrong and they had found 338 whatevers of protein in my urine. That’s all they needed to keep me. The cutoff is 300. This new finding meant I has pre-eclampsia. I’m really surprised it took them that long to diagnose me. I was swollen like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Paper Girl had asked me if I had gotten botox in my lips. Dr. G told me I was definitely staying and would probably be delivering, but that she was not the final say in that. She had to check with the doctor.

Very shortly after that conversation Dr. G came in with Dr. S to discuss my options for delivery. It was time to get this whole show on the road. I had two options. They could use a foley bulb and pitocin to induce labor OR we could go straight to the c-section. Remember I said in hindsight we should have had the c-section? This is where all the fun begins. Neely asked about the size of the baby and how long they would make me push before deciding to do a c-section. I pushed for two and a half hours with Weeman after they had decided he wasn’t going to make it under my pubic bone. That was not something I wanted to do. We decided to try the induction with the understanding that at anytime I could change my mind and we would head for the c-section.

I was moved from the triage room to an L&D room. My new nurse ran me through a whole new round of questions. I was already having a lot of low back pain and the sinus infection I had was causing a sinus headache. After I answered the nurse’s questions I was hooked up to magnesium sulfate. It is the same medicine they gave me with Garrett to stop labor. In this case, it was being used to combat the pre-eclampsia and to keep me from having seizures. The meds make you feel like you are having a perpetual hot flash along with the other side effects, but that’s the first thing that hits you.

About 4 o’clock Thursday morning Dr. G came in to insert the foley bulb. OMG!!! I don’t know how many times during this pregnancy a doctor had checked my cervix. I was told it was somewhat like that just a little more uncomfortable. I was starting at like ½ a centimeter dialated so I hada ways to go. She tried to insert the tube a few times and was unsuccessful. She got a bed pan and turned it upside down and placed it under my bottom because that usually helps. She kept trying to insert the tube. After about 15 minutes, Neely almost passed out and had to get Gran. He said he could see stuff and hear noises and there was some smell. He’s pretty queasy with things like that so it was no big deal for me. I told Dr. G a couple of times that this was her last try and she kept trying for about 5 more minutes. Gran said when she pulled her hand out there was blood half way up to her elbow. She was unsuccessful. To say that trying to insert the foley bulb is a little more uncomfortable would be a straight up lie. It’s one of the most painful things I have ever had to endure. Dr. G said she would let me get my epidural so I would be more comfortable and then she would try again.

Since Weeman looked like he had a mop on his head, Neely and I decided that this past Thursday we would all go get our hair cut. The lady we go to was nice enough to come in early so that we would be able to go visit Slurpee after we were done. We decided, however, to go after dinner that evening. By the time we were all done getting our hair did I was in quite a bit of pain and needed to go home and take some meds. I asked Neely to call the NICU and check on Slurpee since we hadn’t checked on her in about 24 hours. He talked to the nurse for a few minutes and when he got off the phone he said they wanted to know if we were ready to bring her home Friday.

OMG!!!!!! We were not ready. The car seat was still in the box. We didn’t have any formula and didn’t know what kind to buy. I started to wonder what I was going to do with a baby at home. We started scurrying around. We got the seat put in the car. Luckily I had cleaned her room a little that morning. While we were running around one of the Nurse Practicitioners called and asked if we would like to room-in. They wanted us to come and stay at the hospital so we could take care of her overnight and the nurses would be there if we had any questions or needed help. We both thought we would be okay. Since we were declining the room-in she said she would like for us to feed her twice that day and twice the next day so they would know we knew what we were doing.

In the midst of all of this, Neely decided that we shouldn’t bring her home until Saturday. We still needed to get formula and find out what kind we were supposed to have and he and Weeman had plans to go to the baseball game and he didn’t want to leave me at home alone with Slurpee. We went to the hospital Thursday night and fed her once. The nurse seemed pleased with that so we started the discharge paperwork and left the car seat so she could do the car seat test.

We went in early Friday morning and Dr. C was rounding on Slurpee. She asked if we were ready to take her home and Neely said we would prefer to wait one more day. She said she was worried the insurance would not pay for the extra, but she checked with the insurance lady and she said she should be able to get one more day. We got more information on what we needed in the way of formula and some other things that we needed and after feeding her once we were off to search for what we needed.

It took three stores but we finally found the formula. Neely and Weeman were able to go to the baseball game without worrying about Slurpee and me.

Saturday morning we picked up Gran and headed to the hospital. When we got there the nurse went and got the neonate on-call. He talked to us about what we were going to need to do now that she was going home. They are concerned that she has low muscle tone and want us to see a neurologist. They also wanted to be sure we saw the pediatrician no later than Wednesday of this week. Other than that we were ready to go. We just had to wait on the discharge summary. That took 2 hours for them to do. I thought I was going to bust before we could get out of there.

Weeman met her for the first time as we left the hospital. He was very enamored with her. He was surprised at how many faces she made and how small her hands were. When we got home he sat on the couch and held her. It was very sweet to see how much love he already had for his sister.

We are still fighting we the feeding problems that she had in the NICU. She sleeps during the day and likes to keeps us awake at night. I hope I can get her switched soon. Neely went back to work this week and is trying to get caught up after being gone for three weeks. He says they are being very accommodating and letting him leave early and take care of whatever he needs to while he’s at work.

She is home now.

Sometime around the middle of May I ended up in this really bad place. Almost every morning I would wake up in pain. I can remember two morning sitting at the vanity trying to get ready to go to work and just crying. All of the pain was taking a real toll on me. I had almost decided to stop blogging until I realized that I needed to continue blogging so I would have the full record of Slurpee’s pregnancy. Unfortunately things started happening so fast I couldn’t keep up.  So, here is what I could keep up with in bullet fashion.

• At 33 weeks I had an OB appointment. I weighed 201 at that appointment for a total weight gain of 38 pounds. My blood pressure was 110/68 – not too bad. The fundal height was 30cm. Pretty much where I should have been. I was still concerned about Slurpee being breech and asked about what would happen. I was still told that they would not deliver until 39 weeks. Ugh!! I was told to come back in two weeks.
• Shortly after that visit on a Sunday night I developed a pretty bad headache. We went to the store to check my blood pressure which was slightly elevated but the doctor wasn’t concerned when I called. I tried to ignore the pain, but when it woke me up 1:30 I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I had been swelling pretty bad and with the headache I was concerned about pre-eclampsia so we headed to L&D. (That made trip 3) They decided I was having a migraine and gave me a shot of morphine. My blood pressure was elevated, but they thought that was because of the pain. I was also diagnosed with a UTI and was put on antibiotics. I spent most of Monday sleeping the morphine off.
• Somehow my body must know when I got to L&D. If I go once, you could almost set your clock by me, because 36 hours later I would be back. Tuesday afternoon I had to leave work to go back to L&D (trip 4) because I was having contractions. They weren’t painful but they were there. I was still not making any changes. My blood pressure was elevated again, but they still didn’t seem concerned. I was diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis and put on another antibiotic. They tried to send me home while I was having contractions and I almost had a breakdown. For some reason, they hooked me back up to the monitors and gave me a shot of terbutaline before sending me home.  I was also asked to do a 24-hour urine sample when I finished the meds for the UTI.
• A few days after the last trip to L&D the boys went to visit the in-laws. There are some issues that needed to be taken care of so we decided it would be a good idea if they went before I hit 36 weeks. Gran was finished with school 2 days before they left, so that put her on baby watch while they were gone. I was slightly concerned, but figured that nothing really serious could happen. They were only a plane ride away. Gran came over that day to help get Slurpee’s room ready and go through all of the gifts we had gotten at the two showers I was given. (more on the showers later)
• The night the boys left Gran sent my nephew to stay at my house just in case something happened. He’s 15 and can’t drive. I don’t know what he would have done. I woke up Sunday with a really bad sore throat. Since strep throat had been going around I wanted to be sure that wasn’t it. Gran came and took me to the doctor who said I had a sinus infection. So another prescription for another antibiotic and I was off. Gran came back to the house with me so that we could finish washing Slurpee’s plethora of clothes and put them away. (For the record, some of them are still piled around her room.
• That night I started having contractions again. I can’t remember now exactly what time we left, but off the L&D we headed again. (trip 5) My blood pressure was elevated again. The contractions were not making any changes to my cervix. We waited until we were pretty sure they were not going to keep me to call Neely. Apparenly there was some concern at this point about my blood pressure and I was asked again to do the 24-hour urine sample. I had just taken my last antibiotic so I was able to start it once I got home. With a bunch of fluids the contractions stopped. I had had a lot of trouble drinking enough that day because of my sore throat. The doctor was nice enough to send me home with an Ambien so that I could get some sleep. Right before we left I asked about work and the lovely doctor told me I was now on bed rest because of my blood pressure. I almost kissed her.

Since the boys were gone Gran said I was going to stay with her until they got home. We headed to my house about 1 in the morning so I could grab whatever I thought I would need. I had already taken the Ambien and was walking around like I was drunk. I’m sure it looked pretty funny. I’m not even sure what I grabbed. Gran said when she got in bed I asked if the medicine was supposed to work through the pain and them immediately started snoring. I guess it worked. Gran helped me collect the urine sample. For some reason I gagged everytime I tried to pour it into the collection jug.

• That Tuesday I had an OB and perinatologist appointment. I weighed in at 216. A gain of 15 pounds in two weeks. No one seemed concerned, but I was concerned because of all of the swelling. My blood pressure was a nice 120/80. We discussed Slurpee being breech, still no talk of early delivery. At this point I was 35 weeks 1 day and I was hoping to convince someone to deliver me at 36 or 37 weeks. Remember the pain? That was still there. We turned in the 24-hour urine sample to the lab and then headed to the perinatologist. Slurpee was actually head down. Her head was right over my left leg. Her butt was sticking out at my belly button. I used to poke her butt all the time because she would stick it out. She measured in at 7 pounds 14 ounces (that’s important, don’t forget that) and there was concern about her size. The doctor talked again about the possibility of a c-section because of her size. I was also given my last P-17 shot at this visit. I talked to the nurse about what had been going on. She told me the next time I went in to tell them I was having headaches, feeling really bad, and seeing spots so they would keep me. She was the funniest nurse I have ever had.

So that catches you up for the most part to the birth of Slurpee. When I learned that Slurpee had turned head down I was a little concerned. I think I had convinced myself that she would be born via c-section and had hyped myself up for that and when it changed I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The boys came home the next afternoon. Gran did a good job of taking care of me. I joked all day Wednesday that I was feeling bad and seeing spots. Turns out it wasn’t much of a joke.

I’ve never been like this. Even when Garrett died I don’t remember being like this. I seem to spend most of my time with tears running down my face and I really have no idea why. It’s crazy. It’s not who I am and I have no idea how to stop it.

A few weeks back I was going to stop blogging because I was in such a bad place. Then I realized that I was blogging to have something to remember Slurpee’s pregnancy. I never did come back to blog because of all the crazy stuff that happened and the six total visits to the hospital. But now. Do I really want to keep a record of what a mess I am?

Last night I had to call Gran because the boys had gone to the pool and I couldn’t get Neely to answer his phone. She took me to the ER because I was in so much pain I couldn’t calm down. That’s not me. I can tolerate a lot of pain. I’m the one who goes to work with dibilitating migraines and never lets on that I’m having one. Most people would crawl back into bed and stay there until it was gone. I felt like such a wuss.

Turns out that the pain I’m having has little to do with the tear I have from giving birth. The doctor was not quite sure what it was, but they gave me a good does of pain meds and sent me home with a new prescription. I haven’t had any of the prescription today, but I’m still in pain. I think the reason is that I haven’t been awake long enough for the pain to be an issue.

I don’t know what to say. Everyone says that it’s OK to be like this. They all know I’m on pins and needles because of the NICU and our past. I wouldn’t say I’m on pins and needles. We’ve been here and done this before. I feel like I need to get up and take care of everyone. Weeman needs me. Neely needs me. Slurpee needs me. I can’t just lie here until I’m better and then try to fit back in.

Miss Loralai Emory was born June 11, 2009 at 3:57 in the afternoon, 5 weeks early.  She weighed 6 pounds 3 ounces and was 18 inches long. The delivery was somewhat traumatic and today she is still in the NICU.

I realize that I owe quite a few updates. As soon as I get my feet underneath me I will get to updating.

But for now, enjoy a picture or two.

The first time Momma held me

Check out my turban!!