34 Weeks
At my 34 week OB appointment everything was a-ok, as usual. Blood pressure and urine test checked out perfect. 3 days later I had my best friends Bachelorette party and we were getting pedicures done and I really noticed that my feet and lower legs were extremely swollen and my face was sore too (felt like bruising). Pfff, didn't think anything of it since I heard that pregnancy usually results in swollen feet. That night we were out tearing up the dance floor until 2am. Obviously the next day I didn't feel like myself. Again, I attributed it to regular pregnancy symptoms and the fact that I was droppin' it like it was hot until the wee morning hours the night prior. 35 Weeks
A few days later I still hadn't shaken the weird feeling and came home from work with a migraine like no other. My husband insisted that I head to the hospital in the morning and not go into work. I for once listened to him. My blood pressure had shot way up and my urine had a lot of protein in it. My OB immediately pulled me from work and explained that I had preeclampsia and that I would have to deliver early. She immediately put me on a medication to regulate my blood pressure and sent me down to the birthing unit so they could check out the baby to see if she was showing signs of stress. If she did in fact show any signs I would be induced immediately. SAY WHAT?! If I were 37 weeks along I would have 100% been induced that day.Thankfully little peanut checked out totally fine which means we dodged being induced that day. The following day I was back for an hour long ultrasound to again check the baby and to run a bunch more tests on me. The verdict was that my kidneys and liver were showing signs of stress but baby was holding up well. At this point I was 6 days shy of 36 weeks. The goal was to get me and babe to 36 weeks without causing either of us permanent damage. I was tracked every other day until I was 36 weeks using urine and blood testing, blood pressure checks, detailed ultrasound, and baby heart monitoring.
36 Weeks
At 36 weeks to the day which happened to be April Fools Day, I went to my check up in denial. So much so that told my husband to go to work since I was convinced that my OB would give our little peanut one more week to bake. Plus, I had a list of errands I needed to do after my appointment and my hospital bag was at home. I couldn't possibility be induced that day!!! Wrong. D-day had arrived. Immediately after my check up I was sent down to the birthing unit to have a propess inserted to help soften my cervix. I decided to call my husband at that point. I had to be monitored for two afters after waiting two hours to have the propess inserted. Ugh. Guess those errands weren't getting done. After the two hours of monitoring they sent me home to wait it out. If I began to contract on my own I was to come back once they became strong enough. If I didn't start to contract I was due back in 12 hours so they could break my water. At this point we were 8 hours away from dodging an April Fools Day arrival. Phew! We headed home so we could eat dinner, pack our bags and rest a bit. How lovely.... until I got home and went pee and the damn propess fell out! Son of a bitch. I called the hospital and talked to the resident that had inserted it. She wanted me back at the hospital as soon as possible. Shit. There goes that awesome pasta dinner I had my heart set on. We quickly packed our bags and headed back to the hospital. We ended up having to wait two hours before the resident could check me. At this point the hubby and I were starving! When I was checked I was 3 cm dilated and my OB decided she was going to break my water. What?! HOLD THE PHONE! There were a few reasons why this just wasn't going to work for me.
1) It was still April Fools Day - I did not want my baby born on April Fools Day
2) I was starving! How could I concentrate on cranking a kid out when I hadn't had lunch or dinner?
3) Our bags were in the car
The Big Day(s)
So after some negotiations with my OB she agreed to let us run to the car to grab our belonging and to grab a quick bite to eat. And by 'quick bit to eat', my husband and I heard 'go have a nice sit down dinner just the two of you and relax', so we headed to East Side Mario's for some good old Italian food. We arrived back to the hospital happy campers since we had eaten up some good grub and only a few hours remained on April Fools Day. We were now 3 hours away from April 2nd. Booya! I headed to my delivery room and ended up waiting until 10:30 PM for them to break my water which was fine with us since we had a fantastic view of down town London lite up at night and we were listening to some good tunes. Five minutes later my first contraction happened. *Sidenote: During my preadmit appointment I made it very clear that I wanted an epidural and that I didn't really care to feel any contractions
My nurse asked us to walk the halls for 1 -2 hours to help progress things. I had never been in labour before so I thought this was protocall before having to get an epidural. We ended up walking for an hour and my contractions were getting closer together and much stronger. We were pretty beat since it was close to midnight so we headed back to our room to hopefully catch a quick cat nap. Pffffff. Yeah right. At 12:30am I was 4 cm along and my contractions were pretty hard core. I was wondering where the damn anesthesiologist was so I asked my nurse. Her reply was "Oh, are you ready for your epidural?" and in my head my reply was "Are you f'n kidding me ass hole? I wanted one the moment I stepped in here." but I decided that a simple "Yes" would be more effective. It was 2:15am by the time the epidural sort of kicked in (I never really got to feel the full benefit of it) and they began the Pitocin drip. at 2:30am my husband and I tried to take a quick nap. That lasted 15 minutes and I woke up to extreme pain and pressure. I told the nurse and she had the resident come in to check me. I was 10 cm! WTF?! I had dilated 6 cm in 30 minutes. Holy crap. I was asked not to push until the OB arrived. Sure no sweat. Not. I started pushing at 3:25 and at 4:10 they asked me to stop pushing so they could call the NICU team to the room. That moment was a huge reality check - NICU team?! I was so scared that something was going to be wrong with my baby. At 4:20am our little 4lb 5 oz peanut entered the world and forever changed our life. We were able to hold her for 5 minutes before my husband had to carry her down to the NICU where she would stay for the next 5 days. During that 5 minutes I fell head over heels in love with her. I have heard that doesn't happen to some people so I was nervous I wouldn't get that immediate feeling but I did. It was quite overwhelming. Peanut was thankfully completely healthy (scored a 9/10 on the Apgar test) but needed to stay in the NICU to prove that should could maintain her body temperature and gain weight, which she did - Our little blonde warrior!
That in a nut shell is our peanuts birth story. It was a quick 6 hours with a few bumps in the road but all in all things went much better than I thought they would. We feel so blessed to have our little girl in our arms, especially after the long road to get her here. Worth every needle, every tear and every doctors appointment. So much so that we'll do it all again in the future for peanut #2.
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