Thursday, December 22, 2011

Another Traumatic Event . . .


It seems like a lot of you liked the 'Eye' post, so I figured I'd go with another event in my life that was totally nuts, and completely unforgettable.
A lot of people know that my son, Zacheriah, was a preemie baby. He was born when I was in my 30th week of pregnancy, and was only 2lbs 10ozs.  A few months ago, I would have told you that he hardly has had any major problems from this, but now we do have some colon problems.  (quite honestly, he's probably always had them, but it's just gotten worse)  Zach is 12 now, and for the most part, he's healthy and happy and taller than most kids his age.  He's also completely beautiful, see the pictures below.  I am very very thankful to be his mother.

Gorgeous 3 year old
So, when I was about 16 weeks along, my doctor told me that I had high blood pressure and that the swelling already starting in my legs was a good indication that I was going to have pre-eclampsia.  Of course, I was sick a lot, but I figured that it was just pregnancy.  About 3 weeks later, I was put on partial bed rest and asked to sleep on my left side.  I did that, and was started on a mild BP medication.  At 22 weeks, I was asked to go on full bed rest for the entirety of the pregnancy, and I didn't do it.  Well, I had just started a job at At-A-Glance, and had some huge development projects in the works, when I found out I was pregnant, and I didn't feel like ti was fair to them for me to just cut out.   Also, though, bed rest for 18 weeks, NO WAY.  That is nutty.  I was sure I could not do that.  I did try to take care of myself, but I thought the bed rest thing was kinda ridiculous, because for the most part, I still felt not so bad. 
At week 27, I felt really bad one night, and went to the hospital.  I was sure I was going to die, and when we showed up at the hospital my BP was 210/115 and immediately they admitted me.  I was in there for what seemed like forever, but really about 10 days.  I missed my older kids, so badly, and it was close to Halloween, and I just wanted to go home to be with them.  They went ahead at 28 weeks and gave Zacheriah steroids for his lungs while he was still in utero.  They let me go home on October 31st, 1999 with the understanding that I was to go to my doctor at 10am on the following Tuesday, Nov. 2 for a follow up and urine check.  The final piece of the pre-eclampic puzzle was they were waiting on protein in the urine.  Well, when I got home on the 31st, I could tell that my urine was thicker, and by Tues. morning, I was peeing jelly, seriously.  
My Dr. Appt on the 2nd, was quick..she did a catheter in her office, and immediately sent me to St. Vincents.  So, by 11, I was admitted again into St. Vincents, which was definitely becoming like a home.  They left me in the emergency department all day, and my doctor came in about 2 to tell me (after about 50 ultrasounds) that they were taking him out that day.  Everything went so quickly from there.   I did some arguing, but apparently St. Vincents is a hospital that was about saving my life over the life of my unborn child, which made my mom happy, but not me at all.  Now, once he was born they were miracle workers, so I can't complain too much.  I remember having a killer BP headache and they gave me some morphine, yeah, while I was pregnant, and then they got concerned cuz Zach stopped moving around very much..I thought that was silly, because I stopped moving around much too..This one doctor kept hitting my belly with a hammer that they normally would use on your knees.  
Magnesium Sulfate - OH GROSS.  That was horrid.  They didn't explain it real well, or why they were giving it to me, they told me I might start to get a headache and they put the bed in a position where my feet were higher than my head.  I thought I might DIE for about an hour or so then.  My face got so hot, well I got so hot, it was bad...
Then they gave me the spinal block.  The anesthesiologist comes in and tells me that this won't hurt a bit, since I had been poked and prodded everywhere.  He was a fridgin' liar.  It hurt...It hurt a lot and I cursed and told him so.  Well then everything below my chest went completely numb and quickly.  My dad grabbed my foot when he came in and I remember thinking, what is that lump he has a hold of...yeah, it was me..
Delivery - Felt like I couldn't breath in there, which was because of the spinal, but of course, it was a rush, so no one explained it really well.  The anesthesiologist was a moron, and he was dancing to Kenny G while I was screaming at him that I couldn't breath okay.  After some details I'm purposely leaving out, my boy was born looking like a wrinkly old man, but he cried pretty quick.  (5:54pm)  I was still an emergency they told me, so the sewed me up, and took me back to ICU, and I didn't see my kid for 2 days.  I did get Polaroid pictures, which were size misleading.
When I was wheeled into the NICU two days later, I thought he was the kid on the warmer next to the incubator that he was actually in, and my immediate thought was, "that's not nearly as bad as people were letting on."  I'll save the NICU experience for another blog, cuz I'm tired of typing.

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