Jump to January 1, 2014. Lyil and I were at his family's house playing games. We were there for the entire evening and as the hours went by, I noticed that my legs were getting more and more swollen to the point that they were hurting. I decided that if I had the same problem the next day at work, I would call my Doctor.
January 2, 2014. I went to work and by 11:00 my legs were really swollen again. During my lunch break I called the Dr. They told me they wanted me to come in right away to get my blood pressure checked. I told them I would check it at work and call them back since I didn't want to leave work. My blood pressure was pretty high so when I called them back after lunch they told me to come into the office right away. I talked to my boss and told them I needed to go get it checked at the office and that I would try and come back before the end of the day. When I got there, my BP (Blood Pressure) had gone up even higher. They immediately did an ultra sound to check on the baby and the umbilical cord. The baby seemed to be doing fine, but they wanted a non-stress test done which meant I had to go to the hospital and be hooked up to monitors.
I stopped by Lyil's work on the way to the hospital to let him know what was going on and where I would be. Once I got there, they hooked me up the monitors, did another urine test and took some blood for tests. They were concerned enough that they admitted me to the hospital and told me that they might have to deliver the baby that night or the next day. They gave me a shot of steroids to help Makayla's lungs develop since she was only 32 weeks. They were worried about me having a seizure or a stroke since my blood pressure was so high. The highest it got was 160/102 which is super dangerous. They put me on a magnesium sulfate IV to help lower my BP. "The Mag", as it is so lovingly called, is the most awful stuff on the face of this Earth. It makes you feel like you are going to die! My whole face felt like it was on fire. It hurt to open my eyes and my mouth was on fire. It makes most people really nauseous, but I got lucky and was only nauseous for a few min. It made me delirious and super tired, but I had a hard time sleeping. According to Lyil, I just wasn't myself. (Luckily, I don't remember a whole lot about my time on the mag.)
My BP started to go down over the next couple of days so they took me off the mag and monitored me. It stayed down so they let me go home on January 5, 2014. I was put on strict bed rest and was told that I would not be going back to work until after she was born. They told me that for every day I could keep her inside, it would cut 2 days off of her time in the NICU once she was born. I went home and was obedient about staying down, but unfortunately my BP started creeping up again.
January 7, 2014. By late morning I was feeling really crappy again. I was feeling dizzy and my BP was pretty high again. I called my Dr. and he told me to go down to the hospital for another non-stress test. I knew I couldn't drive because I was so dizzy so I called my Dad and had him come get me. They started the tests again and it didn't take long until I was back on the mag. They admitted me again and told me that this time I wouldn't be going home until after she was born, but that they were going to try and keep her in there just a little bit longer. It was just a waiting game now.
January 9, 2014. That morning the doctor told me that he wanted to try and do a vaginal birth if we could. They decided that it was time to start inducing my labor since my BP was not going down even though I was on the mag. They checked my cervix and to everyone's surprise I was actually dilated to a 1. The doctor gave me some medicine that would start to soften my cervix so that it would start to dilate even more. After 6 hours they decided to give me pitosin to really get my labor going. The problem was one of the things the mag does is try and prevent labor, and the pitosin was trying to start labor, but they couldn't take me off the mag since my BP was so high. So the medications battled against each other and I started having contractions. They kept giving me more and more pitosin to try and really get my labor induced, and the contractions got stronger but never got closer together. After 12 hours of labor, my contractions were strong enough that they offered me an epidural. I decided that since I was already dealing with the side effects of the mag that I couldn't handle any more pain and I got the epidural. It was only about 15 min after that, that the doctor came in and told me that I hadn't progressed any more and that our only option at this point for the safety of Makayla and myself, was to do a c-section. I had a sense of relief come over me when he said that. I was so tired of feeling so awful from all the drugs and high BP, and I just wanted my baby to be ok. They took me in for the c-section and Lyil got to sit next to me as they started. As soon as they got Makayla out they had him go take pictures of her and be there with her. She was born at 9: 13 PM. She weighed 3 lbs. and was 15 1/2 in. long.
January 10, 2014. At noon they finally took me off the mag. YAY!! It was time to rest and recover. I was told that as soon as I felt good enough to get out of bed that I could go hold Makayla. Since I had been on the mag for so long it took a lot longer to leave my system than I expected.
January 11, 2014. I finally felt well enough to get out of bed and to go hold my baby. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. As soon as I got to hold her, I started feeling so much better. It felt so good to be able to hold her and tell her how much I love her. As miserable as the last week of my pregnancy was, it was all worth it when I got to hold her.
I love my baby Makayla Beth so much!
