Atlas Ray

Well like all of this pregnancy his arrival was as undramatic as physically possible. :) (sarcasm)

I will spare gory details, there really isn't a lot of them. But it was definitely the scariest 2 days of my life. This might be a little long.

I started having severe lower abdomen cramping Saturday afternoon. Jarrett was at work, I had just gone on a walk and decided I should lay down until I left to eat dinner with my parents at Copper Oven. I napped for an hour then left for dinner, and the pain was intensifying. I could hardly eat anything and by the time I got home I was running a fever. I decided to lay down and see if I could kick it. And hour later I was calling Jarrett at work saying we needed to go to the hospital. My fever had spiked to 102 and the pain in my abdomen was getting worse. So to Wesley we went.

The pain was constant but I was also having contractions, it was hard to explain to the nurses and residents. The fever was unexplainable, no UTI, blood draws looked good, but my fever was relentless and my blood pressure seemed a little high.  A swift shot to the leg of painkiller, loads of fluids via IV, and a steady round of tylenol got my fever kicked around 6am. Poor Jarrett-slept maybe an hour on the hospital floor while I duked it out with nurses coming in every hour. The resident came in and asked what we wanted to do: stay. or. go home, rest, take a sleeping pill, some painkillers and try to sleep it off in our own bed. We decided the latter. Big mistake.

By the time we got home with our medicine it was 730 Sunday morning and my fever was back full force. I hadn't eaten in well over 12 hours and had to eat something to take my medicine. It took me 30 minutes to get half a peanut butter sandwich down. From 8-11 Jarrett slept and I was up and down drinking water, trying to get warm, but wiping sweat off my face, and going pee from all the IV fluids. At 11am I took my temperature again, back to 102. So back to Wesley we went.

This time when we were admitted my blood pressure was considered in the moderate-high range, my fever the highest it had been and I still had cramping in my lower abdomen. We had 4 different residents trying to figure out what was going on. More blood draws, blood cultures, the start of a 24 hr urine test, urine cultures, more IV fluids and painkillers. By Sunday evening my blood pressure was in the severe range and my fever was only staved off by painkillers and tylenol and my baby was back and forth tachycardia. Meanwhile they're concerned I might have Chorio, an infection in the uterus, that would cause me to be sick, and cause baby to be in stress. My doctor finally came to the rescue Monday morning at 830 am. My blood pressure cuff went off as he sat by my hospital bed and it read in the severe range. He looked at it, said 'give me a second', left and came back. Re-took his seat and told us we have 3 options. 1. Have this baby right now assuming its severe preeclampsia and/or chorio 2. Have an amniocentesis test done (long needle inserted into amniotic fluid, not considered safe for the baby by many) 3. Wait until 5pm when the 24 hr urine would confirm preeclampsia or not. I looked at Jarrett and he said 'I think this is it'. It was time to tap out. Our doctor agreed he thought delivery right now was the best option. And so they prepped me for surgery. 

Within an hour of our decision I was ready for surgery. I wasn't allowed to shower or clean up, at that point any exertion would be detrimental to my blood pressure. I was put on Magnesium to prevent seizures and stroke for the severe blood pressure readings I was consistently having at this point. Magnesium is nasty. It felt like my arm was breaking as they pumped it through my IV. I had issues throughout the entire ordeal with getting the shakes. This was not helpful in getting an epidural done in a timely manner, so thankful for a particularly patient nurse and anesthesiologist. We had an entire NICU team in there (2 days shy of full term and with the risk of Chorio made them a necessity). It took maybe 10 minutes after they got started for me to hear that blessed sound of Atlas Ray crying. I took one look at him and said 'where'd he get all that hair?' 'look at all that hair!' 'how much does he weigh??'. Within about a minute of him being exposed the nurse looked at me and she said 'he'll be going to the room with you for sure'. NICU didn't need to take him after all. Huge relief. Did I mention that tears started falling as soon as I heard him cry? Yes they fell silently and consistently as I watched them wipe him off, weigh him, stamp his feet and hand him to Jarrett. 

It took about 10 minutes for them to stitch me up, hip to hip. Meanwhile I get face time with the new little dude. They put him in my arms as they wheel us back to our delivery room. My blood pressure readings and heart rate at this point were so high that Jarrett thought the machines were broken. Thank you Magnesium. I was very weak and shaky from the Magnesium and completely out of it for about 15 minutes while my parents came in to see the new bundle. Then the epidural wore off.  Holy crap. I was still shaking uncontrollably and the shaking was making me more and more aware that I was gaining my feeling back pretty steadily. I asked for pain medicine. The nurse almost gave me stuff that I'm allergic to. We stopped her. She ordered different stuff. 5 minutes pass and I'm getting real nervous/angry, apparently pharmacy mixed up the order and my pain killer isn't ready yet. 5 minutes more and I'm crying, my shakes are now shaking my newly stitched up body and it was not pleasant. Then they got me the good stuff :)

Because of the assumed severe preeclampsia I had to be on the Magnesium for 24 hours, and was not allowed up at all. Jarrett did every diaper change, helped with the first bath, picked up Atlas when he got fussy and listened to all the nurses orders and information for me. A true champ. At 5pm the 24 hr urine test confirmed severe preeclampsia, like slightly off the charts severe. So grateful we tapped out that morning. We were moved to a postpartum recovery room the following day once I was allowed off the Magnesium. It took about 1-2 hours post not being on it that I was able to hold up my own head and limbs. We spent the next 3 days in the post-partum recovery room. I had my vitals checked 3 times a day, and Atlas had to make up for some weight loss (Magnesium can often lead to newborns losing too much weight in their first couple of days). 

We got released Thursday afternoon and have been adjusting to home life.  I would definitely say the severe preeclampsia has made the recovery twice as hard than the actual C-section (even though that by itself is plenty to come back from) because my blood pressure and heart rate are still high and will take several weeks to settle back down to normal. I refused to look at my incision for the first 4 days. I finally did when we got home, and I was glad I put it off as long as I did. Here are a few pictures of the eventful day: