We had a whirlwind of a weekend. Friday morning around
4:00am I started having horrible stomach pains.
After I sent the kids to their last day of school I decided to head to
the doctor’s office. They checked me and
the baby, ran some tests, and as far as they could see, everything seemed
fine. They gave me a little medicine to
help with the pain and then they sent me home. That night our neighbor, Jon, came over and he and Darin gave me a priesthood blessing.
By Saturday
night I was in tears again over how much pain I was in. It was so painful every time I took a breath and I kept throwing up because the pain was too much to bare. I even accidentally tore off our towel rack off the wall when I was trying to get over the pain. It really was so horrible. Darin called the doctor and he told us to go to
the ER. They did some ultrasounds to
check my gallbladder, but everything looked okay.
They gave me some morphine to help with the pain, and I felt so much
better. They took my blood and decided
to keep me overnight while they waited for my blood results to come back.
Darin went home around 11:30pm and I went to sleep. At 1:30 am, the nurse woke me up and told me they
got the results back from the blood test and I had something called “HELLP
syndrome” and that they would need to take the baby immediately. One of the nurses asked me what my “birthing
plan” was, and I said, the only thing I cared about was to get an
epidural. Unfortunately, because my
platelets were so low, they said I would have to do it without an epidural.
Dr. Ward was there by 1:45 and he broke my water and got me
started on several IVs including a magnesium drip to help prevent me from
having seizures. 2:00 they started
the Pitocin. I was REALLY out of it, and
I would almost fall asleep between contractions. My stomach pain returned and it was equally
as painful (if not more) as the contractions.
My nurse was amazing and helped coach me through some breathing exercises. I quickly progressed to complete, and Dr Ward
came back around 6:00 am, we did two pushes, and Lucy was born at 6:05.
When she came out she was not breathing, and they had a
whole team come in to work on her, while another team was still working on
me. I remember, even though I was really
out of it, thinking that it was taking Lucy a long time to breath, but also
noticing that they were rotating on pumping her chest and squeezing a breathing
pump.
When everything settled I could not get over how tiny she
was! 4 lbs 2 oz 17 ½ inches tall! She is absolutely beautiful, and we already
love her so much!
We spent the next few days in the hospital, monitoring Lucy’s
blood sugars, and watching my platelet count as well as my liver and
kidneys. It felt so weird that they gave
Lucy the “ok” to go home before they gave me the ok. The last day we were there, she developed
jaundice and they had to put her under lights.
We ended up bringing a light home to help with her levels, but she doesn’t
seem to mind it.
We are thrilled to be back home and to have this sweet baby
girl in our family. The kids LOVE LOVE
LOVE her, and want to hold her, rub her, sing to her, and help in any way they
can. She has definitely brought a sweet
spirit into our home, and we are so glad she is here!
