Gods peace during a chaotic childbirth and life afterwards

4/8/13
So I've never blogged before but I feel compelled to write about our recent experience and how amazing God is!  First of all, Grady was conceived while I had a mirena IUD in place for birth control. It was uncertain at first if I would be able to remain pregnant (there was roughly a 50% chance of miscarriage at that point).  Once we got to my 3rd trimester, there was NO DOUBT this baby was meant to be.  We often joked that who knows if we would have more children after Grady, but that if God wanted us to have more babies, we would!!

I went in for a routine OB check up at approximately 35 weeks and noted that I had been having headaches and right upper quadrant pain (I knew the signs/symptoms but thought for sure nothing was going on). They had me do two separate 24 hour urine collections and sure enough the protein was going up!  They decided they would try to get rid of my headache and tried a few different medications with no luck so they wanted to induce me. I showed my reluctance and they decided to just keep me overnight and see how I was doing the next morning (this was on a Thursday).

Friday morning they gave me a diagnosis of severe preeclampsia and decided the best thing to do was to induce me.  I was exactly 36 weeks pregnant and not thrilled to be having baby Grady yet (I was very fearful of him having to go to the NICU).  To make matters worse, there was not a NICU at the hospital on base so if he needed to go, they would transfer him to a hospital downtown and they would discharge me as soon as possible to be with him.

Because of the severe pre-e, they had to start me on magnesium to prevent seizures (pre-e can turn into eclampsia which causes seizures).  All that meant was that I was not allowed to get out of bed and it tends to make you feel a bit cruddy.  It wasn't horrible but I did not want a foley catheter so I had to use a bed pan and that was the worst part for me. For the actual induction, they started me on pitocin to get my contractions going but the magnesium slows everything down so it's a bit of balance to get labor going!  All in all, I was progressing pretty well and it seemed like everything was going to go as smoothly as possible.

At a little bit after 11:00 pm, I started vomiting and feeling a ton of pressure and knew it was time.  As I was throwing up, I was hitting the call bell and my Mom was waking Ryan up (we thought we had a couple more hours).  The nurse came in to check me and realized immediately that he was crowning. They didn't have time to set the room up properly, the Dr just came in and delivered Grady in the bed.  He was crying and mostly pink and SO CUTE!!! They put him on my belly and we were just loving on him.  I remember saying that he looked like he was retracting (his ribs were moving while he was breathing) but we just stimulated him and it settled down.

What seemed like maybe 5 minutes later, the Dr. said "ok, it's been 20 minutes and her placenta is not delivered yet".  I didn't think much of it but she said she was going to try to get the placenta out manually.  I just remember her trying to get my placenta and it hurt really bad and it wouldn't come out.  She started yelling for all sorts of things and I don't really remember the progression but I think at first it was certain instruments.  All the while, she had her hand inside of me and it felt like she was pulling my insides out.  It quickly progressed to her yelling for help (calling in additional doctors, blood, operating room personnel...hysterectomy set).  I just had my eyes closed at this point but I could hear everything that was going on.  I prayed and all I can tell you is that God gave me His peace to get me through this.  I felt no fear, I was not upset when she called for a hysterectomy set.  I just felt like I was going to be ok and that He was in control.  

I remember my Mom crying out and saying something like "Jennifer no, oh God, Jennifer" and I remember opening my eyes and telling her "it's Ok Mom, you need to calm down, it's going to be Ok". Afterwards they both said there was so much blood all over the place and that it was like a waterfall pouring out of me.  Looking back, her and Ryan had to go through so much being in that room with me.  I would have been freaking out too had God not given me His peace. They got me into the OR and I remember the Dr telling everyone to slow down, that she wanted to try one more time to save my uterus.  The last words I heard from her were something like "forget it, we have to do a hysterectomy" and I opened my eyes to see anesthesia messing with my wrist, saying he was starting an arterial line and taking the mask off my mouth to intubate me.

The next thing I remember was waking up in the ICU.  I had a central line in my neck, an arterial line in my right wrist, a drain from my incision site, an IV in each arm...My main OB Dr was there talking to me and I was just in so much pain.  The ICU nurse got me set up with a PCA pump and once the pain was under control I began to process what she had said to me.  They kept me intubated until that morning, I lost a lot of blood - approximately 4 liters (you have approximately 5-6 liters total, they had to give me 16 units total of blood and blood products).  They had to do a hysterectomy...but baby Grady was in perfect health and he was downstairs with Ryan in the mother-baby unit.  

They ended up keeping me in the ICU until the next afternoon (Sunday) and had to give me another unit of blood because I was so dizzy and my levels were low.  Ryan and Grady were able to come visit me a couple of times but we were so anxious to be together!  When I was finally transferred downstairs with Ryan and Grady, we couldn't have been happier!

In the days that followed, it slowly started to sink in what had happened.  It was most awakening when my main OB Dr came to see me after being transferred and she began to get teared up talking about what had happened.  She apologized that my incision wasn't straight (which we had to laugh about, it's not too crooked, just a little off)! and Ryan thanked her for saving my life.  I don't remember if she said it as well but my nurse told me that they thought they had lost me and another Dr that got called in came to give me a hug (I knew her from when I was active duty working in L&D) and she told me I had really scared them...it's one thing to experience something as the patient or family member but to see my Dr's and nurses so affected by what happened takes it to another level.

I was able to come home on Tuesday afternoon (hospital day 6) and started crying when they told me I was getting discharged!  I didn't think they were going to let me go, my blood work wasn't great and they talked about giving me more blood but thankfully I wasn't having any symptoms.  I just wanted to get home and feel like a "normal post partum mom"!  So much for normal, eh!

I had my first follow up appointment a couple days later and was able to sit down and talk some more with my OB Dr.  She had talked to us about her initial diagnosis (placenta acreeta) but the pathology came back and it was actually placent increta.  This means that the placenta had grown into the uterine wall and even if they had known this was going to happen, I still would have needed a hysterectomy.  Let me just say that she is an incredible Dr who truly cares and we are extremely thankful she was there.  She got choked up again just sitting and talking with me and then she laughed at me for apologizing (I just feel really bad for everyone around me)!  I have another appointment this week and she wants to see me more frequently just to make sure I am doing ok.

Grady is a little over a week old now and all in all, I really do feel good.  I don't think I've fully accepted that we can't have any more children of our own but I HAVE to be thankful to God that I am alive, and that Grady and I are healthy. I think it is going to take some time to fully process what happened but I wanted to write this to share how amazing God is and what He can do in your life if you let Him in.  All along, we said if God wanted us to have more babies, we would.  I just have to think that God doesn't want us to have any more children of our own.  And to thank Him for giving us 2 beautiful children!  Ryan and I are determined to let this change us, for the better.  




4/26/13
So today is actually my due date and Grady is 4 weeks old!  I have to say, its been a bit of a roller coaster!  I think I was on a “high” of sorts from the delivery and feeling so good after everything that happened.  Now, I am tired and really emotional some days.  I was thinking yesterday about how I am feeling and I think I might be angry.  Although we weren’t sure we wanted more children, I think I am upset that we don’t have that option anymore.  I am definitely still thankful to be alive and for both of us to be healthy but I don’t understand why all of this happened.  I will probably never understand why it happened, only God knows!  I just have to get to a place where I am completely ok with it.  I think writing about my feelings is definitely helpful.  For now, we'll just take it one day at a time.