35 weeks: Preeclampsia?!

Last Thursday I was sent home from Hoag when they were able to calm my contractions down with an increase in dosage of Procardia and a 48-hour Magnesium devil drip. I wasn’t too happy with the idea of going home, because even with the risk of picking up MRSA (hospitals are very dirty!), it was nice having breakfast, lunch, and dinner brought to me while lying in bed all day watching Ghost Whisperer. Just kidding. Sort of.

Anyway, when I wasn’t living in a fantasy world of pretending to be a rich person staying at a luxurious fat farm in Newport Beach, I was comforted by the fact that me and Baby Girl were being monitored 24/7. However, things stabilized and they sent me home with instructions to come on back if labor started.

Well, after a three days of finally getting a little more comfortable at home, I noticed that my blood pressure started creeping up a tiny bit every few hours, even with all of the medication I was taking. This was a new development, and because I am hypervigilant (translation: EXTREMELY PARANOID), I started paying more attention to other things that seemed a little out of the ordinary: an increasing sense of irritation with everyone and everything around me (actually, this is pretty common for me these days, but I realized I was getting out of hand after having a 5-minute heated argument with the kitchen table simply for being in my way); a dull headache that wasn’t really painful – just THERE – flickering on and off like a low wattage light bulb in some Eastern European underground human trafficking holding cell; and some funny looking pee even after drinking 4 liters of water a day.  

The good news is I haven’t gone into labor. The bad news is that they suspect I have preeclampsia due to abnormal lab results and the other things I mentioned above. My OB has told me that they are now just looking for any reason to deliver, which, even with 35 weeks still being a little early, I’m ok with. I simply do not trust my body to do the job it’s supposed to be doing anymore. If it’s safer for Sweetest Pea to be outside than in, so be it. As for me and the risk of stroke and organ failure – meh. Not really worried. It’s possible I’ll have to do Magnesium again, but that just means I’ll get to follow up with the Male Model Phlebotomist on what his latest life plans and goals are.

I know I’ve been a hot damn mess during this pregnancy and there have been many, many times that my faith has been shaken to its core - not that it was strong to begin with because of what we went through with Ligaya. I still get very angry about that. I mean, COME ON -  how much do people really need to be tested in life? But I’m trying to take a different approach on things. Instead of feeling abandoned by a higher power, I’m thankful that He/She/It has blessed me with the knowledge, ability, and confidence to realize that when things don’t seem right, you need to get that shit handled right away, no matter how crazy people may think you are. Had I not gone back to the hospital on Sunday after a blood pressure reading of 171/117 and just decided to sleep it off, this story may have a different ending. Trust your gut, people.

So here I am, back again at Hoag in the 35th week! Less than 2 weeks away from our scheduled c-section, but not quite sure we’ll actually get there. The doctors have all assured me that if she comes now, she will be ok. I know that all babies are different though, so I won’t fully believe that until I actually see her with my own eyes and hear her cry. Even with this latest development, I’m still thankful that we’ve made it so far. I know people who have struggled with preeclampsia at much earlier gestations. We’ve come a very long way.

Nate continues to be my shining star, even if he did balk at the idea of helping me with a bedpan every night in the likely event I was too tired and lazy to get out of bed to pee.  We’ve compromised, though. Now he just has to get up every few hours to unhook me from the machines and help me navigate my way to the toilet in the dark. He’s so sweet - the other night when we thought delivery was a real possibility, he suddenly darted off to the bathroom. He came out clean shaven saying that he wanted to look presentable to meet his baby girl. I thought homeboy was about to put on a suit and tie. My heart melted in that instant, and I was no longer mad that he chose to eat a burger in front of me earlier in the evening when I was told I needed to hold off on eating anything for a few hours. Baby Girl stayed put, so we ended up watching a terrible Keanu Reeves movie on Hulu instead. That’s 1.5 hours of my life watching Keanu struggle desperately to find the right emotions to get across on screen. Painful (although he is still quite handsome). But you know what?  It was also 1.5 hours of my life laughing with Nate, forgetting my worries for a little while, and feeling my Sweetest Pea kick every inch of my nether regions to let me know she was ok. I’ll take it. 

35 weeks...and it's basically any day now.

34 weeks: A piece of cake

Years ago, a coworker told me about a friend of hers who owned a chocolate themed dessert place called “The Bar of Chocolate” in Portland, Maine. Never one to discard random food suggestions, I tucked that information into a dark recess of my mind reserved for places I would run away to FOREVER in case real life ever made me mad enough one day. Yeah, I know that’s weird, but I have a whole list (and yes, they’re all food establishments strategically located around the globe). Anyway, I was able to cross that one off the list when of my best friends got married in Maine about a year later. Serendipity.

Maine is a beautiful state, made even more so by the fact that the best damn German chocolate cake I’ve ever had in my entire life exists there. It took us almost an hour to get to this place, but forcing Nate to drive there on that dark and cold late autumn night was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Man, this cake! Jesus wept. I wept. I sat there in a corner savoring each little bite with tears streaming down my face thinking I would never taste anything that good ever again. I even shared some with Nate, which says a lot because I’m a terrible food sharer. He said it was “pretty good”. I slapped him.

With nothing but time on my hands here on bed rest at Hoag Hospital in my 34^th week of pregnancy, I keep thinking about that perfect slice of cake. I wish life could always be as simple and as good as that. I also wish I had access to that cake 24/7, but no – I’ve got Hoag’s Sara Lee version here and it’s the palest colored turd in comparison.

You know what’s not a piece of cake? Pregnancy is not a piece of cake. At least to me it isn’t. It’s a 10-month continuous mental, physical, and emotional Iron Man race (40 weeks = 10 months – I still don’t get it). Unless you’re one of the normal/lucky ones who can lift weights, run, and do yoga like Alec Baldwin’s wife who ALWAYS seems to be doing weird fucking pregnant yoga poses half naked, it’s not an easy thing to go through. 

There’s a whole floor of us here at Hoag who can attest to that. Some of these girls have been here for months and months and months. I’m looking at about 3 weeks, IF we’re fortunate enough to make it to our c-section date. My uterus may have a different opinion on things. It’s still an angry beast, and the doctors have thrown everything they can at it to calm its petulant ass down: multiple IV bags for hydration, an increase in my dosage of Procardia which now drops my blood pressure to crazy low levels, and finally, the last line of defense – a 48-hour drip of Magnesium Sulfate, which essentially can be described as Satan himself taking an extra-long burning beer piss directly into my vein. Now that we’ve exhausted all of our options, we wait and see what happens.

At 34 weeks, they told me they won’t stop labor. They’ve assessed the risks versus the benefits of delivering early, and with my blood pressure issues, advanced maternal age, permanent cervical cerclage, and previous classical c-section scar – they’ve decided that delivery would be the way to go if active labor begins. Baby Girl has been protected as much as possible in that she’s received 2 rounds of steroids for her lungs. Also, the magnesium is known for neuroprotection in preemies. She would still need some time in the NICU but we’ve been told she will most likely do very, very well. I truly hope so – the idea of her being in NICU is scary, but compared to our last experience at 24 weeks, we have come a world – no, a UNIVERSE - away from the complications that Ligaya would’ve faced had she survived beyond those few precious hours we had with her. It’s still terrifying though.

When I first got here, they placed me on the delivery floor and I could hear all of the activity going on. When a newborn suddenly coded and everyone went running to save the day, I had a mental breakdown. In that instant, I was transported back to four years ago. I felt so much for that mom – that tornado of helplessness, hopelessness, and hope hitting full force from every direction. Four years ago, as the team of doctors worked on Ligaya trying to save her life, I remember begging God to take ME, not her, but that didn’t happen. My heart…the weight of it. There are no words.

Thankfully, the baby ended up being ok, but it left me shaken. You truly never know what will happen, and it is THAT – the inability to control every aspect of this experience – which I’ve struggled with since the beginning. All I can do is trust that the doctors know what they’re doing. They’ve assured me that they’ve been at this for a long time and that I should just let them do their jobs already. Ooooh burn.

The staff here have a really tough job, especially the nurses who’ve had to deal with all my questions and requests to study our toco strips (I’ve convinced myself that I know what I’m looking at in terms of fetal heart rate variability in relationship to the number of contractions I’m having). They aren’t big on showers while one is on bedrest, so as usual, I’m stinking up a storm here and they just grin through the pain and suffering of constantly having to adjust my monitor bands while inhaling my body odor. They are wonderful.

If there’s one suggestion I could make it would be that male supermodels should not be allowed to draw your blood at 4am when you flat out just smell like shit. On a 48- hour Magnesium drip, they take your blood every 6 hours to make sure you’re not hitting toxic levels. Like I said, that stuff is the plaything of the devil and makes you NOT YOURSELF. I suddenly turned into Chatty Pregnant Stinky Lady when this dude walked in:

Male model phlebotomist (MMP): Hi, I’m here to draw your blood.

Me: Wow. Anytime. You do this a lot?

MMP: It’s my job.

Me: You are the best I’ve ever had.

MMP: ………………………………………

Me: You have a real future in this.

MMP: This is not the end for me.

Me: You can do anything you want in life. What are your hobbies?

Nate (who was sleeping in a corner of the room): What the hell?! SHHHHHH! It’s 4 in the morning!

So here we are at 34 weeks! Dreaming about cake, thinking a lot about life, and wondering what’s going to happen next. We’re probably a lot closer than we thought now. Every single day makes a difference in Baby Girl’s development, so we really are down to having every second count. I can’t believe we’re almost there. As difficult as this journey has been, I know it’ll all be worth it in the end. I’ll do whatever it takes to get her here safe and sound. I’ll suffer all the pokes and prods, the magnesium drips, and days on end without a shower or solid poo. I would’ve done the same for Ligaya. I did it for as long as I could with her. I’ll do it for this Baby Girl too. I would do anything.  

This is a piece of cake......

                                                                                and this is just fucking weird......