I want to share a little about our birth story because I think it’s worth sharing, and honestly, it’s rather cathartic to write all of this out. So with no further ado, let me share a few details of our story and how we got into labor.
First things first, throughout my pregnancy, I had a problem with my blood pressure spiking. At first it would just be a little higher than the OB liked, and he made sure to watch it as we continued along. Now I’ll be honest, I didn’t show very quickly, and even when I did show, I never really “popped” the way so many of my friends did.
I did, however, develop preeclampsia, which you hear a lot about when you’re pregnant but never really know what to do about it. Preeclampsia can affect almost anyone and is extremely common in first pregnancies, so it isn’t a huge deal. What doctors look out for, though, are signs that you’re going from preeclampsia to full-on eclampsia. What does that mean, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.
If you get pregnant and become eclamptic, you could suffer from seizures. This could escalate, and you could eventually die as a result of this. That’s right: seizures and death. Sounds pleasant, right?
So let’s fast forward to the last few weeks of my pregnancy. My blood pressure has steadily risen to the point my OB gets a little more antsy. At one point, my blood pressure came back high and I had protein in my urine (another sign of preeclampsia), which was the first time it had come back positive for protein in my urine. I was sent home with a jug and a “hat” to pee in and save for 12 hours and bring back the next day.
Let me just say, it isn’t easy to tote around a jug of pee in a cooler with you to work all day. It’s even harder to find a good time to jump in the bathroom during work to pee in a hat and pour it in your jug of urine.
I took my jug back to the doctor’s office the next morning and was not surprised when my blood pressure came back even more elevated. Can you really expect it to go down when they’re so worried about it? I mean, really. I was surprised, however, when they decided I needed to go to the hospital’s labor and delivery unit for monitoring. I was told to take the orders along with my lovely jug of urine over to L&D because they weren’t sure if they’d have to induce me.
Talk about panic.
This was before my last baby shower, before we transformed our extra bedroom into a nursery (still unused except for diaper changes), before we’d gotten all the things we needed for our baby, and definitely before we had installed our carseat!
I spent a rather grueling few hours cooped up in a bed in admitting in the L&D unit. I learned how uncomfortable the beds were then. (Little did I know how much I’d learn to hate those beds!) And they had me hooked up to both the baby monitor and the blood pressure monitor just to be safe. Several hours of monitoring later, they told me I was okay to go home.
Of course, it wasn’t long after that my blood pressure spiked to 150/90.
And then we were thrown into the chaos of a two-week early delivery at 38 weeks. But that’s a story for another post!
– RaeNezL
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