Surprise! "You have Pre-Eclampsyia and will have babies today"

Thurs. June 24, 2010
Had my normal weekly doctor's appointment at 4:30 p.m. At that appointment my blood-pressure was higher than normal and I had some protein in my urine. Both are not good for pregnancy. Plus I'm quite swollen in my hands and feet more so than normal. So my doctor had me collect my urine for 24 hours.

Friday, June 25, 2010
Thank goodness my step-kids are at their moms till Saturday. All day every time I went to the bathroom I had to collect my urine in a special bowl that sat on the toilet seat and then had to pour into a special jug that had to be in the fridge… So like I said at the beginning thank goodness the kids were not home. I'm still very swollen all day LONG…

Saturday, June 26, 2010 & Sunday, June 27, 2010
Since Mike is off picking up the kids down in McLean, IL I have my mom drive me to the hospital to drop off my 24-hr urine sample. We get to the hospital around 10:30 a.m. get everything dropped off at the lab and since I'm at the hospital which is connected to my doctor's office I figure let them check my blood pressure. Blood pressure was still high and I'm still extremely swollen. The nurse checks with the doctor and I'm told to go home and rest. They told me they would call me if the lab results come back too high for protein. I go home with mom so I'm not by myself and since my dad had a heart issue a year back he has a blood pressure cuff. We periodically take my blood pressure…it's rising. No phone call from the doctor by the time Mike gets home with the kids…so I go home. I sit and relax all night watching the blood pressure go up and down…swelling never getting better… and never a phone call from the doctor. So I figure that I'm in the clear and no need to be concerned. The next morning my blood pressure is still elevated and I'm still swollen but no phone call. But around midnight my blood pressure spiked really high and I made a call to the on-call doctor which was my doctor. She told me to rest and go to sleep and call the office in the morning to make an appointment; since all I had was swelling and high blood pressure…I had no other signs of pre-eclampsia

Monday, June 28, 2010
Wake up and take my blood pressure right away and its back to normal…that's weird I think. But a good sign. I call my doctor's office as soon as it opened…explained to the nurse what had happened all weekend long and told her my blood pressure readings from the weekend. Since all I was having was blood pressure and swelling she told me to drink lots of water and rest. I ate breakfast but when lunchtime rolled around I didn't feel like eating AT ALL. I took a nap instead. Well at 1:30 p.m. my doctor's office called and it was my doctor…. Surprise! "You have Pre-Eclampsia and will have babies today" I'm shocked… My protein from my 24-hr collection was a 4+ on the scale…NOT GOOD. This pissed me off because I never received a call all weekend long and come to find out I did have pre-eclampsia and could have had a major issue. So I was told to get to the hospital by 4:00 and we would have babies at 6:00 since I didn't eat lunch…which turned out to be a good thing.

So I started the phone calling to Mike, Mom, and friends. Then texted the kids to be home by 3:00. Everyone became very concerned for me and the babies…and I was it shock and didn't know what to do first. I re-packed my hospital bag I think 3x's just to get time to pass and to make sure I had everything I would need…LOL… Your never completely prepared for the hospital.

Got to the hospital by 4:15 because Shelby wanted to be with me when I went to the hospital and she didn't get home on time… Get upstairs to L&D and my nurse was AWESOME!!! I was so scared to have the IV put in because my mom had told me that was the worst part of her whole labor…plus I couldn't eat or drink anything since 1:30…so I figured my veins wouldn't be very cooperative. But nope my nurse got it in with one poke and that needle is HUGE and LONG!! Yikes… then the waiting game begun… It was a new hospital I delivered at and they are very understaffed. It was the anesthesiologist that was holding everybody up.

Around 6:00 I was wheel chaired back to the O.R. area. At 6:15ish that’s when we finally received an anesthesiologist and we got started. The spinal was a piece of cake and I was really nervous about getting that. Then I was told to lay down and they started the catheter and started laying the operating sheets/equipment down on me. The brought Mike in and it started. It was the strangest / craziest feeling in the world to be wide awake and feel yourself get cut open…it didn't hurt…but the feeling is so WEIRD. So out came Baby A (Andrew) at 6:42 p.m. weight 4 Lbs 11 oz and 19 inches long… Then within the same minute 6:42 Baby B (Joseph) came out weighing 4 Lbs 10 oz and 18-1/2 inches long. Both crying and screaming…not very loud…but they were doing it. Mike went and took pictures and when he came back to me he saw the doctors arm up inside me delivering the placenta…he didn't have time to comprehend what he just saw…so he didn't pass out. The boys were brought over for me to see and then whisked off to the NICU because they were only 35 weeks and 3 days old. And I went to recovery for an hour.













During that hour I was in recovery my family and step-kids go to the NICU and see the babies. Both babies were doing awesome and only needed to have the typical IV's…no help was needed for breathing or anything like that. When my 1 hour was up they did take me by to see the babies. Then taking me back to my room was very painful and getting me into my bed was extremely painful…WOW!!! When they got me situated my family came in to see me for an hour or two and then went home. Mike stayed with me for the night, but slept thru the nurse coming in and checking me through the night. And that first night is very painful…especially when you're uterus doesn't contract correctly and the nurse has to push on your stomach and incision to get the blood clots out…sorry if that was a little TMI.

The next few days were rough and sore… Especially the walk to the NICU but it was good I was doing all that walking to help with the recovery. By Wednesday I was pumping breast milk for the boys and they were getting breast milk for every other feeding. They never lost weight which a good thing because to leave the NICU you have to maintain weight, feed from a bottle, and keep your body temperature up. My boys had that down by Thursday…so we thought for sure they would be home no later than Monday. So when we were told there was a possibility they could come home on Saturday it was a wonderful feeling. We only had one night without them, which was nice to be able to come home and get ready for them, but I did cry when I left the hospital without my babies.