I woke up around 5am with some stomach pain. It was intermittent and didn't feel like the contractions I'd had with Leila. It just felt...off, for lack of a better word. After stewing to myself for a while, I woke Jason up because I was starting to feel panicky on my own. We fretted and tried to figure out what could be going on and I was trying to calm down enough to see if I could feel the baby moving. Then the pain just stopped and I felt a little flutter of movement. I jumped in the shower to help calm my nerves and then was able to go back to bed for a few hours, convinced I had just about made a mountain out of a molehill.
Jason decided to take the morning off work just to make sure that I was alright and I will be forever grateful that he did. Around 9am, just as I was finishing up breakfast, the pain came back and was a little more intense this time around. Jason convinced me that it wouldn't hurt to at least call the doctor and see if they thought I should come in. We made the call and they determined that I should come in, just in case. It was about this time that I realized I hadn't felt any strong movements all morning and since that is when she is usually the most active, I started to feel more concerned.
So Jason, Leila, and I made our way to my doctor's office where I quickly discovered that I had started bleeding. If I wasn't nervous before, I certainly was now because something was definitely not right. My regular doctor wasn't in the office that day, so I was seen by another one of the doctors at the office, Dr. Young. He found the heartbeat and from that moment on, I felt a sense of calm come over me. I could hear my baby's heartbeat. That meant that whatever was going on, she was still okay. I can't even describe the relief that I felt.
After examining me, they had me do a non-stress test (NST) so that they could monitor the baby's heartbeats and movements. By now, I was also having some minor contractions so the test monitored those as well. Realizing that this wasn't going to be a quick-fix kind of thing, I realized we could use some help with Leila. My first choice would have been to call my mom, but she and my sister Annie were working their way back from a vacation in Florida. So, I texted my sister Ashley to see if she would be available to come grab Leila until Jason and I could figure this all out. Thankfully she was just finishing up at school and agreed to make her way towards us and help out. I also looped my mom into what was going on.
Before Ashley could get there though the doctor reviewed the results of the NST and decided that the results weren't great and that I should head over to the hospital for an ultrasound and a more advanced form of the NST. He also put in an order for a steroid shot to be given to me to help the baby's lungs develop faster, should there arise a need for her to be delivered early. The ultrasound they did was 30 minutes long of the tech just watching for movements. And they didn't see any, which was a cause for concern. But everything else looked good. They told me that everything (especially heart and brain) were functioning fine. They just couldn't provide a reason for why she was so still for so long.
It was during this ultrasound that Ashley came and picked up Leila to take her home and put her down for a nap. After the ultrasound, I was hooked back up to the monitors and given water, juice, etc. to try and give the baby jolt so to speak and get her to start moving. This entire time I was also still having some contractions as well. Dr. Young would look over the ultasound results as well as the monitor feed and try to figure out what the next steps needed to be. Once he looked over all of the information, there still wasn't a clear-cut answer so he decided he needed to consult with specialists in maternal fetal medicine.
The nurse who was helping to coordinate all of these communications was amazing. I was told that at one point she even had two phones up to her ears as she was trying to get information to all the necessary parties. She also came in and explained to me that if the decision was made to deliver the baby, there was a good chance that she would have to be transported to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo because the American Fork hospital typically doesn't keep premature babies who are delivered before 34 weeks because they don't have all of the specialized equipment they'd need for long term care. I was at 33 weeks and 5 days. I was definitely right on the borderline in a lot of ways, which is what was making the decision so difficult.
Eventually the call was made that we needed to be safe and deliver the baby via c-section. In order to try and avoid separating mother and daughter, that nurse (I wish I could remember her name) pushed hard to get me transported down to Provo before the surgery.
It was at about this point that we contacted my Uncle Bryan to come and help Jason give me a blessing. Thankfully he was available and said that he would run home and grab some oil and head right over.
Before my transport to Provo could be finalized, one of the maternal fetal medicine specialists just didn't feel right about transporting me in my condition. To be clear, at this point I was feeling good other than a little cramping. I certainly didn't feel like I was in any danger as I had been walking all around the hospital on my own free will all morning. But I trusted in the doctors' opinions and we started to get prepped for a c-section at American Fork. We were told I'd be in surgery within half an hour.
Uncle Bryan made it in time to assist Jason in giving me a beautiful blessing of peace and comfort that everything would go smoothly. And I did feel peace as they wheeled me into surgery and got my spinal block all ready to go. Jason came in and was quickly followed by none other than Dr. Allen--my usual doctor who had come in to do the surgery even though he wasn't even on call that day.
The surgery itself was a very weird experience for me. Obviously I couldn't feel any pain because of the anesthesia, but I could feel pressure. All I could see was the sheet that they draped in front me so it was almost like an out of body experience. Once the surgery got started, it didn't take them long to deliver her, and she came out crying--another huge comfort for me. Ellie Charlotte arrived at 3:15pm and weighed in at 4 lbs. 2 oz. and 16 inches long.
Our pediatrician, Dr. Mumford had also arrived at this point and gave her the once over. While she came out breathing on her own, it was quickly apparent that she wouldn't be able to sustain that for long, her lungs just weren't developed enough. So they held her up to me for a minute before whisking her away to get her ready to be transported to Provo and I sent Jason with them. Finishing up the surgery was the longest part of my day, but I'm sure that has more to do with everything that I'd just gone through and less to do with the actual amount of time we were in there.
They examined the placenta and found that it had started to tear which is what was causing the bleeding and the decreased fetal movement. That small tear could have become a much more serious problem very quickly so I am grateful that the doctors played it safe and delivered when and where they did.
When I was all done, they took me back to the labor and delivery room where I'd been pre-surgery while they waited for a recovery room to open up. As they wheeled me in, I thought that I'd be on my own as I had sent my people off other places. So, imagine my surprise when Aunt Debbie was sitting in there. It was such a comfort to have someone there with me. And just a few minutes later, Ashley came in toting a bag of clothes and toiletries for me. She had dropped Leila off at my cousin Laura's house so that she could come and be with me. Laura watched her until one of my mom's friends could come and take her back home and watch her there. We definitely had (and needed) a small army of support people that day.
Once my room was ready, they wheeled me downstairs and to the nursery, where the final preparations for Ellie's life flight to Provo were underway. They had given her a pulmonary surfactant to help stabilize her lungs and also placed her on a C-PAP machine to help her breathe. All I could touch was her tiny, perfect little foot because of all of the wires and tubing, but it was better than nothing. Dr. Mumford told Jason that on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 was an unhealthy baby and 10 was a perfectly healthy, full term baby, he'd place Ellie at a 7. That was good to hear. When they were ready to go, they wheeled her off to load her up in the helicopter and I sent Jason on down to Provo to be with her.
My mom and Annie were miraculously able to get on an earlier flight that got them home 3 hours earlier than they'd been planning on and they made a beeline straight for me at the hospital before my mom made her way down to UVRMC to meet her newest granddaughter.
As for me, I'm hoping to be discharged tomorrow so that I can get down there and finally hold that sweet, sweet girl of mine. It is torture to be separated from her but I know she's where she needs to be to get the medical attention she needs. And Jason has been good to send me lots of pictures, videos, and even Facetimed with me a little bit this afternoon. And now we get to start a brand-new, unexpected journey of having a baby in the NICU. We are just grateful that everything really went as smoothly as it possibly could have, given the situation, and pray that she will continue to improve as she grows and matures over these coming weeks.
1 comment:
This gave me chills! I am so glad she is doing well and we can't wait to meet her!
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