I had been to the labor and delivery department of Novant Forsyth Medical Center many times this pregnancy for varied reasons, Contractions, feeling like the baby was coming, high blood pressure readings, dehydration. On Monday June 13th I was on day 5 of an un-yeilding headache, my blood pressure was jumping past 150/100 but more alarmingly I was getting feelings of tightness and pressure in my chest like my heart was working too hard. I had called my OB office and they told me to come in at 10am. I worked until 9:45am and then went to the office. I checked in, went to pee in a cup as per usual procedure and when I came out our a nurse was there telling me I needed to go straight to the hospital instead of the office. I left the office, went to pick up Dusty as I was told I shouldn't be driving (yet they let me leave the office...weird) and we went to the hospital.
I would like to say it went quickly, they determined what was wrong and how to fix it but instead we got stuck with this nurse who went over my record and immediately determined it was anxiety. I let her know that had I had an anxiety attack and been hyperventilating for a while i would agree but this was not my anxiety, I know how my anxiety feels but this was way different. They hooked me up to get my blood pressure readings every 10 minutes and ordered an EKG and blood work and urine tests to check for Pre-Eclampsia and HELLP Syndrome. My blood pressure was not great, readings in the 170's and 160's over 90's and 100's. No one had come in to update us but they sent the lab back in to run a cardio panel.
5 hours after getting to the hospital, and without hearing anything from anyone but the lab tech telling us that she needed blood for the cardio panel (who agreed that it was silly no one had been in at all, no one gave me water or checked in at all) the nurse walks in all cheery and chipper saying I can get dressed and go home that I was fine and that it was just anxiety. At this point I had 2 options, I could get dressed, go home with no answers at all waiting for whatever this was to get worse, or I could demand answers. Having been feeling like crap, starving and knowing that this explanation was total crap I decided to speak up. I explained that we had been there for hours with no updates at all then she came in with this information and I was very unhappy with how I was being treated because they have given me no answers for the tightening in my chest. The nurse started spouting excuses and I demanded to speak to my doctor which she did not like but I couldn't care less at that point.
My doctor came in fairly quickly to see what was going on and was very surprised to see I was upset, apparently the nurse had told him I was feeling fine and was in good spirits and with the labs coming back normal he didn't feel that I needed to stay based off of that information. We explained the headache (that the nurse never asked about) and that the tightening had not gotten any resolve. He had the nurse give me high dose tylenol and asked that we wait 30 minutes and we will see where we need to go from there. An hour later he came in to check on me (he was in surgery) and I explained that there was no difference. Dr. Minor explained that even though the labs showed normal ranges he was very concerned of the number of high blood pressure readings in the period of time I was there, the headache and the chest tightening that they still could not explain. He felt that the symptoms were leaning to severe Pre-Eclampsia and it was time for baby to come out because the risks were now too high for her to stay in. Of course 35 weeks gestation is not ideal for her to come but she had great odds and had my water broke they wouldn't have tried to stop labor, he said her lungs should be fairly developed and she should do fairly well. Dr. Minor admitted me for induction letting me know he would have them let me eat something small before it started because I had been there all day with no food or drink.
After he left crappy nurse came in and proceeded to tell me that I needed to prepare for my child to have to stay in the NICU until her original due date, she also blamed the lab tech for my earlier complaint that no one had been in to check on me and contradicted everything the doctor had said to me. She tried to make me feel guilty for needing the baby to come out early and told me I would not be allowed anything to eat at all. I was ticked off even more and had the doctor come back to which he stuck to what he said earlier. He also commended me for speaking up because had I not he would have no idea what was really going on and told me that if I ever had a question or concern not to just accept what I was being told but to speak up. He was really annoyed at what was going on with this nurse.
Well, the nurse won a small battle, she still refused to allow me to have anything to eat so I was on an all liquid diet and the doctor had left so we could not get that corrected. My last meal was dinner on Sunday and I would not eat again until Wednesday morning.
We were moved to the Labor and Delivery room where we had another nurse with the personality of a PMSing teenage girl. They had anesthesia try to get my IV in 3 times (since i was dehydrated from not being given water all day it was harder than usual) before they got the ultrasound to put it in that way. They got it in and hooked up Saline, antibiotics (I had never been tested for Group B Strep so they had to treat me as if I was positive), and magnesium. Not 3 minutes after being hooked up I looked down and my arm had doubled in size, all of the fluids were going straight into my arm instead of my vein. The nurse took out the needle and had crappy nurse 1 from triage come put in an IV which was the only good thing she did. The swelling in my arm would take a day to go down and it would feel terrible for half that time.
The next terrible thing about this birthing experience: Magnesium. I had read the horror stories on the Birth Boards but man is that stuff terrible. It makes you feel really hot, makes your head feel terrible (because THAT is what I needed), makes you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest and makes everything seem out of focus. The last part took a little while to kick in so our new nurse Lisa (who was my favorite person in our whole stay) let me bother her as many times as I needed to assist me in using the bathroom until it became too much of a risk because I was too unsteady. At that point I was already on Cervidil to soften my cervix, contractions had started and having to pee was annoying anyway so they put in a catheter.
The contractions picked up and my headache got worse but medicine was not working at all, I did my best to breathe through the contractions and barely got any sleep. At one point Lisa took off my BP cuff for a few hours to let me lay on my side to get a little bit of sleep. I was very thankful.
The next morning was more of the same, contractions, pain with no relief. At 6am they took out the Cervidil and started Pitocen, I was only dialated to a 1. I told Dusty I was not up for visitors. At 1:15pm they put in my epidural which helped make me a happier Dianna and let me withstand the contractions.
At 3:16 I was only 5.5 CM dialated, and was feeling a lot of pressure like the baby was trying to come out. The nurse said the water bag was bulging and she was going to have the doctor check and see if he wanted to break it. Dr. Gobern came in and checked me minutes later and said I was at a 9, he felt her hand but she pulled it back and he felt the waters and her head. I told them I felt like I was pushing without meaning to and the nurses told me not to push, Dr. Gobern told me to push if I had to, the baby clearly was ready to come. He broke my water during one of my contractions and guided me in pushing through delivery of my little girl at 3:48PM. It hurt a lot worse this time than with Oliver because with Oliver they gave me too much medicine through my epidural. I did tear a bit, only a level 2 this time opposed to the almost 4 I was with Oliver. The doctor was alarmed to find that my Placenta had ruptured, he asked me if I had been bleeding and I told him I hadn't but in that moment it was clear that if I had gone home 24 hours earlier like the nurse told me to I could have lost my daughter and possibly my own life, I had been bleeding out and no one knew. We think this is what caused the chest tightening.
They let Dusty cut the cord, she was crying (good sign for her lungs) and I confirmed that she was still a she. They placed her on my belly and I got to rub her head before they evaluated her. There was a NICU team ready to evaluate her. Her 1 minute APGAR score was a 6 but her 5 minute test was an 8 which is great. She only weighed 5 lbs but otherwise was looking great. They had to do a blood sugar test on her so after they let me hold her for a few minutes skin to skin they brought me some formula to feed her which she latched to quickly and she drank 1/3 of an ounce really quickly. Her sugar test came back great.
Her nursery card has her listed as 5lbs 0.4oz, 17 3/4 inches long.
They brought me to a room on the 4th floor instead of the usual mommy baby rooms because i was still on Magnesium and I was supposed to get my tubes tied the next day. Felicity's sugar kept dropping because she was using so many calories to keep her temperature up so they took her to the nursery and eventually the NICU for observation.
She was put on high calorie formula and kept under warming lights. I ended up not getting my surgery because my tubes were too far away from my belly button to do it the easy way so they took out the epidural and had already stopped the magnesium and I was able to walk down to visit her in the NICU. She was doing great.
We moved to the mommy baby room and after an hour or so she was brought to us. She passed all of her tests, no Jaundice, hearing great, she just needed to be kept a little warmer and given the high calorie stuff. We got to go home 48 hours after she was born.
She had lost some weight by Friday, down to 4lbs14oz so we have been trying to feed her every 2 hours or so but otherwise she is doing great! We are all so in love with our little girl. Her brothers love her (even though Oliver needs to learn how to be gentle), and we are so excited to watch her grow and get to experience life with her.
