I Will Never Sleep Again

The amazing thing about having kids is that you (and your body) conveniently forget all the painful stuff (like labor and not getting any sleep) just in time for you to have more kids. In fact, after having both my girls sans epidural, and after yelling and crying during labor, immediately after they were delivered, I thought, "oh, that wasn't so bad, I could do it again!" I guess we have to be able to forget, or else we'd never survive as a species.

Anyway, Jessalyn is almost 4 weeks old. She refuses to sleep from 8:30 PM to 1 or 2 AM. I have no reprieve, not that I would anyway because I am breast feeding. And boy, I am TIRED. I remember now how I felt when Kara was that little. At night, when Jessalyn won't sleep and I am exhausted to the max, I think, "I am never going to get to sleep again!"

Thankfully, that's not true. Only two more weeks.

Man oh man.

"Look Mommy, I Do Like You!"

I wrap my hair in a towel every morning. The other morning, she came marching in like this and told me, "Look mommy, I do like you!" I thought it was so cute and ingenious. And also reminded me that I am constantly being watched and imitated, so I need to make sure I'm a good example.

Another thing she mimics me on? She holds her doll to her chest and tells me, "look, she's eating me." Guess that is one way to view nursing a baby!

Random Cuteness

1 Week

We've been home for a week now!

After the Birth

After Jessalyn was born, they whisked her off to the NICU because of her size and because she was struggling to breathe a little. The magnesium makes the babies sleepy and slow to respond because it dampens their nervous system in much the same way it does for the moms. Unlike our experience with Kara, they let me hold her for a couple minutes before they took her away, and I really appreciated that.

After she was gone, I was told that I had to stay in bed and that I would have to still have the magnesium for another 24 hours because they were still worried about seizures. I felt ok, though sleepy, during the day, but I still had bad pain in my liver and my neck and head were still throbbing. The doctor started giving me Fentanyl (a pretty strong pain medicine--it's related to, but stronger than morphine) to manage the pain, and it would last for about 30 minutes before the pain would come back. They continued to do my labs, and my liver and kidney enzymes continued to climb, and my platelet count continued to drop. My sodium levels were also off, so they started adding steroids and a couple other things to my IV to try and get things back to normal.

Well, around 11:30, my family had gone home, and I guess I had a seizure despite the best efforts of the doctors. Thankfully, this one wasn't as bad as the seizure I had with Kara. The rest of the night is pretty fuzzy for me. I remember bits and pieces, like being taken to have an ultrasound of my liver to make sure it hadn't ruptured. They kept pushing on my liver, and it hurt about as bad as having a baby. I also remember being given Fentayl every hour to try and manage the pain. I had the best nurse, and she stayed by my bed for the entire night to make sure I was going to be ok. In the morning, I started being more lucid and aware of what was going on, and she told me she was upset with me because she'd left during the night to take a 15 minute lunch break, and I had had a seizure and sent the room in to chaos when she came back. She was off for the next day, but came and checked on me when she came back to work. She was probably the nicest nurse, and my favorite nurse, for my stay at the hospital!

I stayed in L and D for 2 days on "bed rest" because they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have any more seizures and because they didn't want to send me to the regular maternity ward until my blood lab work started going back to normal. Thankfully, though, I was able to get permission to visit Jessalyn in the NICU as long as I stayed in a wheel chair. I was so happy to see my baby!

I was finally sent up to the maternity ward because my platelets were starting to go up, but my liver enzymes were still climbing, so on Wednesday, they released me, but I had to meet with the perinatologist again and had to make an appointment with my OB/GYN to check my blood work the following week. I went this last week, and thankfully, everything was headed back in the right direction.

So that was my adventure after Jessalyn was born! I still have to write about her time in the NICU, and about everything I learned from the specialists, so I'll get to that eventually.

We Are Home!

We went home yesterday afternoon! We have to have a couple prenatal home visits because Jessalyn still isn't gaining enough weight, at a pace the doctor wants to see, but we were so glad to go home! I'll write more later, but don't hold it against me if I miss a few days of blogging while we get settled in :)

Eating

This little stinker refuses to gain weight--the little she gains is almost insignificant. She ate great yesterday, so she finally got to have her feeding tube removed... And then this morning, she wanted to sleep right through eating. They will have to put the feeding tube back if she doesn't cooperate!

On the plus-side, she graduated from her incubator to a "crib" that is just regular room temperature. She needs to prove that she can maintain her body temperature and not lose weight. I hope she behaves a little better the rest of the day!

Jessalyn's Birth Story: Part 3

While the transport tech and the nurse were wheeling me back down from the MRI, I kept begging the nurse to make sure the anesthesiologist was in the room and ready by the time we got down there. In the back of my mind, I knew that wasn't possible, and I also knew that I wasn't going to get an epidural in time for Jessalyn to be born. However, I was somewhat crazy and in pain, and it was the one thing that I could focus on in all the craziness during my contractions.

When we got to the room (I think it was maybe 5 minutes from the MRI down to my room), the nurse made me move down on the bed so she could check how dilated I was. Moving during a contraction is PAINFUL, and it was like the 4th or 5th time I'd had to move, either from one bed to another bed, or to sit up, etc. At this point, I was just mad. I probably wasn't being nice to the nurse, or anybody else at this point. In fact, when I was in labor with Kara, Karina coached me through it--this time, she was silent. I asked her afterwards why she was so quiet, and she told me that she knew I just needed people not to talk to me. I don't remember who, but someone tried to touch my back and it hurt so bad and I am pretty sure I yelled at them to get their hands off of me.

When they checked me, I was dilated to a six. The anesthesiologist came down to start the epidural at that point. Unfortunately, right when he was asking me to bend over to administer the epidural (mid-contraction, I might add), I felt the need to push. I told the nurse this, and Karina said, "Well, do you want the epidural, or do you want to push?" At this point, I was just focusing on labor, so I didn't say anything. I got the epidural, was told it would take 5-10 minutes to kick in, and then laid back on the bed and told the nurse, "I need to push." At that point, I remember her racing over to the phone and telling the doctor to get there NOW. I started pushing and I think after a total of 2 pushes, Jessalyn was born. Writing this out makes it seem like it took so long, but from leaving the MRI to Jessalyn being born, I think it maybe took a total of 10 minutes. Everything happened FAST. My labor with Kara was fast, but I don't remember feeling like it was a chaotic or horrible labor. The labor with Jessalyn was HORRIBLE--I cried in the MRI because I was having to go through labor without my mom or sister there, I kept having to move around through contractions... it was just bad.

About 2 minutes after Jessalyn was born, I felt the epidural kick in and my legs go numb. Go figure.

When the doctor was delivering the placenta, she told me, "Your placenta abrupted (Which I think must mean ruptured)!" There were blood clots all over it and it had separated from the uterine wall. She figured it must have happened 20 seconds before Jessalyn was born. She told me that if I had gone home, or if it had even happened any earlier in the labor, we would have lost Jessalyn. I am SOOO grateful for yet another miracle. I can't imagine how terrible that would have been. In fact, I don't even want to think about it. To me, it's just another sign of how blessed we are, and that we were being looked out for.

So that's Jessalyn's birth story! Later, I'll write about her time in the NICU, my time in the hospital, and all the things that I've learned from the doctors about my very a-typical presentations of HELLP--the doctors were bringing residents in and talking about my case (anonymously) with other doctors because they were so shocked that I knew what was going to happen and that it happened almost EXACTLY the same way twice in a row. Hah! Glad I could help the medical community!

Jessalyn's Birth Story: Part 2

After I was moved up to the ante-partum room, the doctors started having my labs drawn every 4 hours. I slept through the night (while being interrupted by nurses and hospital staff), and Saturday morning, one of the doctors came in the room to meet with us. Over the night, some of my labs had gone in a negative direction, and though most of the lab work was still in the "normal" range, the fact that it was trending downward had the doctors concerned (especially knowing my history). They were more concerned about my history of seizures after having Kara, and decided to send me down to the Labor and Delivery unit to get started on magnesium.

Let me tell you something about magnesium--it is NOT fun! I had it with Kara too. They hook you up to an IV, and start flooding your system with it. Magnesium depresses your nervous system, and is used to prevent seizures. For the first 10 minutes, while your body is getting used to it, you feel like your body is on fire. Seriously--I felt like I was burning all over! It also makes you feel like you can't breathe well, and it makes you really tired (at least, it does me). I also have a lazy eye which is corrected by lenses, but when on magnesium, it makes it really hard to see out of that eye for some reason.

At about noon, the medical staff assigned to my case decided I needed to be induced. They gave me a pill just to soften my cervix, and had planned to induce labor with Putocin (Pitocin? Not sure how it is spelled) at 4 or 5 PM. For whatever reason, the pill they gave me started mild contractions almost immediately. I texted my mom to let her know she might want to head to the hospital because my labor with Kara had been fast, and I thought this one would be fast too. Boy was that an understatement!

At 4, one of the doctors decided that I needed to have an MRI to make sure I didn't have any hemorrhaging in my brain--at this point, my platelet count had dropped down to 50,000 (normal is between 400,000-150,000, and at 20,000, surgery is no longer an option--I was that low with Kara). They were concerned that with my now elevated liver enzymes and quickly dropping platelets, I would start hemorrhaging, and they were going to do a C-section after the MRI if I showed any bleeding to hurry and get the baby out.

Well, that's when things started getting interesting. As I was heading up for the MRI, I started feeling some labor contractions, but they were about 10 minutes apart, so I figured I'd have the MRI, come back, and then have plenty of time to have the baby. I think I headed up for the MRI at 4:30. While I was in the MRI, the tech would tell me, "here's a 5 minute segment, here's a 6 minute segment, here's a 1 minute segment," etc. etc. From the first test to the last, I felt my contractions start to go from 5 minutes apart to 1 minute apart, and VERY strong. I started wiggling to work my way through the contractions, and she buzzed in to tell me to stay still. I buzzed her on my "emergency" button they gave me and tried to tell her I was in labor, but she didn't have the speaker in MRI turned on, so she couldn't hear me. I seriously thought I was going to have the baby on the MRI table.

She finally wheeled me out and said to my nurse, "well, the images were a little blurry, but I think they're usable." I turned to my nurse and said (well, probably yelled), "It's because I'm having contractions. I'M IN LABOR!" I could tell she didn't really believe me. She told me, "Oh, you're having contractions? Good! Try and have more than one, then maybe we won't have to have a C-Section." It made me so mad, so I said, "no, you don't understand. I'm IN LABOR! You need to have the anesthesiologist ready by the time we get to the room!" (I didn't have an epidural with Kara, and I REALLY wanted one this time). So, we headed down to the room, and I begged the transport tech almost every 30 seconds not to go over the bumps because I was mid contraction. I'm sure that was a pretty interesting night for him! He wheeled me up 30 minutes prior, and I was fine, only to have an angry, laboring woman on the way back down!

I'll leave off here for now!

Jessalyn's Birth Story: Part 1

If you've been following the blog, you know that I had spent Thursday in the hospital, only to be sent home and told to come back if I felt my symptoms were worsening.

But, I guess this story really starts 2 and a half years ago. After Kara was born, I was discharged and sent home from the hospital with almost no idea what happened to me, what the implications were, or what long term effects I might suffer, other than to be told I was 33% more likely than another woman to have HELLP occur in a subsequent pregnancy. My case had been severe and very a-typical. I never had any doctor follow up with me, and after a few months, when things returned to normal, Kara's birth story was just a memory (albeit a somewhat horrifying memory).

I have learned so much more from the team of doctors assigned to me during my stay here than I ever knew before. I've had medical counseling about what happened to my body, what the long-term implications are, instruction about the severity of my case and that every pregnancy I have is most likely to worsen in severity. If I knew what I know now about my "disease," especially because my presentations are so a-typical and rare,  I probably would have seriously reconsidered me ever getting pregnant again--not just because of the risk to me, but because of the risk to my babies. However, that is a blog post for another day.

After going home Thursday, I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head. "I felt fine." I told my family I was ok.

Well, midnight rolled around, and I felt worse. I prayed that I would know what to do. I didn't want to go to the hospital just to be sent home again. I waited around a little, and felt very strongly that I needed to get to the hospital. So at 2:30, I woke my husband, who jumped out of bed, called the doctor, got Kara up and loaded in the car, and we made the horribly long and painful drive (or so it seemed to me) to Denver where the hospital is.

We got there, and the hospital staff once again put us in a room on the L and D floor in the observation wing. I heard other women there who were being observed and 20 minutes later sent to have their babies. I was in so much pain, and I was feeling frustrated at their "good fortune" of being taken seriously. The pain in my liver, neck, and head started to be unbearable (all are symptoms of HELLP). I don't remember when, but at one point, they finally started taking my pain seriously and started giving me Perkocet and Oxycodone. The resident assigned to my case (who had seen me the day before) was again perplexed about why I would be displaying such clear signs of HELLP, and yet have fairly normal lab work. I insisted several times that this was EXACTLY what had happened with Kara, and the resident and floor doctor decided it was time to get my Kaiser doctor and a perinatologist involved. It was this decision that I am fully convinced saved both my life and Jessalyn's life.

After the Kaiser doctor talked to me, the perinatologist came down and talked to me extensively about my history and how I was feeling. After meeting with me, she told me that she and the the rest of the medical staff assigned to my case felt it would be best to admit me and monitor me over the night until they could decide what was best for me and the baby--her size was still a cause for concern and they didn't want to just induce based on a "hunch." (The perinatologist later told me that based on my labs alone, they would have sent me home--but that she'd had a really bad feeling about sending me home and felt strongly that I needed to stay in the hospital. She also told me that she'd learned through her years of practice to trust women, especially high-risk women, when they say there is something wrong with their bodies. I am deeply grateful for her "bad feeling" and her knowledge, and truly feel that she was being guided by Heavenly Father).

So, I was sent up to an ante-partum room. And that is where I will leave off for now.

Boarding at the Hospital

The hospital generously offers free boarding rooms for the moms (or dads) of babies in the NICU. Meals for the moms are free, and moms who are trying to be able to nurse their babies are given priority with room availability. I was able to get in to a boarding room yesterday after being discharged, and it has already been a tremendous blessing. I miss Kara like crazy, and I am so sick of hospital walls, but I loved being able to go to almost every single feeding yesterday and last night. It has made up for missing time with Jessalyn those first few days.

It would have been nice to have had that kind of time with Kara when she was born. Our experience here and when Kara was born has been like night and day. The hospital staff here, even when I was confined to a bed, made sure my desires were met as best they could and did their best to make sure we could have a successful experience with nursing Jessalyn. The NICU staff and my nursing staff were in frequent contact with each other to make sure I knew what was going on and that the two different staffs could try and set up times that we could see the baby without interfering with either mine or Jessalyn's medical care. We never had any of that with Kara. It is yet another thing that I am very grateful for this time around, and I think it has played a big role in me feeling better physically--it is easier to recover when you aren't going crazy with worry and anxiety over your baby--and has made the stress of a new baby and being in the NICU much easier than it could have been!

Little Victories

This experience with Jessalyn has been hard for our little family. It's hard leaving my other "baby" (who now looks like such a big girl!) behind with my family, even though I know she's in great hands. It's been hard feeling like our family is a little fractured right now--I'm stuck here and Kara's apart from me. It's also hard being so worried about the newest little family member, wondering if there was something I could have done to have made this turn out differently, and wishing she was home so we could all settle in and be a family together. She's probably going to be in the NICU for a little while, so I'm learning to celebrate the little victories and little things that make me happy.

Tonight, we had the chance to spend about 15 minutes with Jessalyn. That was really good. I was a little sad when I had to tell Kara goodbye tonight, but I know she went home and had a fun night with her nana.

Later, I spent a good hour down with Jessalyn while they weighed her and changed her sheets and started her feeding tube. This gave me about an hour of snuggle and love time with her, and it was great for both of us. She had her eyes open for 30 minutes or so, and we just spent our time quietly looking at each other. Then she got cozy and drifted off to sleep, and I got to love on her just a few more minutes before she had to go back under the phototherapy lights.

The time spent with my two girls was precious to me tonight, and it was just what I needed this evening. So maybe it was a big victory, and not a little victory after all.

She's Here!

Jessalyn Kate Overson, born 8/4/12 at 5:25 PM. 4 lbs 1.3 oz, and 17 inches long. We had an adventurous delivery (I almost gave birth during an MRI!) but I will write that whole story after we are released from the hospital. She's currently in the NICU, but doing well for how small she is. For now, enjoy some iPhone pictures!

Up In The Air

I usually don't write too much of the "negative" stuff I hear at my prenatal appointments because I try to spare the more worry-prone members of my family from having something to worry about... But since we had an eventful day today and I think all the people who would worry already know about our day, I figured I would update everyone else about what is going on this week.

Yesterday, I had my weekly appointment, and my doctor told me that, after looking at my labs and the overall trend of some things in my pregnancy, she felt like I could be showing the early symptoms of pre-eclampsia, especially after knowing the course of events when I had Kara. We talked about a few things for management and what things I should watch out for (which I have already been well-educated on), and then I went home.

Last night, I woke up about midnight with pretty sever pain under my ribs, especially on my right side. It felt exactly the way I felt with Kara, and I knew it wasn't heartburn, but I took some Tums just to cover all my bases. I waited a few hours to see if the pain would go away, and after it didn't, I decided I needed to call the nurse at my doctor's office, who looked at my medical history and then told me to go to the hospital.

While there, the hospital staff ran some tests (blood work, blood pressure, and ultra-sound... The usual). Unfortunately, when I was pregnant with Kara, the only symptoms I had right up until the day I went in and they induced labor were the pains under my ribs and nausea--all of my blood work was normal, blood pressure was normal (though high for me), and all anyone would tell me is that it was "probably the flu." My OBGYN is aware of this history, and has been keeping a careful eye on everything regardless of whether I show text book symptoms or not.

I have been feeling exactly the same last night and today as I did with Kara. Other than one abnormality on my labs, my blood work is relatively normal, my blood pressure is normal (but again, has gone up and is high for me), and the hospital staff asked me/suggested that I could just have a virus. It was very frustrating for us to go through all the tests, and, in essence, be blown off or not taken seriously because my blood pressure isn't really high, or because I only have slight abnormalities in my blood work. I know my body very well, and I know when I am flu-sick and when something is just plain wrong. I really can't explain how painful it is to have the inflamed liver feeling under my ribs--when it was at its worst with Kara, it hurt worse than labor I wasn't there yet today, but it was bad enough that I haven't been able to sleep.

When the Dr on shift at the hospital came to talk to me for the last time before I was discharged, she told me that she couldn't figure out why I would be having this pain, but still have normal BP, etc. I told her about my experience with Kara (having normal everything and then having it all just tank in a matter of days) and that my doctor was concerned about me showing early signs of pre-eclampsia or HELLP. After she (again) asked me the same slew of questions that every nurse and doctor has already asked me a million times, she concluded that I could be showing early symptoms of HELLP, but that she didn't want to induce the baby yet. SO, she set up an appointment with my doctor's office for tomorrow for me to be looked at and tested some more, and sent us home.

Anyway, at this point, things feel very in the air! I feel stressed just knowing that this is playing out almost exactly like it did with Kara, and I REALLY don't want a repeat, and I feel stressed/embarrassed because now my family is on edge thinking I'm going to have a baby or get sick any day--I really don't want to be the cause of that kind of worry. Worst of all was leaving the hospital feeling stupid and little. It was very hard for me to decide that it was worth even calling in for because I was dismissed/ignored so many times when I was pregnant with Kara, and it wasn't until things got severe that I was taken seriously. I hated being looked at like it was all in my head, or that I "maybe just have a bad case of heartburn or indigestion." I know what heartburn feels like. This wasn't heartburn.

So that wraps up our week. This was kind of a long, rambling post, but I think it helps sometimes to vent out your worries and frustrations.

Happy (soon to be) Friday!