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.