But that's not what today is about.
Today it is my mission to recount the story of the birth of our second baby.
It all began the week before Halloween. I had gotten a bad sinus infection and I had just entered the 3rd trimester of my second pregnancy. This was a very different pregnancy from my first. I had had an emergency root canal 5 day before my trip to Israel. When I returned, I got bronchitis. That's always fun. So I was still on a nice little round of antibiotics when I got pregnant. About 5 weeks along, I got the flu. It was the worst flu I have ever ever ever had. ever. Then around the 14th week, I got another horrible stomach bug. Both of these bugs came along side the morning sickness I was already experiencing. Oh! And the day we turned 13 weeks, I had to have another emergency root canal. However, they ended up pulling the tooth... that night... an hour before I had to work a 12 hour night shift. (wow I really sound like a drama queen, don't I?).
Like the first pregnancy, we didn't find out the baby's gender. Even though your family get's annoyed not knowing, we feel like it's more exciting that way :) Somewhere along the way, I had some repetitive bouts of vertigo, but everything else had continued normally and without event.
Then, in October, I was sick again. I had bronchitis (again) and they put me on antibiotics.
Halloween night 2014 28 weeks and 6 days pregnant
On Halloween night, my feet started swelling. Swollen feet is common in pregnancy, obviously. And I had been walking the neighborhood, trick-or-treating with my family. After a long trek, anyone's feet could get swollen. That Sunday night, I was scheduled to work again. I went home after 6 hours though because I was still sick, it was slow, and I just felt plain icky. The next morning, I had a doctor's appointment. At that appointment, everything was normal. I mentioned that my feet were still swollen. I had just assumed it was because of the antibiotics. My blood pressure was a lovely 100/62.
So I returned to work Tuesday night. That day before work, my ankles and feet swelled while I grocery shopped. After that, they just didn't go down. Around 5:30am, I had a co-worker check my blood pressure. It was the highest it had ever been in my life. I rested and it stayed high.
By the time I got home from work (around 8am Wednesday morning), my legs were swollen and hard, all the way up to my knees. My blood pressure stayed high, even when I was lying down on my side. I came into the office right away and they did some tests and put me on bed rest.
After that, everything happened so quickly. Friday morning I started throwing up, so they sent me in to the hospital (not the one I work at) for "observation." Unfortunately, the test results weren't back yet, so they sent me home to continue bed rest. (This is a very tricky thing to have a mother of a toddler do).
Around 11 Sat morning, the results came back and one of my favorite midwives gave me the news. My protein was high- in the 400's. They called it pre-eclampsia. What a mystery. I couldn't understand how that could suddenly happen. Ordinarily, when a woman has pre-e, it shows up in the first pregnancy. I had no risk factors, no history at all. In fact, my son had a natural birth, at the birthing center, 12 days after his due date. He was breech and we had the super painful procedure of having him turned. It was successful! Apart from that, everything with him was perfectly normal and ordinary.
But not this time. For some reason, my body was acting up. That evening, we drove to Myrtle Beach because Dylan was preaching at a church there the following day. I continued bed rest without fail. I went to see him preach at the church where he was working when i met him. I kept my feet elevated constantly, like a good little mommy. I got sick again after we left church. I remember thinking how weird it was; that something Must have been wrong for me to throw up suddenly when I hadn't had morning sickness in weeks. I also had strict instructions to come back in to the birthing center (where we had received all of our prenatal care to that point), as soon as possible on Monday. When we arrived there, another one of my favorite people checked my blood pressure and gave me the next set of bad news. I had bought myself an overnight stay at the hospital. We called my mom and dad to watch Silas (our 2 year old), but we got a call back a moment later saying that my brother Kyle and his wife, Emily were ALSO headed to the hospital because Luke was about to be born! He was born early the next morning and he is gorgeous, by the way.
Arriving at the hospital, I received the steroid that they give mommies to help premature babies lungs develop. The next day, I was still swollen and they didn't have accurate test results so they kept me for another night. I continued to swell and retain water. They decided to transfer me to my hospital. After all, it is the one that expertly and continually deals with situations like mine. It took 12 hours for me to be transferred. At that point, my protein levels were over 12,000. I had also gained over 30 lbs of fluid and my blood pressure was terrible. Yep, definitely pre-eclamptic.
This is me, moments before I was transferred to the other hospital
32lbs heavier than I was on Halloween
I took an extremely bumpy ride in an ambulance and arrived on L&D around 11pm. I really liked the nurse they assigned to me over there. She's a good gal. :) They did more tests. They put me on the dreaded Mag {magnesium sulfate- a drug used to decrease high blood pressure. It's super effective, but it makes you feel terrible and heavy and sleepy and slow.}
Around 6am, one of my favorite doctors came in to tell us that we would be having a baby that day. This baby, like the first was breech, so we would be having a c-section.
Dylan and I, moments before the surgery.
I like to think that I stayed calm during this whole thing. I just asked Dylan, who verified it. I was extremely calm.
I called my mom and she showed up a little before they took me back. I remember a lot of little details about the surgery. I'll keep that for my diary though :) What I will share is that I remember the moment that the baby was born. My husband was standing by my head. It took him a minute to see what it was... It was a girl! I couldn't believe it! I ...I just really couldn't!
They held her up for me to see. She was so so tiny! So red and so small! She was crying loudly and tinily. I know that's not a word, but if you could cry in a teeny tiny way, that's what she was doing. Dylan said "God did that!" Our specific prayer was that the baby would come out crying (that (her) lungs would be strong and developed enough to cry... and breathe of course!)
my giant, puffy hand, touching her tiny foot
After the surgery, everything is a blur. They brought her by my room briefly before they brought her up to the NICU. I touched her tiny foot and I kept it together. At least, I think I did. I knew that I would be able to hold her soon enough. They transferred me to the unit where I work. They were slammed and they went above and beyond to save me a room. One of the best people and friends I've ever known was my nurse that afternoon and the next day.
I remember that when they were closing (finishing up the surgery), after the baby was born, I realized that for the first time in a week, I didn't have a headache. It was incredible!
At 5am, I was able to be wheeled up to the NICU to visit her. Oh I was such an emotional mess! They gave me good news and bad news and good news and ...so much information. I took her picture. It was hard to see her face with the oxygen mask and the tape to hold it in place. But I knew that she was beautiful! The name that we thought we would give her didn't seem to be good enough suddenly. She needed something extraordinary, something lovely, something gorgeous.
I held her for the first time that evening. It was very painful, but every moment holding her was so wonderful. Just thinking of it now brings tears to my eyes. As I held her, Dylan and I talked about possible names. We talked about taking her to our favorite place one day. (Disney World, obviously). We jokingly told her about the princesses when it occurred to me that Belle means beauty. Well, as we said that night, we couldn't call her Anything else. sidebar: Belle doesn't go well as a first name bc there isn't a great middle name for it. So we named her Selah Belle (pronounced "say-luh"), but we call her Belle.:)
holding that sweet girl for the first time
Belle, lying on her Daddy's chest the day her CPAP mask came off
After a few days, I was discharged from the hospital. When she was 7 days old, they took her off of the oxygen and let her breathe on her own. When she was 8 days old, she moved out of the NICU, into the step down unit, 8 special care nursery. I knew several of the awesome nurses up there. She stayed for 15 days in that nursery. It was there that she graduated from the incubator/giraffe bed, into an open crib. It was there that she was able to wear clothes for the first time. It was there that I tried and succeeded at breastfeeding her. She was amazing.
They eventually moved her downstairs. She stayed in the Level 2 nursery for another 2 weeks. She got cold after her move and she was moved from an open crib, back into an "isolette". But she got warm again. She got better at eating. She kept gaining weight, she continued to breathe well. Pretty soon they talked about discharging her.
I remember this roller coaster of a time with a blurry memory. Every day, I was stressed about finding someone to watch Silas so that we could go visit her. We would get good news, then we would get bad news. It was always "one step forward, two steps back," She received a new feeding tube almost every single day for 3 weeks. It was an incredibly emotional and straining time.
But it was other things too. It was an amazing opportunity. We were able to watch her grow. We peeked through the window of the incubator, as if looking into the womb to see her develop. Something breaks inside of you when you see your tiny child attached to so many cords and wires; when you see them dependent on so many systems and people. It certainly doesn't help to know about additional risks and tragic stories, from a healthcare employee's stand point.
But the things I worried about with our son; it's like they are nothing.
I remember crying when he was 4 days old because I knew that one day he would get the chicken pox or break a bone or have his heart broken. It broke my hormonal heart to think about his potential pain in life.
But Belle? I don't, or I didn't think about those things. I thought, from one day to the next. What's the next step? This needs to happen, and then this, and this, and then she can come home.
We got to spend special, concentrated time with Silas. We got to prepare him for his "baby sissy" to come home.
I didn't have to endure the uncomfortable 3rd trimester (well, just a little bit of it). I didn't even have to wear a bunch of uncomplimentary pregnancy clothes.
I got to meet my little girl early.
I got to see her each and every day for the 35 days that she spent in the hospital. She didn't have to undergo any surgeries or infections. She stayed healthy and she continued to develop.
People came from out of the wood-work to help us in many many ways.
Someone got us a parking pass for the garage. People even went out of their way to cook us gluten free meals! People watched Silas every time that we needed them to. Some even came to help me when I first got home from the hospital and I couldn't lift Silas, or drive.
This journey, Belle's journey was an intense ride. It was So different to be on the "patient side" of things; to see what our preterm moms or our severely pre-eclamptic moms, or even just those who have had a c-section go through.
I would never have chosen it for myself. I still don't know why it happened. But I do know this: we have a strong, incomparable God who is sovereign over everything. That means that His way is best. I know that He allows us to go through things for His glory and for our growth. My sweet baby girl had to be stronger than I think I have ever had to be. He had His hand on her through the whole process and He continues to hold her (and us) now.
The hard part, the scary first part is over. She is home now. She is still growing like she should. Her lungs are VERY strong, and she is thriving, even starting to show her personality! She will soon be off of her monitor and no longer have to take any medication.
Silas loves his "baby sissy" and he helps us as much as a two year old knows how to. We continue to adjust to being a family of 4, but I think we're getting it. :)
