A Baby Story

Hey everyone. So if you didn't know about a week and a half ago, March 29, little Conner Clark Hansen joined our family 10 days early weighing in at 5 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long. He is just so much fun (and tiring) but he is just adorable.  Some of you were wondering what happened with the labor/delivery. Well If you knew me during my pregnancy you know how uneventful the whole thing went. Never had morning sickness, cravings, swelling, or really any of the common symptoms other than being big. Well take the ease of my pregnancy and flip it and you get the craziness of the delivery. To make a really long story only kind of long 2 days before Conner was born I was feeling completly blah. Not only end of pregnancy get me out of here blah, but something wasn't right blah. So we called the hospital on Sat. night at like 11 and they had us come in. I was monitored for an hour or so and they told me to go home and have a bath and come back for my scheduled apt on Monday. In the morning I still felt off and couldn't keep any food down, not even water, so I skipped church and did nothing all day.  I went into my routine 38 week checkup Monday and I had protein in my urine and so my Dr just wanted me to go up the labor and delivery just to have a few tests done as precaution. Well from the time I went up the elevator one floor and checked in my blood pressure, which was a perfect 120/80 at check in, had sky-rocketed to 140/110 and my blood tests came back with crazy numbers. Something about my liver enzymes were crazy and my blood platelet count was super low. Basically I came down with preeclampsia and HELLPS Syndrome. These are really rare diseases during pregnancy. Only about 5-7 percent of pregnancies even have them and it is most common in people 40 and older, if you are having multiples, or if you have high blood pressure before pregnancy, none of which are me at all. And since I had such a low key pregnancy it threw everyone, including my DR for a loop. Because of I had both of these and the only cure is delivery of the baby I had to be induced immediately. Because of my high blood pressure I was on a magnesium IV drip to keep me calm to prevent seizures during labor. Basically this make me feel like I was on super benedryl. It made me SO tired. I swear I was falling asleep in between contractions! I also couldn't have any sort of stimulation like TV, music, visitors (except for parents for a few minutes) etc. to keep the seizures away. Oh and since my blood platelet count was so low I had to do it all with NO EPIDURAL (oh how I was counting on you epidural!) Completely natural!!! Because of the low plaitlet count there was the possibility that my blood wouldn't clot when they gave it to me causing me to bleed into my spinal cord and become paralyzed. Yeah, I think I'll take the pain of childbirth for a few hours over that. Luckily the labor wasn't too long as far a first pregnancies go. I was induced at 11:30 and Conner was here at 7:39 after only 20 minutes of pushing. Rusty was so amazing through the whole thing coaching me and just being there for me. He hardly ever left my side. I don't think I could have done it without him.

After baby Conner was born I had to have the magnesium for 24 hours after delivery so I was on complete bed rest until then. So that was pretty exciting but it gets better. So during all of this my calcium levels plummeted. Calcium, I now know, helps your muscles. I was so weak that I couldn't even hold Conner while I was sitting in bed :( so sad! And those mean nursing coach nurses sure didn't know or care and kept on getting mad that I couldn't hold him in the right position. I also was seeing double and couldn't stand on my own my legs were so weak. I'm not sure from personal experience, but I'm pretty sure that it was kind of what it was like to be super drunk...maybe. I also now know that calcium has a lot to do with you heart working right and I was so low that I was at high risk for heart failure. Unfortunately you can't drink a gallon of milk and eat a carton of ice cream to bring the levels back up. I had a hospital "figure out what's wrong" doctor come and evaluate me (he was basically a nice version of Dr House) and I had to be moved to the medical side of the hospital so I could be on a heart monitor to make sure nothing went crazy during the night and have a calcium drip IV to bring my levels back up. If I wanted to see my baby while I was there they had to have a security guard outside of our room so nobody would take him. (I know he's cute, but really?) They ended up moving us to this little scary room where they put the prisoners when they have to come (it had really good locks I guess?) but I still hardly got to see my baby. That was probably the hardest thing. He could come and visit me but couldn't stay the night. The nurses weren't as awesome and attentive as the mother/baby nurses and never followed through when I would ask to see my baby so I would get all upset missing him and being a post-partum hormonal crazy lady my heart monitor would go off and THEN they would bring him in. But luckily I was able to go back after a night and half a day in that stupid room. My levels were still low but in the normal range so I was able able to go back to the Mother/baby recovery floor. We stayed for one more night since I was still getting the hang of walking again after the magnesium and bed rest and I also had never had a night with the baby what with being on bed rest the first night and under lockdown the second. We had a great first night together and came home on Thursday, April 1. My wonderful mom came and stayed with us until Sunday and helped me figure out how to be a mommy. It's been so fun since then. I am still living on no sleep, but it's worth it. I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.....He's still kicking so I must be doing something right!