Good afternoon!!

I am happy to announce that I am now blogging via legal (not borrowed) internet and my two year old is enjoying Fairly Odd parents on tv. God I missed cable!!

Today is going much smoother than yesterday, and today I am making our favorite (tacos) for dinner in celebration of what we have dubbed cable day.

After I woke up, had a toaster strudel and some coffee, I pondered over the wonder that is my sleepy coherency. Every night before bed I take my cell phone and thermometer and put them on my nightstand so I can temp first thing when I wake up. I had doubts, because the other times I had tried to temp it never happened. Miraculously though, on the first morning, I reached over for the thermometer, turned it on, stuck it on my mouth and laid there until it beeped.

The first few days I utilized the reading recall on it, until a day or two ago I started just peeking at the temp with my cell phone. The funny thing is, I remember it all day, even after I enter it into my chart. So far, and I've been going almost a week, it's going very well, I've been able to keep a fairly consist sleep pattern, save the night of the mystery beeping.

So I thought today I would mention my pregnancy and delivery with Hailey. I didn't find out I was pregnant with her until Feburary 14th (Valentine's Day) of 2006, which means I was about 5-6 weeks when I found out. We found out that she was a girl on mother's day and pretty much from conception to about May/June I had horrible morning sickness. I had to take medical leave from my job because they wouldn't allow me to sit, and it started taking a toll on my body.

I had the usual Gestational diabetes testing, and was told I would have to take the three hour test, which I must tell you, completely sucked. The syrupy drink was nasty and they pulled blood each hour. Anyways, I did have GD and was sent for nutritional counseling. I listened to every thing they told me and I followed it to the T, but they must not have thought I would stick to it, because my OB prescribed glyburide to deal with it.

Needless to say I DID follow the diet AND take the medication and it made me hypoglycemic. One afternoon I took a nap and missed lunch/snacks (I had to literally eat something every hour or two to keep my sugar up). When I woke I could barely move, luckily my tester was with me, and when I tested, my blood sugar was 38. That's the lowest it's ever been and it was scary. Also having my cell phone on me, I called Nick who was in class and couldn't understand me, my speech was slurred. He asked me if I tested and all he could make out was 38 and he rushed home to get me some pop.

Seriously the scariest moment ever of my life. I knew what was happening and what I needed to do, but I couldn't get my body to cooperate. They took me off the glyburide then. Because of the GD, I had a weekly ultrasound, non-stress test and doctor's appointment at the hospital and all I can say is thank god for public transportation. Some nurse with obvious issues told me rather harshly that because of my gd, I had a much bigger chance of having a stillborn/late term miscarriage.

THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME. She also said if I don't feel the baby for eight hours or more, past a point of regular activity that I should come immediately to the er. In all, I made 11 trips to the emergency room because of this. The last time was two weeks before I was due, and I broke down on the exam room, telling the on-call doctor (who is in the same office) what the nurse had told me, and how scared I was, and that I couldn't lose my baby.

My doctor called and said she would move up my appointment so we could talk about inducing the baby. I was adament in the beginning about her being the one with me in the delivery room and she was on vacation from the day after my due date, for the next two weeks, and she said that the stress and anxiety I was feeling wasn't doing me or the baby any favors. I mentioned that my sugars were erratic, and she said to go ahead and start taking the glyburide again, which I did.

So I go in for the appointment and my sugars are worse, I'm still following the stupid diet and taking the meds. She's worried about that, and then when she takes my blood pressure, it's pretty high for someone who's BP has been pretty stable throughout the whole pregnancy. We decided to induce and we set it up so that I check in that Sunday night (it was Wednesday).

So fast forward to Sunday evening and I'm packed and in the car with hubs, driving the the hospital with my mother in law and both sister in laws in the car behind us. Since it's induced everyone has been called to inform them when I'm going in and we'll call them when the baby is born.

I check in, lala, they all leave to eat and bring something back, and I have chicken tenders with ranch because I don't get to eat again till the baby is born. They do the cervidil, my ils go home and I TRY to sleep. Any position that is comfortable, is not a position where the monitor will stay on. I'm having contractions, I only notice because I watch the monitor. Sometime around 6 am I get up to pee, Nick is asleep and I call to him because I can't get off the bed without help. He's geting up and coming around and my water breaks when I'm half standing, half sitting. Luckily he was not in it's path and I look up and go oops.

And then ow. There's those contractions! So we called the nurse, they checked me, and I was three and it was starting to hurt. I ask when I can have my epidural, they say now. So they gave me a shot of stadol to hold me off till they get here and so I'm slighlty numbed for the procedure. It didn't hurt, I just hugged Nick the whole time.

We call the ils and they come back, even with the epidural the contractions hurt, and it seems like everytime they check me, the epidural wears off and it starts to hurt down there. At some point someone stuck their hand up their to put a monitor on the baby's head. She was still way up there. I stopped looking when I saw their arm dissapear. Still creeps me out.

Fast forward to 10 cm, I still can't push because she's not far enough down, but I feel like I have to. They say I can push a little if it relieves the pain. It does. I cried and screamed and begged for a c-section through transition (last 3 cm) because I thought it was only going to get worse. Pushing was my favorite part, because I could actually do something, and it felt better to push than to do nothing. Just because that was my favortite, did not mean I wanted to push for the four hours I did.

Honestly, when the nurse sat there with her hand pushing on where I needed to focus my push, I did great, but then she would leave and I would make no progress. Finally after like three hours and 40 minutes my doc says I'm going to need a c-section, because the baby is under stress. I begged her to let me try ad few more minutes and have someone push where I needed to focus. So they did and three minutes later she was calling for staff, and trying to break everything down because she was crowning.

Two minutes after that and she was born, no tears, but she was greyish and her breathing was poor. It took about 10 minutes to get her to cry and it was the slowest, most agonizing ten minutes of my life. I couldn't see her because she was surrounded by doctors, and Jacqui, bless her heart was right there with her. I only needed once stitch after the delivered the placenta and fixed me up with ice packs and cranberry juice.

Sometime during the delivery my fil showed with Nick's grandparents after they all got off work. They were ALL in the room, along with my doc, two nurses for me, 3 doctors and two nurses for Hailey. When they finally got her wheeled out in the warmer she was breathing, good color, responsive, her sugars were just messed up so all I got to do was kiss her before they took her to the nicu.

They ordered me dinner and everyone left to go eat and as soon as I was done I was trying to convince my nurse to get me out of the bed, into a chair and down to the nicu. I was supposed to be in recovery for two hours so I could rest and they could get my postpartum room ready. I told her I would stay there for the whole two hours so I wouldn't bother anyone and I would stay in my chair and rest. I wanted to be with Hailey so bad, I was crying and I could tell she understood because she was pregnant.

So I half hopped, half climbed in to the chair and only 30 minutes after delivery got to go sit with her in the nicu. It was horrible to watch them try to put an IV in her head and after a while I finally got to hold her. She was in the nicu for 5 days before she got to come home. While in the hospital (they let me stay as a guest as long as she was there) I was able to use a pump and keep my supply up and feed her, because her sucking reflex wasn't strong enough to directly breastfeed yet. She still wasn't when we left the hospital but they wouldn't let me use the pump. So I went to WIC (which we were getting) to try to get a pump (they give them out). But they said I wouldn't get one until I went back to work, and that I had to establish her at the breast first.

They didn't care that she wasn't strong enough yet, they didn't care that while she was growing stronger, my supply was diminishing, with not being able to pump. Basically it had to be from the breast or nothing, which pisses me off. Breastmilk is breastmilk, it's just as good for her, and I was trying to give it to her in the way that was easiest for her. Excuse me for not wanting to force my child to starve because she couldn't take what I was offering. Sorry for that last rant, it just made me so mad.

I've already told hubs that when we had another one we would be getting a hospital grade pump, even if we have to rent it. Anyways after the delivery they came back and told me that my placenta had stopped working and it had been a few days and if it had been any longer we would have lost her. The scary thing is, there is no way to diagnose a failing placenta until AFTER the delivery. This means that my next pregnancy will end in a scheduled c-section, a couple weeks before I'm due so as not to run in to that problem again.

I won't lie, I am terrified to go through all of this again. It hurt, it sucked, it wasn't fun and I was scared and worried all the time. Just looking at Hailey though is enough to know that I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Saturday, January 17 2009
Cycle Day: 12
Temp: 96.71
Opk: -