Part One

Wow. Where do I start? Well. I guess we should start on Wednesday night (2/9). I went to bed feeling awful. I texted Mike and told him that I really hoped I was having allergies because then was not the time to get sick. My due date was only a little over a week away! Well, waking up on Thursday morning I felt like crap! My chest hurt. This concerned me because I was already having some asthma issues and I knew that I could maybe have bronchitis. Again, my due date was close and the very last thing I wanted was to be sick and/or having breathing issues while in labor. I have been planning a natural labor/birth pretty much since the day Logan was born and I knew that would throw a major wrench in my plans. I went to the doctor on Thursday morning and he told me that he thought I had bronchitis but it was almost too early to treat it. But, because my asthma could go wildly out of control and I could go into labor at anytime he was going to give me antibiotics. The only way the antibiotics would work was if my bronchitis was bacterial not viral. Over the course of that day I started feeling worse and worse. My asthma was going out of control, I had a fever, runny nose..the whole deal. That made Thursday night just completely awful. I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep. Maybe I dozed here and there but I was up most of the night. Luckily that night was Mikes last night of work so when he got home he kept me in bed while he hung out with the kids. I got a whole hour of sleep that morning. So Friday was fun. Being sick. A week from being due. I just kind of hung out on the couch while my mom (thank GOD she was here!) took care of Riley and Logan. Well, Friday night, my mom started coughing. So we had me hacking away and now my mom also coughing the night away. Not that I need complete silence to sleep but since I became a mom I sleep fairly lightly. So. Friday night. No sleep. Literally. No sleep. I think Mike woke up around 3 or 4 am and I was watching The Cosby Show on Netflix. By this point my asthma was completely out of control. Even if I wanted to lay down and sleep there was NO WAY that would happen. I had to be sitting up just to get what little air I could moving in my lungs. I tried to fight for air all day and at around 8pm on Saturday I told Mike that it was time to just go to the ER.

The best thing about having breathing issues AND being pregnant is you literally walk into the ER and are given a bed. That was nice, I was able to start getting treatment right away. Breathing treatments, woo hoo! But they also had to give me an IV (I HATE getting IV's!) to get some fluids in me and start pushing some steroids into my system (and this is when they blew my vein). They also put me on oxygen to help get some air into me. So after about an hour I was feeling a little bit better. My chest hurt a lot! But I was able to move air in and out. So here we are in the ER, I'm getting treated and we are just watching the time pass. Then we start hearing the girl next to us talking. She was... ridiculous. She was so loud! She was saying things about how the last time she was in Europe it was so terrible because she had no passion! And how human beings are so inherently evil. About how this was Hell and there was no Heaven. If I boil water, where does the steam go? At one point there was a little baby crying somewhere in the ER and she went on a rant about how it was the worst sound ever and why would anyone ever want to bring something like that into this world? Well.. long story short. This girl was totally 5150. She started getting violent. Throwing things around. Trying to run into the bathroom but no one would let her go into the bathroom alone. She was talking about how she had an abortion and she was so happy to "be rid of that parasite". The part that really worried me is when she said that when she was angry she got violent. That usually, she went to a shooting range, she loved feeling the pull of the trigger, seeing the bullet fly and destroy something beautiful. It was enough that Mike had positioned himself to where if she came through the curtain he would be able to stop her himself. When Mike is off duty he has a completely different look to him and he had his cop face on. We were about to ask to move but then the doctor came in and discharged me. On the way home I started wheezing immediately. I thought that maybe I should have gone back but I didn't. I really should have.Again. No sleep that night. I couldn't breathe. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom with the shower running, praying that the steam would help. Nothing would help. It was so so awful.

At around 7 am I discovered I lost my mucous plug. I got so excited! While I couldn't breathe, the other parts of being sick were gone. No fever. My nose wasn't running. Of course, not being able to breathe was an issue but hey! Maybe I was having a baby! I was having some contractions here and there but nothing to write home about. Well.. around 11am my not breathing was becoming very very serious. I decided to call my midwife and ask her if she thought I should go straight to the ER again or to L&D first. I knew I was in early labor. If I wasn't having the other issues I would just hang at home until I couldn't take it anymore, contraction wise. She decided I should go to L&D. We grabbed out hospital bag and off we went.

We got to L&D and they checked me out. I was 2 cm, no biggie. I didn't think I was in full blown labor anyway but nice to know. They started me on oxygen (ugh. My friendly nasal cannula that I came to love for the next 3 days) and then they sent my butt down to the ER. New IV. EKG. Breathing treatments galore. Steroids galore. Antibiotics. Oxygen. Chest X-rays. Leg ultrasounds to look for blood clots. And meanwhile we are timing contractions. They were 4 minutes apart for a good hour but then they would go away. Darn it. I was ready to have a baby. Even if I was exhausted. Even if I couldn't breathe. But they went away.

I was eventually admitted and moved to a room on the L&D floor and there, in addition to the monitors and tubes I was already connected to I was hooked up to fetal monitors. Let me tell you. When you are so pregnant you are about to give birth, on IV fluids and drinking water.. you have to go to the bathroom. A LOT! So I had to call a nurse every 45 minutes to an hour to unhook me from different monitors just to get to the bathroom. And, just the short walk to the bathroom would wind me like I had run a marathon. Not fun! At some point the nurse told me that one of the OB's from the office I saw my midwives at was now in charge of my prenatal care. I asked if that meant I would be having a midwife delivery still. She said no. I pretty much lost it. Maybe it was the fact that I was at the breaking point anyway from everything going on but I completely lost it. I was so upset. This doctor, while I am sure is a great doctor is completely creepy. The last time I even saw him was when I was in the hospital while I was pregnant with Logan. I never saw him in the office during my entire pregnancy with Kelsey. I had bonded with the midwives that I had been seeing since I was pregnant with Logan. I had a particular idea of how I wanted my birth to go. Nothing too picky but I just had a general idea and how was I going to be comfortable having a baby with this guy on the other side of my hoo ha that I seriously think is totally creepy!? Luckily, a few hours later, one of my midwives called to check on me and I was assured that even though I was now considered high risk,there was no reason that I couldn't have a midwife delivery. Whew. I cannot explain to you how much better I felt at that moment. Emotionally anyway.

So we go through the night of the 13th. Nothing much to report other than a million and a half calls to a nurse to unhook me so I could use the bathroom. And, the next morning we were moved to a new room on the maternity floor. And this is where I realized, with the help of the nurse that, Duh! Hello! The steroids that they were giving me were stopping labor too. BOO! I thought on Sunday morning, that Sunday was THE day! I think the steroids are the reason I didn't end up having Kelsey until Tuesday. But her birthday is perfect. Anyway. At this point I am having a lot of trouble breathing still but it really isn't my asthma. My chest just feels so heavy. They are giving me all kinds of medicine but nothing is making it feel better. I told the nurse thats how I felt and they sent up a doctor and pulmonologist. After explaining all of this to them they told me they wanted to check for blood clots. I could either do a CAT scan or something called a VQ scan. The CAT scan would be less harmful for the baby so I chose that route. I went to do the test. Interesting. Finally got back to my room. A few hours later, got the report back. No blood clots.

Let me point out a couple of things, just for a second. A) I was missing Riley and Logan terribly. I couldn't even look at pictures of them without tearing up. It was great that my mom was here to watch them. I am forever thankful for that! But being away from them was so bad. When I thought of going to the hospital, in general to have my little Kelsey, I thought I would be gone for 2 days.. one night. Same as it was with Logan. But no. Darn asthma ruining my life! (jk) and B) it was Valentines Day. Now, Mike and I don't make a big deal out of Valentines Day. Maybe something silly here or there. Riley and I had made a big (silly) sign for Mike a week or so before Valentines Day. Of course, Mike got it the night we made it because Riley has a big mouth ;) . But it's the day to celebrate love, right? Mike did that perfectly. Being in the hospital, you feel all grimey. You are stuck in a bed for hours. And it was hot! I had the opportunity to take a shower. But from the lack of sleep and being sick, I was very very weak. Mike showered me. Like I was a child. I don't know. Maybe that is weird to some people. (Don't know why) but it illustrated love perfectly. To me.

A few hours after the CAT scan fun I actually started to feel better. Eww alert but my cough finally became productive! All the hacking and gagging was doing something. And the fact that it was bringing stuff out of my lungs was making me feel worlds better. I was able to go off of breathing treatments and start using an inhaler, yay! So it's Monday night, and at this point I have slept around 5 hours since Wednesday night. Because I hadn't slept, the nurse started trying to talk me into taking Ambien. I was very much against it. My thinking was, yeah, I am deliriously tired..but what if I go into labor shortly after taking Ambien? She wasn't very happy with me. This nurse though, was the nurse I had when Logan was born and was around during my hospital stay around 33 weeks. She is not my favorite person to begin with. But I stood my ground. I was proud of myself for that because I am far from confrontational! At midnight she was gone (woo hoo!) and I did get a couple hours of sleep.. which was good because at Tuesday at 4:35 am, I knew it was baby day!!!!!!