Wow! Kelsey has reached the one month point (yesterday!) She had a doctors appointment today and has gained another pound and has grown another inch! That brings her up to 9lbs 2 oz and 21 1/4 inches.
Mike went back to work. Things on work days are.. semi hectic. Kelsey doesn't like to be by herself much (I need to start using my moby wrap!) and Logan is totally oblivious and would run her over if I gave him the chance! Luckily, Riley is a great helper and will usually hold Kelsey when I need to get something done! I am getting a decent amount of sleep. Kelsey wakes up 2 or 3 times a night but luckly goes straigh to sleep after a quick diaper change and snack!
My birthday is a week from today. Mike couldn't stand it any longer and gave me my birthday gift today! He got me a sewing machine! I am so excited! I have wanted one forever! It will be awile before I actually use it though. These days I have just enough free time to shower and thats about it!
Hopefully I can update more. The days fly by around here!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sisters
When Riley was a month old she discovered her hair. We were visiting my parents and my mom and brother were playing with her (well, as much as you can play with a month old baby anyway). She put her little hand on the back of her head and pulled. Boy did that make her mad! The madder she got, the harder she pulled. It was so funny but you felt so bad for her! To this day, Riley plays/twists her hair. Mostly when she is tired. Today I saw Kelsey start touching the hair on the back of her head, exactly as Riley did. She didn't pull her hair but she reminded me so much of Riley. I knew I was having another girl and I was pretty sure she would take after her big sister in looks. The darker coloring. Logan got all of the completely random genes so I didn't think that would be repeated. It seems they might have a little bit more in common than their coloring.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
One Week Down (plus a day)
I meant to get on here yesterday and give a weekly update on us but the day completely got away from me. As of yesterday Kelsey was one week old. I can't believe it has already been a week. Well now, eight days. The days are flying by. As I write this, I can't believe it is already evening! Kelsey had a doctors appointment on Monday. She didn't lose any weight after birth and in fact gained six ounces. I am so excited! I didn't breastfeed Riley or Logan, so part of this is all new for me. I can't measure out how much she is getting to eat. I can only go by the way she is acting and by her diapers. I am so proud of the two of us! We are slowly getting into a routine. Although I should be taking into account that Mike won't be able to help as much when he goes back to work. Right now we are soaking him up! I dread the day he goes back to work. The kids are going to be so sad.
Riley and Logan are doing well with their baby sister. Riley can't get enough of her. She loves to hold her and "help" change her diapers. She gives her so many kisses, which ends up waking Kelsey up half the time but it is very sweet. Logan. Well, he will come look at her and give her a goodnight kiss. But he is far too busy playing to mess with her much. He is such a funny kid.
I had my week checkup today. Everyone thought Kelsey was adorable and that she looked just like her daddy. She definately does! I am back at my pre pregnancy weight. I knew I had to be close because I wore my pre pregnancy jeans on Monday. I gained about 30 lbs during my pregnancy but I had lost 12 in the first trimester. So that brings my weight loss to about 16ish pounds. Go me! lol!
Now that I finally feel almost 100% I can start getting the house together and start being a full time mommy and not just hang out on the couch like a slug. Although I am enjoying being a slug. Maybe I'll be a slug for a few more days. After all. I DID just give birth!
Riley and Logan are doing well with their baby sister. Riley can't get enough of her. She loves to hold her and "help" change her diapers. She gives her so many kisses, which ends up waking Kelsey up half the time but it is very sweet. Logan. Well, he will come look at her and give her a goodnight kiss. But he is far too busy playing to mess with her much. He is such a funny kid.
I had my week checkup today. Everyone thought Kelsey was adorable and that she looked just like her daddy. She definately does! I am back at my pre pregnancy weight. I knew I had to be close because I wore my pre pregnancy jeans on Monday. I gained about 30 lbs during my pregnancy but I had lost 12 in the first trimester. So that brings my weight loss to about 16ish pounds. Go me! lol!
Now that I finally feel almost 100% I can start getting the house together and start being a full time mommy and not just hang out on the couch like a slug. Although I am enjoying being a slug. Maybe I'll be a slug for a few more days. After all. I DID just give birth!
Transfer Shmasfer
Ventura
Sacramento
Well. Safe to say we are here for awhile longer. I felt good about this transfer and when I found out "the list" was out I felt sick. I was so anxious to find out if we would be moving home. Mike's name was not on that list. Oddly enough...I didn't care. I was a little disappointed that we wouldn't be moving home. I miss my friends. I miss my parents. But I have everyone I NEED here. I have a healthy family. I have a brand new beautiful baby girl. Home is where the heart is. And really? Who is going to complain about living 5 minutes from the beach? Mike has a good job. We have been here almost three and a half years. What's a few more?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Kelsey Juliette's Birth Story
Monday night/Tuesday morning I got the biggest chunk of sleep I had gotten since Wednesday night- about 2 full hours. I don't know what time I woke up from my little nap but I was just laying there in the dark listening to Mike sleep. I had some contractions since Sunday but nothing too crazy. On Monday I had a lot of very strong braxton hicks contractions. Nothing painful but very very strong. Then I had a contraction. It wasn't anything too painful but I knew it was a real one. I got so excited! I looked at the time and it was 4:35 am. Woo hoo! A starting point. I tried waking Mike up but my voice was very raspy so it didn't work. So I just hung out, playing around on my phone. The contractions were not regular and really...they never got regular. Just like with Logan. So I just waited. About 5:30 I had to page the nurse to help me unhook all my fun wires, tubes and monitors so I could use the bathroom. I told her that I thought it was baby day and she asked me when I was due. I told her in three days. She looked at the computer and saw that I had been having contractions. After I was unhooked I went and woke Mike up and told him in a sing song voice, "It's baby day! It's baby day! You were right!". Mike had been saying for months that this baby would be born on February 15th. I asked him if he would wake up and hook up my dvd player from home to watch Gilmore Girls (lol) and then he could go back to sleep. So he did and went back to sleep. I am nice to him! I have let him sleep through parts of all three of my labors. So I had contractions here and there. They were a little uncomfortable but I was nicely distracted by my Gilmore Girls! Around 7 they brought in breakfast. I did not touch it. I wasn't feeling that great. Food would have been an excellent idea.. I did need energy but I was not feeling like eating. I said something to the nurse about not feeling very well and she asked me if I wanted some anti nausea meds. Heck yes I did. Mike woke up around that point and ate some breakfast for me. Then the nurse checked me. I was dilated 4 cm. Woo hoo! Progress from Sunday! She called and let my midwife know. It looked like, yep, I really am in labor! I was gonna meet this little one who had been so lovingly beating on me! I asked the nurse if she would be the one present for my delivery because I liked her. She was chatty and joking and just fun. She said she didn't know but if she wasn't going to be there she would find me someone like her.
Around 9 a new nurse came in, ready to move me to a delivery room. She was very nice. We moved into a room with a lot of natural light. I got to chat a little with my nurse and told her that when I had Logan and was pushing, I had a nurse yelling at me, counting and it totally distracted me. She assured me that we would just take it easy when it came to pushing. No yelling and no counting at me. I loved her. She was so so nice. Contractions were getting stronger and I decided it was time to start taking showers to manage the pain. Mike was helping me through contractions like a pro (but it IS our third child so he has been there before...he should be good at it!). And we were watching Gilmore Girls to help distract me. The contractions started getting very very intense around 12:30. I told Mike that I was going to ask a nurse to check me for dilation because I was hoping that these contractions were doing something otherwise I was going to give in to the epidural. I really didn't want to. But I had slept around 7 hours in 5 days. I was more than exhausted. I didn't have a specific birth plan but in my head I had imagined that I would be able to do things like walk around and use a birthing ball to help me through the pain. But with being sick and having breathing issues, those things just weren't possible. I was mostly laboring in bed and taking showers, which was fine but just not how I imagined. Mike was a rockstar. Through my whole pregnancy I was telling him how to talk me out of pain medication through labor. He said everything I wanted him to. He fought me on it, just as I had asked. Well, I was checked and I was still at only 4 cm. I gave in. I caved to the epidural. The nurse called in the anesthesiologist. I think he got there around 1pm? I'm not sure. Mike tells me he was funny. I don't really remember. I remember him putting the needle in my back. Ouch. I remember thinking though, what the heck! I am done with this pain! Why isn't it going away!??? It feels like right before I pushed Logan out. I was laying down in the bed and the anesthesiologist asked me if I was feeling my contractions. I told him that I was feeling everything. Around that point my midwife made her way in. She decided to break my water. Meanwhile I am still feeling every contraction, trying to work my way through it, still thinking, why am I feeling everything!!! When my midwife broke my water we found out that there was meconium. Mike didn't really understand what that meant so my midwife and I explained it to him. That the baby could have meconium in her lungs. My midwife told us that she would have the nicu team come in, just to assess the baby after birth to make sure everything was ok. Well, while all this was going on, I pretty much went from 4cm to 8cm. I am still thinking why am I feeling all of this!!! It was 1:36pm. I told the nurses and my midwife it felt like I needed to push. I was laying down.. the bed was almost flat. They didn't even have time to put my legs up into stirrups, nothing. My midwife was going to go change her clothes and didn't have time. She just had time to throw a gown on. Mike says it was pretty crazy because it instantly went from my midwife and my nurse to my midwife and about 7 nurses. And I started pushing. I don't know what time I started pushing. I know it was after 1:36 because we talked about how Mike thought the baby would be born at 1:34 and it was past that time. I remember pushing and thinking, "oh my god, oh my god! This hurts! Wait. That's the ring of fire! Wait.. I can feel the baby.. that's the head coming out! OH MY GOD!! The baby is coming out. The head is out! Oh my goodness and the whole body is out. She is out, she is out, OH MY GOD!" And out she came at 1:51pm! It was so fast! Even thinking back...I just cannot even begin to explain the feeling. It was like I was on another planet. It took three pushes for her to come out. Not three contractions. Just three pushes. I couldn't even believe I had just pushed my baby out. They took her over to the nicu nurses and they sucked the meconium out of her lungs, looked her over and said, "well, we are going to leave you here with this perfectly healthy baby" and they left. I hadn't even really seen Kelsey yet. I was just worried about her being ok because of the meconium. The nurses started cleaning me up and changed my gown. And then I was handed my beautiful little girl.
Looking back... the birth was amazing. I had no bright lights on me, just the natural light of the room. When I was pushing, the nurses were just saying, you can do it, you can do it Casey. No crazy counting in my face and yelling. In the end I did cave to the epidural. But the epidural never worked.. whether because I just progressed so fast or it just wasn't going to work. So I did get my natural birth. AND a needle in my back!
Everything is going so great now. I'm tired but sleeping more with a newborn than I was last week. I am breastfeeding Kelsey and it is going so well. I didn't breastfeed Riley or Logan. Kelsey is such a natural. It was me that needed some practice. I am so in love with her and have fallen in love with every member of my family once again. Mike really is so amazing! He is being run ragged by me while I take it easy and slowly become a normal person again. I am soaking up every moment with him home with us. Riley is obsessed with her little sister. When she wakes up she runs to her and tells her, "I missed ya baby girl!" She holds her as much as she possibly can and showers her with millions of kisses. Logan like to peak at her every once in awhile. He had to check and see if she was a doll or a real baby. I think anyway. He stuck his finger in her ear. Then her mouth. And then pulled at her hair. Poor Kelsey has such a bruiser brother. He has also snuck in a few kisses of his own. I am so so blessed. I love my little family!
Around 9 a new nurse came in, ready to move me to a delivery room. She was very nice. We moved into a room with a lot of natural light. I got to chat a little with my nurse and told her that when I had Logan and was pushing, I had a nurse yelling at me, counting and it totally distracted me. She assured me that we would just take it easy when it came to pushing. No yelling and no counting at me. I loved her. She was so so nice. Contractions were getting stronger and I decided it was time to start taking showers to manage the pain. Mike was helping me through contractions like a pro (but it IS our third child so he has been there before...he should be good at it!). And we were watching Gilmore Girls to help distract me. The contractions started getting very very intense around 12:30. I told Mike that I was going to ask a nurse to check me for dilation because I was hoping that these contractions were doing something otherwise I was going to give in to the epidural. I really didn't want to. But I had slept around 7 hours in 5 days. I was more than exhausted. I didn't have a specific birth plan but in my head I had imagined that I would be able to do things like walk around and use a birthing ball to help me through the pain. But with being sick and having breathing issues, those things just weren't possible. I was mostly laboring in bed and taking showers, which was fine but just not how I imagined. Mike was a rockstar. Through my whole pregnancy I was telling him how to talk me out of pain medication through labor. He said everything I wanted him to. He fought me on it, just as I had asked. Well, I was checked and I was still at only 4 cm. I gave in. I caved to the epidural. The nurse called in the anesthesiologist. I think he got there around 1pm? I'm not sure. Mike tells me he was funny. I don't really remember. I remember him putting the needle in my back. Ouch. I remember thinking though, what the heck! I am done with this pain! Why isn't it going away!??? It feels like right before I pushed Logan out. I was laying down in the bed and the anesthesiologist asked me if I was feeling my contractions. I told him that I was feeling everything. Around that point my midwife made her way in. She decided to break my water. Meanwhile I am still feeling every contraction, trying to work my way through it, still thinking, why am I feeling everything!!! When my midwife broke my water we found out that there was meconium. Mike didn't really understand what that meant so my midwife and I explained it to him. That the baby could have meconium in her lungs. My midwife told us that she would have the nicu team come in, just to assess the baby after birth to make sure everything was ok. Well, while all this was going on, I pretty much went from 4cm to 8cm. I am still thinking why am I feeling all of this!!! It was 1:36pm. I told the nurses and my midwife it felt like I needed to push. I was laying down.. the bed was almost flat. They didn't even have time to put my legs up into stirrups, nothing. My midwife was going to go change her clothes and didn't have time. She just had time to throw a gown on. Mike says it was pretty crazy because it instantly went from my midwife and my nurse to my midwife and about 7 nurses. And I started pushing. I don't know what time I started pushing. I know it was after 1:36 because we talked about how Mike thought the baby would be born at 1:34 and it was past that time. I remember pushing and thinking, "oh my god, oh my god! This hurts! Wait. That's the ring of fire! Wait.. I can feel the baby.. that's the head coming out! OH MY GOD!! The baby is coming out. The head is out! Oh my goodness and the whole body is out. She is out, she is out, OH MY GOD!" And out she came at 1:51pm! It was so fast! Even thinking back...I just cannot even begin to explain the feeling. It was like I was on another planet. It took three pushes for her to come out. Not three contractions. Just three pushes. I couldn't even believe I had just pushed my baby out. They took her over to the nicu nurses and they sucked the meconium out of her lungs, looked her over and said, "well, we are going to leave you here with this perfectly healthy baby" and they left. I hadn't even really seen Kelsey yet. I was just worried about her being ok because of the meconium. The nurses started cleaning me up and changed my gown. And then I was handed my beautiful little girl.
Looking back... the birth was amazing. I had no bright lights on me, just the natural light of the room. When I was pushing, the nurses were just saying, you can do it, you can do it Casey. No crazy counting in my face and yelling. In the end I did cave to the epidural. But the epidural never worked.. whether because I just progressed so fast or it just wasn't going to work. So I did get my natural birth. AND a needle in my back!
Everything is going so great now. I'm tired but sleeping more with a newborn than I was last week. I am breastfeeding Kelsey and it is going so well. I didn't breastfeed Riley or Logan. Kelsey is such a natural. It was me that needed some practice. I am so in love with her and have fallen in love with every member of my family once again. Mike really is so amazing! He is being run ragged by me while I take it easy and slowly become a normal person again. I am soaking up every moment with him home with us. Riley is obsessed with her little sister. When she wakes up she runs to her and tells her, "I missed ya baby girl!" She holds her as much as she possibly can and showers her with millions of kisses. Logan like to peak at her every once in awhile. He had to check and see if she was a doll or a real baby. I think anyway. He stuck his finger in her ear. Then her mouth. And then pulled at her hair. Poor Kelsey has such a bruiser brother. He has also snuck in a few kisses of his own. I am so so blessed. I love my little family!
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!!!!!!
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!!!!!!
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