Pregnancy Update

Well, yesterday I finally got to have my 28 week appointment. Problem is that I'm 29 weeks. My doc was a bit busy last week. He gets all the complicated cases and he ended up with 15 deliveries during business hours last week. Poor guy.

Anyway, I'm doing fine with my weight-gain, despite what the scale tells me. My belly is measuring about 30 weeks. The baby is moving and her heart sounds strong. My blood pressure is normal. So, things are going well.

Our only concern has been knowing what exactly I went through when Matt was born and how complicated Millie's birth is going to be. My records finally came in and my doctor lovingly and patiently went over everything with me. I couldn't quite put everything together myself, but Josh can listen to the notes and remember what he saw and help me place it all. Thank goodness he knows so much.

So, in an effort to share the news I received, I've decided to tell all about what happened with Matt. If you're pregnant or want to be pregnant, you don't have to continue reading...unless you're morbid like I am and like to revel in the horror stories of pregnancy. Anywhoo, the cord wrapped around Matt's chest and neck and with each contraction I had, the placenta was pulling away from the uterine wall, and it hurt really, really bad. That's an understatement, by the way. I was so scared of an epidural with the girls that I didn't have one, but it hurt so bad that I told Josh something was wrong and I really wanted the epidural. It was a good thing I asked for it because not long after that I was rushed to the operating room and if I hadn't had the epidural already I would've gone under general anestesia and Josh wouldn't have been allowed to come into the OR with me.

So, we go in for the emergency c-section because Matt's heart kept flat-lining and since we already knew about his heart condition, we were even more nervous about his well-being. The doc opened me up just as any doc would in performing a c-section, but when he attempted to pull Matt's head out, the cord was wrapped too tightly and he couldn't get him. He went to turn him a bit and Matt went transverse and I think this is where the problems for me began. He turned him even more and ended up having to pull him out breech. Matt was pretty lifeless. I remember when the doc handed Matt to the NICU team he said to them, "Jump-start this baby!" And I knew that he was in trouble. The NICU team got Matt going fairly quickly, but then again, my mental time-frame was a bit off. I got to see him for about a minute when they rushed him to the NICU to do his heart evaluation. Josh asked me if I wanted him to stay with me or go with Matt and I told him to go with Matt since I was going to be okay and we didn't know how Matt was.

Josh left and the doctor began to clean me up and discovered that in the rush to deliver Matt my uterus tore. The problem is, it tore into the ligament next to the uterus. I can't remember what it's called besides some sort of ligament, but it's not really a ligament. It's actually a bunch of blood vessels. This probably was the reason I lost at least 1800 mL of blood and needed a transfusion. Josh estimates that it's about 1/3 of my blood supply. Maybe a little less since pregnancy increases the amount of blood in the body.

Anyway, the main thing we were worried about was the shape of the tear in my uterus. According to the records, it was a "Y" shape, but not the severe Y. Most Y tears have an arm of the Y going up into more of the muscles of the uterus, which make laboring very dangerous and the prospect of new tearing a huge probability. However, the arm of my Y went down, which makes it much more safe to attempt a v-back delivery. There was also some shearing that occured. To find out about that, ask Josh. Anyway, my doctor looked over these notes and noticed that there were three pages of dictation, which is a lot, and he couldn't find it, but he remembered that the time we spent in the OR was written in there somewhere and it was quite a significant amount of time. He told me that his usual time in a c-section is about 10 minutes. Can you imagine having your baby within 10 minutes of deciding it's time to have her? Anyway, he said 20 minutes in a c-section is because it has complications, but I was in there for a lot longer than that.

With all this new information, my doctor told me that based on the record he would recommend doing a v-back, but he wanted to know what the delivering doctor had told me. This is what I really like about my doctor. Not only does he know the delivering doctor (they practiced together in San Diego) but he trusted me to relay the message that doctor gave me nearly four and a half years ago. I told him that the delivering doctor looked over the divider at me (by the way, did you know that in a c-section they tie your arms out away from your body? I didn't until they began tying me down) and said to me, "If you have any more children they'll need to be delivered by c-section." So, even though my current doctor would've normally delivered me vaginally, he trusts my previous doctor that for whatever reason he believed a c-section is necessary and he'll deliver me that way. Plus, he trusts me to relay that message to him. He's a good guy.

I told my doctor that there were two things I remember the delivering doctor told me. He peeked over the divider to tell me about the c-section and he told me that they could only find 15 of the 16 needles they used to stitch me up. My current doctor told me that the usual amount of needles used is 2.





It didn't take long before I was pretty much out of it. Josh wasn't allowed to come back in the OR after the chaos began. He stood outside in the scrub-in area and after a few minutes one of the nurses came and closed the blinds on him. So, the poor guy was left outside not knowing what was happening. At one point a rumor began that I was going to need a hysterectomy to save my life. But it was just a rumor. I was in and out of consciousness most of the time Josh was gone. I was awake during this whole ordeal, but not oriented a lot of the time. I was afraid to fall asleep because I didn't know if I'd ever wake up again. I don't remember the x-ray that was taken to check for that 16th needle within me. The needle ended up being on the floor, by the way. I remember shivering as if I was very cold. When Josh did see me he thought I was shaking from fright, but I was just really cold.

I remember being told that I had to recover enough to be able to walk to the wheelchair before I could go back to the NICU to see Matt. It seemed to take forever before I was allowed out of the recovery room, let alone try to walk to the wheelchair. Because of the emergency of the situation my epidural was turned up very high and I could feel it's effects on my lungs. I had to think about breathing because it felt like my lungs wanted to go numb like the rest of my body. It took so long for the epidural to wear down enough to even attempt that stupid wheelchair. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and hearing that Matt was having to take bottles because I wasn't there to nurse him really got to me. I forced myself to stand up and get to the wheelchair. I fought the desire to faint and just fall on the floor as I took the three steps to the chair. But I was going to see my baby. No stupid rule about recovery was going to keep me from my baby, especially my baby in the NICU.








I stayed in the hospital for five days, but then we stayed in the inn at the hospital while Matt was in the NICU for another nine days. Luckily, my current doctor assures me that I should recover a lot quicker than I did then. Man, I hope so. It took over a year to feel better. I've never quite gotten back to normal, but I don't know if you can after something like that. Phew.





Thanks for letting me get that out. I needed to share. It's amazing how reliving the moment can actually help you get over it.