B’s birth story! Better late than never, right?
It’s pretty wild how quickly one of the best days of your life becomes a blur due to adrenaline running sky high. So I have been spending some time looking back at pictures and texts and the few notes I tried to keep in my phone while in the hospital in order to try to relive the arrival of this long awaited miracle.
Monday, October 28th, 2019 // 37 weeks + 4 days pregnant:
I went to work and did not feel good all day long – icky and exhausted. Off. Lightheaded. Headache. Tired. Numb-ish. Dylan encouraged me to call the nurses line but I chopped it up as not sleeping well, because you know, third trimester sleep.
I went home, lounged on the couch with Phoebe and went to bed really early.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019 // 37 weeks + 5 days pregnant:
I climbed out of bed (literally climbing at this point) and went to work, and still didn’t feel good. I started to feel flu-like, was burning up and had a light but nagging headache. A couple of people on my team checked in and asked if I was feeling okay and a team member expressed concern when she noticed how flushed I was. I waddled up to the nurses office during recess and had the nurse take my temperature. I was shocked that I was not running a fever. I was so hot. I also had a pain in my upper right side that was getting worse which was scary since I knew this to be a sign of preeclampsia.
As soon as I released my students for the day, I made the call to my doctors office. After telling them what I was feeling (hot, headache, run down), they asked for me to call the nurses at the hospital since I would not be able to make it to my doctor’s office before they closed for the day. “If they ask you to come in, make sure to bring your hospital bags with you” they told me. [Insert nerves!]
I rang the nurses line at the maternity ward at the hospital who suggested that I do come in just to be safe and check on the baby.
Adrenaline immediately started pumping through my body – I am not prepared for a sub tomorrow. I have no sub plans ready. My class is a disaster. What needs to be done to make sure I set my students and sub up for success if for some reason I am not back tomorrow? What am I forgetting about?
I spent the next hour in my classroom prepping as best as I could and making sure things were easy to find for a guest teacher while I waited for Dylan to get to my classroom from work. He took the bus to my school from work so that he could drive us home.
We let the dog out and gave her some loves before throwing together our hospital bag, in a much less organized fashion than is comfortable for me but when you gotta go, you gotta go! Thank heavens the car seat was already installed – at least we did one thing to prepare! Ha!
We burned rubber to the hospital (just kidding) and got checked in to triage in the maternity ward. Nervous as all get out. I got changed into the hospital gown and peed in a cup, immediately breaking the sexy-meter. The nurse asked me general questions about what I was feeling, took my vitals, drew my blood and monitored baby boy and my contractions. In the month or so prior to this, I had had elevated heart rate results, but they were on the high side of normal without other symptoms so they weren’t all that concerned. However, with a nagging headache, feeling hot, swelling and upper right quadrant pain – they were now wanting to be cautious about the possibility of preeclampsia.
Everything came back normal, my heart rate was elevated but nothing crazy, the baby was looking great on the monitor and I wasn’t really having any contractions. The nurse wanted to watch us for a bit longer to be sure and make sure she had a chance to talk to the doctor but it looked like we were okay for a bit longer. Dylan and I joked about how we would go home and actually pack our hospital bag the way we wanted it, because who knows what was actually in it!
“So I had a chance to talk to the doctor” the nurse said. “And we are actually going to keep you here (short pause) and induce you!”
WHAT?!
I swear to you, I stopped breathing. And I actually gasped super loud. I think Dylan laughed nervously and said “OMG, ok.” We were in total shock. It was sounding like we were going to be released so this was like someone kicked our feet right out from under us and when we hit the ground everyone shouted “IT’S GO TIME!” Because 38 weeks is considered full term and the symptoms I was showing, the doctor figured we better get this show on the road to be safe. This was really happening!
Meanwhile, we had been keeping my mom updated, who I wanted at the hospital but lives in California and was sitting in the dark – literally, the dark because of a planned PG&E power outage because of fire season. I text her, “Can you leave in the morning?” We booked her a flight for 12:30 the next day (Wednesday, October 30) out of Sacramento, Ca.