My Pregnancy Story
As promised in my first post I am sharing my pregnancy story. At the end of my infertility post I said my first 12 weeks were pretty rocky. I spotted at first, but then started bleeding between my 7 & 8 week. I was a emotionally wreck. I remember driving home one day early from work and having a heart to heart with God. I asked him to please not prolong the inevitable. If I was going to miscarry these babies please take them now. I could not take it anymore. My last appointment with Dr. Reshef I told him he needed to put a disclaimer on his pamphlet that said pregnancy was not always fun. I did stop bleeding by the 2nd trimester, but I was so worried every time I went to the restroom I would see blood. That fear never stopped. Everytime I got up in the middle of the night I had to turn on the light to check the bath tissue.
I was nauseous from week 5 through week 24. By the end of December 07 first of January 08 I finally stopped throwing up. Until then I was miserable. It took everything out of me to put in a full day of work. I literally woke up in the morning dry heaving. Then I would drag myself to the kitchen and make a frozen waffle. I would watch the morning news eating my waffle and banana. That was one thing during my pregnancy that I did do good. I only ate healthy foods. Not really because I wanted to, but because everything else made me sick. Greasy food smell quaranteed me a trip to the bathroom. At the end of my pregnancy I did finally crave a food. Raisin Bran cereal. Poor Todd couldn't buy me enough. I remember one day I had it for breakfast,lunch and dinner. I only snacked on fruits. I would eat sometimes 2 to 3 bananas a day. Todd would buy me those pre-sliced apples to take to work. I loved those.
The below was a typical day for me during my pregnancy.
5:30 a.m. Wake up
7:00 a.m. Leave for work
5:00 p.m. Get home from work
5:15 p.m. Get into bed and watch T.V. I recorded the night before
6:30p.m./7:00 p.m. Fall asleep
I spent alot of time in bed. From early on I could not lay on my back. It would make me nauseous and out of breath. My hips would ache so bad at night. I would rotate as much as possible, but it really didn't help. My stomach grew at a alarming rate. Todd would go to the fire station for 24 hours and come home and see a difference. He would look at it and say WOW you have gotten bigger. I would laugh! If never seemed to bother me. I loved knowing my babies were growing.
The end of January 08 (26 weeks) I started not feeling right. My head hurt. I started seeing spots out of the corner of my eyes. My ankles started swelling. I called the doctors office one morning and told the nurse about the swelling of my ankles. She said to come in on my lunch hour and she would check my blood pressure and do a urine test. My blood pressure was higher then normal for me, but not too bad. She took the urine test and said the doctor would be in to speak with me. The doctor came in and said you are going to have to be admitted to the hospital for a 48 hour urine analysis. I was like WHAT? He said I was spilling 4+ protien in my urine. I still was like "Are you kidding me"? It looks like you are developing preeclampsia and you will more then likely be on bedrest for the rest of your pregnancy. He then asked me if I needed to go home and packed a bag. Really? Do you think at 26 weeks I already have an overnight bag packed in my car. Yes, I need to go home. I called Todd on the way out of the doctors office and told him what I knew. He was working at the time, so he left work and picked me up at the house. First thing I did when I got home was I pulled out my pregnancy book and looked up what preeclampsia was. Only 5% to 8% of women develop preeclampsia. All I could think of at that time is why? Why did this have to happen. I got checked into the hospital and they monitored me and the babies. The babies looked good. My blood pressure was still stable and the protein in my urine went down to 2+. The doctor decided to let me go home on bed rest. I was to come back the next Wednesday for him to check me out. I did exactly as he asked I stayed in bed until my appointment the following week, but it didn't help. My blood pressure had gone up and my urine was showing the protein was back up to 4+. He once again asked me if I had brought a bag? He checked me back in to the hospital, but this time he said I would spend the remainder of my pregnancy on hospital bed rest. What sucked the most is that the only cure for preeclampsia is delivery. Of course it was too early for me to deliver, so he wanted to try to get me to 34 weeks gestation. Baby B (Luke) had other plans. I was in the Hospital for 5 days when they did a ultrasound and found out the preeclampsia was affecting Luke's cord blood flow. He was showing signs of stress. Plus my blood pressure was on the rise. The doctor's decided the babies would do better on the outside then the inside. He did not want to have a emergency situation. So on Friday February 15th (28 weeks gestation) at 7:40 a.m. Molly Faith was born and at 7:42 a.m. Luke Paul was born.
I actually got more sick after the babies were born. My blood pressure sky rocketed. At the highest it got to 116/170. I swelled up like a balloon. I know I had at least 40 to 45 pounds of water weight on me. The reason I know is because I lost 50 pounds in one week. I felt horrible. I had never felt that bad in my whole life. Plus I just had major surgery (C-section). The only way I could get out of the hospital was to promise the doctor I would only get out of bed to go see the babies 3 times a day, but I had to do that in a wheelchair. Todd would check my blood pressure and it would still be 100/150. I took medicine to help, but it made me feel even worse. Finally after a month I started feeling better.
Even though my pregnancy was not a picture perfect one. To have Molly and Luke part of my life makes everything I went through worth it. They are my everything. I never knew how much you could love someone until I had them. They are the best! I could not imagine my life without them.
To make it even more interesting I would do it all over again to have another child.
