I haven’t written here in a while… roughly two years, in fact. In that time lots of things have happened – namely, I’ve had another baby. As of this writing, my beautiful baby boy – Daegan (rhymes with “Reagan” of the Ronald variety) is nearly 8 months (!!) old. He is the sweetest, happiest, most adorable baby (well – along with his big brother, of course).
If you know me, you may remember that after Connor was born I swore I wasn’t going to have another child. My pregnancy had been easy but having preeclampsia scared the hell out of me and I honestly didn’t think I could go through with it again. But as they say, time heals all wounds. I always knew I wanted to have more than one child, so the thought of Connor not having a sibling had been something hard for me to deal with. I felt like I was making a decision that would profoundly impact his life for really selfish reasons. And eventually, my desire for Connor to have a sibling (and for me to have another baby to snuggle because oh my God is there anything better than baby snuggles) won out.
The thing about preeclampsia is that supposedly only 8% of women will be diagnosed with it. (I say “supposedly” because I know a CRAP LOAD of women who have been diagnosed with it. At this point, I actually personally know more women who have had it than haven’t. I would like to recommend that someone go research the water source of my sorority house…) And if you were lucky enough to be one of those 8% then you have a 20% chance of getting it in subsequent pregnancies. In fact, they call preeclampsia “a disease of first pregnancies” because if you didn’t have it in your first it’s very unlikely you’ll have it ever. Well folks, I – the woman absolutely petrified of getting it again – got it again. And this time, it was a bit worse than it was the first time.
My pregnancy with Daegan wasn’t super fun. When I was pregnant with Connor it was fairly smooth sailing. I was tired in my first trimester but other than that I was fun – very little nausea, nothing that a single Saltine at 2pm every day couldn’t fix. But with Daegan I was nauseous literally every day of my entire pregnancy. And I was exhausted because I was chasing around the world’s most energetic 2-year-old. And I’m running a thriving business. With Connor I was diagnosed with an irritable uterus which meant I was getting a lot of contractions for no reason – and that wasn’t super fun, but there were ways to manage it. With Daegan I was diagnosed with pubis symphysis dysfunction which meant some days I literally could not walk… or sit… or lay down – yeah, you get it.
I also have a tilted uterus that is apparently so tilted that “it’s practically upside down.” So until I was around 22 weeks pregnant my OBGYN couldn’t find Daegan’s heartbeat with the doppler – I had to have an ultrasound every time. But we always started with the doppler. Which meant I would sit in the office alone (because guys IT’S A PANDEMIC!!!) freaking out worrying about my baby… only to – thankfully – see his happy little heartbeat on the ultrasound and be reassured that things were great. That also means, however, that since my husband was only allowed to make it to my first couple of appointments before the pandemic started that he wasn’t able to be there for any of those scary – or amazing – moments.
With Connor I was diagnosed with preeclampsia at 35+6 weeks pregnant. Due to the irritable uterus there was actually a time when they thought I was going into labor early since I was having contractions so frequently. The doctor actually sent me home from the hospital and told me to pack bag because she expected to see me later that night. I didn’t go into labor that night, but 2 days later I was admitted with preeclampsia and stayed there until I delivered via scheduled C-Section at 37+1.
With Daegan, around 35+2 weeks I went to bed one night thinking that the swelling in my feet was getting really annoying. I woke up the following morning noticing that the swelling hadn’t gone down. I stepped on the scale tentatively and saw that I’d gained nearly 5lbs in about 2 days – a warning sign of preeclampsia. I took my blood pressure – the first time I’d taken it on my own at home during the entire pregnancy – and it was a little high (129/90, I think). Nothing crazy, but enough to make me call my doctor. My doctor told me that I could go into her office later that day to get a BP check but she said that to put my mind at ease (because she knows all about my anxiety) it would probably be better if I went to the hospital “just for a quick checkup.” So at 8am on April 29 I jumped in my car and went to the hospital… and didn’t come home again for 12 days.
Unfortunately, when I got to the ER my fears were confirmed: my blood pressure was high and I had protein in my urine. Preeclampsia for sure. They asked me some questions about the baby and I told them that I hadn’t been feeling quite as much movement as I had been. They did a growth scan to check on him and we received worse news. He was diagnosed with Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) and he had stopped growing at 32 weeks. The situation now became more complicated. With Connor he was completely fine and I was the only one that was sick. But with Daegan we were both sick. And I was alone.. because again, it’s a pandemic.
My husband was at home waiting for my in-laws to arrive to take care of Connor. The pandemic rules of the hospital were that I was only allowed 1 visitor throughout the duration of my stay in the Antenatal Care Unit (ACU) – which meant Chuck was the only person allowed to visit me. It was going to be a few hours until my in-laws could arrive and I had nothing with me. I hadn’t bothered bringing my bag because I didn’t want to seem dramatic, so Chuck packed some things and arranged for my sister to come pick it up at our house (he left it outside in the garage because – again – due to the pandemic she couldn’t come in the house and then she brought it to the hospital where a nurse came and got it from her in the parking lot because – again, pandemic rules – she couldn’t go into the hospital). He was finally able to come see me later that evening, and that became our routine. I spent every day alone and then around 4pm he would arrive and stay with me until around 10pm. We decided that he should spend as much time with Connor as possible since I was already “missing” and when I returned I’d be bringing home the baby – we didn’t want to cause too much upheaval.
From the time I was admitted until Chuck was able to get there, I’d seen a bunch of doctors, including some from the NICU. Everyone was trying to prepare me for what was going on and they were all being SO kind… but I couldn’t focus. All I could think was “I can’t believe it happened again and this time my baby is sick too.” I felt horrible and kept blaming myself. The NICU doctors were reassuring, they told me that although Daegan had stopped growing physically, developmentally he hadn’t – so he might be small but they didn’t expect us to require any NICU time for anything other than helping him put on weight if we needed it at all. They said there was a possibility that he might need assistance breathing since the lungs don’t fully develop until 36 weeks and the hospital was unable to give me the steroid shot to assist (since I had a poor reaction to it with Connor) but it was not really a concern that was high on their list since I was already close to 36 weeks.
The plan was – according to my doctors and the NICU team – to keep me pregnant as long as possible up until 37 weeks but that was the ultimate cutoff. Once I was 37 weeks it would no longer be in anyone’s best interest for Daegan to be “on the inside.” That said, they were keeping a very close eye on both of us to see if things needed to happen earlier. IUGR doesn’t just mean “small” – it means that the baby isn’t getting enough nutrients and oxygen due to the failing placenta.
Every day, twice per day, I was hooked up to the Non-Stress Test (NST) monitor to that they could monitor Daegan’s heart and movement. It was supposed to take 20 minutes. I almost always took at least 1 hour. I had 3 biophysical tests where the doctors would come in and do ultrasounds to take a closer look at his movements. He was small and, apparently, kind of lazy but otherwise fine. I spent a whole lot of time crying and wondering why if there was any doubt about how he was doing they didn’t just take him out. Everytime they left me on the monitor for longer than 20 minutes I began to think the worst.
Throughout most of my stay my blood pressure remained fairly stable, but it was higher than it had been when I was in the hospital with Connor. On the night of May 5 I wasn’t feeling great. Around 8pm I rang the nurse and asked her if she could give me my dose of medication early since I felt “off” – she took my blood pressure and it was fine (well, it was comparable to what it had been the entire time). I took my meds and she left. I asked Chuck to stay a little later with me that night since I wasn’t feeling great – but once my anxiety started to subside I told him he could leave. A few minutes after he left (about 10, probably) a nurse came in to check my blood pressure for the last time that evening and it was high – high enough to put me on a magnesium drip, high enough to put the precautionary seizure pads on my bed, and high enough to tell me that I would be having my baby “as soon as the OR was ready.” I called Chuck crying and told him he needed to come back.
At 2:36am on May 6 – 36+2 – Daegan was born. He was tiny but perfect. He didn’t need any NICU time, having beat the gestational age threshold by 2 days and the weight threshold by a few ounces. He was 4lb 14oz and 18″ long. He had some breathing troubles – mostly just being very congested – but nothing that some saline drops into his nose every once in a while couldn’t fix. His doctors spent a lot of time coming into our room and just staring at him – but they deemed him fine. His blood sugar was a bit wonky and he had a million heel sticks over the first 2 days of his life as they tried to stabilize it, but they eventually did, and – again – he was deemed healthy. He had a small bout of jaundice that cleared up when the blood sugar issue was addressed and again, he was fine.
He was actually discharged from the hospital before I was.
When Connor was born the nurse put him right on my chest and I was able to hold him and snuggle him for a few minutes before he went back out with Chuck to the recovery room. With Daegan I wasn’t allowed to hold him. They brought him near my face for a few minutes and then handed him to Chuck. The two of them left and I remained in the OR alone. When I was brought to the recovery room a little while later they still wouldn’t let me hold him – they told me I’d remain in recovery for 12 hours. I wasn’t allowed to hold him until around 10 hours. At the time I thought it had to do with the fact that I was still having the “shivers” that are so common after birth, but as it turns out it was because they were worried that a) I would have a seizure (which also explains the long recovery room time – with Connor we were in recovery for about an hour) or b) that the magnesium would make me too ill to hold my baby. (Turns out, I’m one of the only people on the plant that magnesium doesn’t bother – apparently it causes horrible headaches and makes most women incredibly sick… I just felt kind of tingly and warm.)
For 4 days the doctors tried different doses of medication to bring my blood pressure down. I had a poor reaction to one of the medications they wanted to prescribe when I had Connor, so they could only rely on 1 – and it was working… kinda. By the 4th day – May 10, Mother’s Day – they finally discharged me. The doctor came into my room and told me that the reason they were discharging me is that they felt that keeping me wouldn’t make me better. The nurse had told him how every time she came into the room to get my vitals I started crying and that I would try to time her visits with a Xanax dose to keep my blood pressure down. I knew I was anxious. They knew I was anxious. And, as it turns out, anxiety and high blood pressure don’t mix. So a day after they deemed my baby healthy enough to home, they said I could too. And so Chuck and I packed up our bags and practically ran for the hospital doors to get home to Connor.
So, what’s the hospital LIKE during a pandemic you ask? Empty. Weird. Quiet.
When I was in the ACU I could only have 1 visitor per day. I didn’t really leave my room but Chuck was allowed to at least leave the building and come back. But as soon as Chuck arrived back at the hospital when it was time to have the baby that was it – he couldn’t leave again either. And if he did leave again I was on my own until it was time for me and the baby to be discharged. Once we were put into our postpartum room Chuck wasn’t even allowed to leave the room. Since I had just had a whole human being removed from my body they allowed me (encouraged me, even) to walk some laps around the unit a couple times per day (wearing a mask, of course) but Chuck couldn’t even go to the vending machine down the hall.
No one came to visit our baby.
For the first 4 weeks of his life my mother was the only person who had held him besides Chuck and I. And she only came over for 2 days. Eventually my in-laws had quarantined long enough for them to come over. My aunt quarantined before returning to work as a hairstylist for the express purpose of being able to hug both boys. My dad, sisters, grandmother, aunts, and cousins have only seem him while standing 6 feet away on our deck while we stay in the house.
So there you have it – my second preeclampsia birth story. I decided I had to get this out there because I intend/hope to start writing more and letting you all know that I’ve had a second human (who is doing AMAZING) seemed important.