Jeff's mom came to sit with Jack so my mom could go with my to my appointment on Monday, which was so nice. I was expecting Dr. Hardt to say, "Ok, looks a little better, back home to the couch, see you in a week for a check up!" so I wasn't too worried. I mean, if my feet tell the story, the story is easy to tell.
First up, I got a sonogram to check on little Owen. Which is always fun! Fun to see him, see that he's ok, etc. The stenographer confirmed that he was still a boy, looked good, and commented that he was measuring a few weeks behind where he should be. Hmmm.
The nurse took my blood pressure, said the doctor would be in to see me in a minute, and walked out. Last week, the nurse (a different nurse) had said right away that my blood pressure was high, and since this nurse didn't say anything, I assumed it was fine! Whew!
Then my doctor walked in. First thing she said was, "Molly, what have you been doing!" Um, sitting on the couch....but somehow my blood pressure was even higher than the week before. 168/108 She said with this news, she wanted to go ahead and send me to the hospital to check me in and get ready for an induction tomorrow. Um, what? What? I wanted to yell, "But my feet! My feet! Look at my feet!" But instead I just cried. This was not supposed to happen. I sat on the couch for 5 days! This was not supposed to happen!!!! But again, my doctor reassured me that everything was ok, Owen was going to be ok, he would be fine delivered at this point, and it would be better for him to be out with us than staying inside me because he wasn't getting what he needed. My mom asked if we could go home and get my hospital bag, and she said that it would probably be better to go straight to the hospital and have someone else bring it to me. I was scared.
I walked out of the office stunned and, like I said, scared. It was 3:50pm, and Jeff was set to be on the air at 4 for the 4:00 show, so I called him and bawled as I told him I was headed to the hospital. Talking about it later, somehow we kinda knew this was coming. He'd felt weird all day, I'd repacked my hospital bag the night before....but it was still really shocking. I was only 36 weeks. We had a month left as a family of 3! And now we find out that Owen would be here tomorrow! He found Larry, who was still in his street clothes, told him I was heading to the hospital, and Larry said he'd cover it, and he headed out. Jeff stopped at home to get my bag and change clothes, and pack his bag. Thankfully, Jeff's mom was at the house with Jack so she just took him home for the night. And thankfully my mom was with me so I wasn't doing all this alone!
We got checked into Maternal Observation and they immediately started monitoring my blood pressure. The job of the nurses at Maternal Observation is to see if you really need to be admitted, so they monitored my blood pressure, monitored Owen, and drew blood. Jeff made it to the hospital before they officially admitted me and boy, was I glad to see him.
So we got settled into our room and they put in a cervex softener so that when they started the petocin Tuesday morning, I'd be ready to go! It was all happening so fast. They hooked me up to a blood pressure machine that would monitor my blood pressure every hour over night and set off an alarm if it got too high. And they gave me two Ambien. The cervix softener sometimes makes you cramp, they said, but this would ensure I'd sleep through it. At this point, Jeff and I were starting to get kind excited. We would get to meet Owen tomorrow! And, we'd get a full night's sleep! I went to the hospital with Jack at 9pm and he was born at 3am, and I've always said that the newborn days might have been easier if we didn't start off sleep deprived...and here's our chance! We prayed for Owen, for my body, for things to be ok, and went to bed.
Sometime around 4am I woke up and couldn't really go back to sleep because of the cramping. Which was weird. I mean, I just took 2 Ambien. At 7am, the nurse came in to unhook me and help me to the bathroom. And that's when my water broke. Um, what? I went ahead and took a shower, and when I got out, I asked the nurse if it was possible that my water broke. She said, "Well, it's possible.....let me check you."
She checked and sure enough, it did! And I was dilated to a 6! Epidural, stat, people. The contractions were coming fast and hard at that point. We made phone calls to let everyone know that Owen would be here sooner than expected and by the time the epidural was in, she checked me again, and this is what I hear: "Oh, that's the baby's head. Someone call Dr. Hardt! Get Dr. Hardt on the phone, she's ready to push!"
Oh my Lord.
Everyone's running around like crazy, my epidural doesn't feel like it's working because I've had to lay on my side to keep my blood pressure down, there are doctors from Cooks Children's Hospital in my room, just in case Owen isn't doing well. It was crazy. Five minutes later, Dr. Hardt literally runs into the room, puts on gloves, no time for the doctors gown, I push 4 times, and Owen Patrick Jamison is born at 9:21am. 4lbs 9oz, 18 inches long. AND healthy. Praise the Lord. Yes, he's a tiny thing, but he's healthy. God is good, all the time.
Everything happened so fast. My blood pressure was still sky high after delivery, so I laid on my side and watched while Owen was assessed....and all at once, all of the pediatric doctors left the room. And my baby got to stay. Praise the Lord!
The hardest thing was to be laying in that bed, strapped to monitors, bound my my anti seizure IV meds (in case the blood pressure caused a seizure), watching while everyone cooed to my baby. I couldn't get out of bed to see him. I didn't get to see Jack meet his brother for the first time. I watched from afar, but that's not how I pictured it.
I didn't get to be the first one to hold him. I didn't get to be the first face he sees. But, I did get to nurse him, and that was precious precious time.
We stayed in Labor and Delivery over night so they could continue to monitor my blood pressure and administer my IV meds, and finally made it to the postpartum floor the following morning. Although the monitoring continued and the blood continued to be drawn every few hours, I wasn't hooked up to an IV any more and I got to hold my sweet little boy as much as I wanted!
My blood pressure hadn't dropped to normal, but they felt comfortable releasing me the next afternoon and we got to go home to be a family of 4.
I'd like to say that Jack is this sweet to him all the time, that he always kisses him and is gentle, but really...
this is more like it. :)
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