So after the ultrasound, I'm still not sure what's going on. I think they may have given me my first dose of magnesium sulfate
(I'll call it MAG from now on). I told Sean to go home and take a
shower, eat something and grab some stuff from home in case we're going
to be a while. We figured we'd just lounge around and play with our
iPads or watch TV or something...no biggie. I don't remember if it was
before or after he left but at some point they gave me a shot of
steroids in my thigh to start maturing the baby's lungs so I could
deliver her. I still didn't realize that this was the plan...but with the steroids what the hope is - is they give you 1 shot of
steroids, another in 24 hours...and then you deliver in another 24
hours. That's the ideal amount of time to help the baby's lungs mature
before she comes out.
Sean leaves...and I go from
feeling ok to not really quickly. By the time he got back to the
hospital I was in pretty bad shape. Shaking uncontrollably and also
pretty nauseous. I think it was shortly after he got back that I started
projectile vomiting and feeling a mess. Then they tell us that the NICU at our hospital is full so they're
going to have to transfer me downtown to Johns Hopkins. I was so upset.
We have been so excited about how close our hospital is and how
convenient it would be...and now they're talking about putting me in an
ambulance to deliver my baby downtown. What could I do...no choice. So
I'm sick and feeling awful and the ambulance guys come and take me and
drive me to Hopkins. Unfortunately I didn't make it all the way there
without throwing up in the ambulance. Whoops!
They
admit me into Hopkins and tell me their plans. Basically I have
advanced preeclampsia and they are going to try to give me the steroid
treatment and then induce me to deliver the baby. I was so scared. She wasn't due for another 6 weeks and now I'm going to have to deliver her?
At this point they have started pumping me full of MAG. Basically what this does is dilate everything in my body to turn me into a human slug. It helps to keep my blood pressure down and reduces the chance of me having a seizure. My blood pressure had sky rocked to around 170s/100s which is seizure/stroke level so they pumped me full of MAG to help lower it. They also did a lot of blood draws to make sure my kidneys/liver were not failing. This is another risk of pre-e.
So this is all still Thursday night. As the MAG goes in I start feeling worse and worse as my body stops being able to do anything. It was hard for me to move at all...AND they wouldn't let me eat anything. I hadn't eaten since Wednesday night for dinner but since I was at risk of seizure plus there was always the possibility that they would have to do an emergency C-section they didn't want me to have any food. I was SO HUNGRY! At one point a doc came in to do a check on me and I got one wiff of him and said, "you've been eating an orange haven't you?" Sean said I sounded like I was accusing him of something awful...haha!
I was basically in this state for most of Friday as well. They didn't start putting the Pitocin in my IV until after the 2nd shot of steroids was put into my thigh around 5:30pm on Friday night.
Here goes the roller coaster....
* I'll finish the rest of the story tomorrow but now I'm off to the NICU to go visit our little Peanut!
No comments:
Post a Comment