We had a wonderful baby shower and got so much wonderful stuff. It made me realize how much there was still left to get done before Baby P was supposed to be here. At the shower a lot of people commented on the size of my ankles. They were pretty swollen, but they didn't really bother me and I was still feeling really good.
The next Tuesday morning I was feeling a little weird. It was all I could do to make it to my conference period at 9:00. Once my kids were in PE I had the school nurse check my blood pressure and sure enough it was really high. When I spoke to the doctor's office they told me to go straight to the hospital for observation. Ten minutes after being there my blood pressure was way down. I was so worried that my doctor was going to put me on bedrest....thank goodness he only ordered me to stay home for the next two days. It was enough to make me really start getting everything ready at school though.
The next week I talked to a few people about being my long-term sub. Luckily, I secured on Friday. That same day I started feeling weird again. During dismissal I felt like I was going to pass out. So again, I had the nurse check my blood pressure...and again, sky high 141/114. I had to go right back to the hospital. We had only been there for about 45 minutes when the nurse came in to tell me that Dr. Thigpen said no more work for good. Talk about panic! It was only September 26th. I hadn't planned on being out until October 20th. I couldn't even think where I needed to start with the next step. I had left my room at school an absolute disaster so I made Brian go with me to clean up and get some stuff together. I cried the whole time I was there.
The next five days seemed to go on forever. Not only was I done with work, I had to lay on my left side in the bed. It's so much harder to be lazy when someone tells you that you have to be!
We had our regular weekly appointment with Dr. Thigpen the next Wednesday, October 1st. It was nice to finally get out of the house, even if it was only to go to the doctor. We were excited because we knew that they would be measuring the size of the baby at this appointment (they could only do it every three weeks). We went through everything as normal. As the nurse was doing the sonogram she asked if he was always a little smaller than he should be. Three weeks earlier he was right on track at 4 pounds 3 ounces. She was estimating him at 4 pounds 7 ounces, a gain of only 3 ounces in 3 weeks.
When Dr. Thigpen came in he looked again and again at everything and was certain that the baby had stopped growing. He looked at me and said, "do you have plans tomorrow?" I knew exactly where he was going. He told us to go home and get our things together and be back at the hospital by 6:00. That gave us 3 hours to get home and back!
We were so frazzled. I knew I should've listened when people told me to get my bags packed! I hadn't started washing baby clothes, I had no idea what I would need, who did I need to call?! We rushed around and got back to the hospital just fine.
We had to go in that night so that I could start Cervadil, a medicine used to soften the cervix. Since I was only 35 weeks, I hadn't started progressing at all. I wasn't dilated or efaced at all. My nusre started the meds at 7 and they actually started working pretty fast. We had some visitors and it was great to keep our minds off of being nervous. By midnight I was cramping really bad and having trouble sleeping. I didn't sleep at all that night, but Brian got enough sleep for both of us!
The plan was to start my Petosin at around 7 or 8 in the morning. I got up and showered at 6 and was already in quite a bit of pain. I don't think I was having contractions, just cramping still. When my nurse was trying to get my IV started my water broke on its own. That's when things really started to move. She started the Petosin at 9:05. It wasn't long before we started seeing a lot of doctors.
We had been prepared to expect a lot of people in the delivery room, especially now that Baby P was going to be born premature. We met with the neonatologist from Harris and her crew of nurses, the neo who would be with him over at Cooks, and our wonderful Dr. Roten too. They were there to help us understand what could happen when the baby was born. They were very clear on the fact that he could be born blue, not breathing, and unresponsive. It was one of those situations where we had to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
It wasn't long after the swarm of doctors were in that my labor started moving really fast. I gave in and got an epidural at 10:45. It wasn't terrible, but they made Brian sit on the other side of the room. Wow! Why didn't I get that earlier?!
The next time my nurse checked my progress about an hour later, we were ready to go! Dr. Thigpen came in, I pushed 3 times and we had a little baby P at 12:20 pm!! It was so incredible. I didn't know what to think, I can remember saying in my head...cry, baby cry! That's all I wanted to hear. I think I was concentrating so hard on saying that to myself that I have no idea when he actually started crying! The power of prayer was obvious right away. He was breathing, he wasn't blue, and although he was small, he seemed to be bigger than anticipated.
I got to hold him for about thirty seconds before they took him over to Cook's. Brian walked over with him and stayed for a little while. When he came back he told us that he weighed 4lbs. 13.6oz. and was 17 3/4 inches long. I was so relieved that everything was going so well so far!
As long as the journey behind us seemed, now I knew that we had an even longer one in front of us.
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