I'm Back!!! Shannon's Birth

On Saturday,  February 26^th, I had the evening to myself. I was making some homemade necklaces and started feeling like I was going to black out. I called Steve to let him know because I was a little concerned about it. He decided to come home and I decided to check my blood pressure. It was a bit high and since the doctors had been concerned about it at each of my visits I decided to give the doctor on call a call. It was Dr. Allen (love him) he decided that I needed to go in to the hospital and get monitored. By the time we got a sitter and we got over there it was 10:30 at night. I got hooked up and my blood pressure had gone up even more. Dr. Allen wanted them to draw some blood to see what was going on and he wanted me to do a 24 hour urine. Because of the higher blood pressure numbers he had me stay overnight at the hospital. I started crying when Steve left to go home that night. I did not want to be there. In the morning Dr. Allen said that my platelets were lower than normal and since I was still having too high of blood pressure whenever I stood up or sat up he wanted to me stay until Monday morning and to get my blood drawn again in the morning for the third time. They did an ultrasound on Sunday to check the growth of the baby and everything looked ok, they estimated her weight at 6.2 pounds. Monday morning they got my blood back and my 24 hour urine back as well. My protein levels were fine but my platelets had dropped even more. Dr. Allen said that platelet levels start in the 150,000 range and on Sunday mine had dropped to 136,000 and Monday morning they had dropped to 116,000. He then explained what platelets do; I guess it has something to do with the liver and being able to clot. If your platelets get below 100,000 anesthesiologists won’t do epidurals and a lot of times you have to get a c-section. He spoke with the perinatologist as well as one of the other docs to get their opinion and they all decided that the baby needed to come now, but I was only 36 weeks along. So I was sent over to the labor room and at 9:30 am was put on Pitocin, and at 11:30 am they inserted my epidural. I was at a 3 to begin with and stayed at a 3 from 9:30am until about 5pm. At five o’clock I had dilated to a 4. He checked me again at seven o’clock and I had only progressed to a 6. He said he would be back in an hour to check me again. About 10 minutes later the nurse was in my room and I told her  I was feeling a lot of pressure down there and a weird feeling. She decided she would check even though it had only been about 15 minutes. She checked and said that I had fully dilated and the baby had started to come down. She ran off to get Dr. Allen and everyone else. It seemed like forever until everyone got there. I told Steve that I was afraid I was going to have the baby by myself, it felt like little fingers in the birth canal and I felt a huge need to push. Then everyone hurried in they got me into position and I pushed about 3 times (I can’t remember for sure) and she was out. I only had to get two stitches. A HUGE difference from last time. I can’t even remember how many stitches I had to get with Conner. She wasn’t breathing on her own when she came out; they said when she tried to take a breath her lungs would stick together. They worked on her in the room for 20 minutes and then they took her away in an incubator and over to NICU. They were about to put her on a C Pap machine when she all of a sudden perked up and started doing really well. It took a few hours until we were able to see her. She had to get her glucose levels tested every few hours because she was a preemie and because I was gestational diabetic. She had to have 24 hours of good levels in order to be released if she had one bad one they had to start over with the 24 hours. She passed every single one of them but both of her heels were so purple from getting poked with all the tests. The doctors and nurses were all surprised at how well she was doing; they said she was acting as if she had been full term. I was doing really well as well. I loved having Dr. Allen he came in every morning to check on me even though he wasn’t on call. He was great!! She failed both of her hearing tests so as of now she can’t hear. She will get tested again on March 21^st. She was 5 lbs 13 oz. and 18 1/2 inches long.