It's all in the details...

If you have ever attended any event that I have planned either for my kids, for school or work - you know I am all about the details. There are details about my work that are unique to the way I do things - call it my signature. My marketing plans are more like a set of well orchestrated activities executed to produce a desired outcome. I control what is being communicated and how the customer is perceiving it. I love what I do. Booth traffic, branding, key messaging, integrated communications, marketing strategy. Those are the terms that I am familiar with. TPN, KUB, HandH, ROP, ASD - these are terms that I became familiar with while we were in the NICU. Although, I have been in the healthcare field for over 15 years and I can reset alarms on a patient monitor and the environment was not new to me, the circumstances were.

Being in the NICU with your child (or in any situation where their health is at stake) will strip you of every honor and expose your weaknesses and remind you of everything you have ever feared. I take [took] pride in being a strong woman, having a strong character, being in control, but on that Thursday, 9 weeks ago today, as I lay in the labor and deliver area in SMH, I realized that I had lost control.

After being in what I refused to admit was active labor for 5 hours, I asked the doctor if it was reversible. I think I remember him laughing when he said it was not. The plan, you see, was to deliver Jonathan around March 31. That would have put us at 38 weeks and both Olivia and David were born around that age. On Thursday, February 3 at 10:00 AM, I started to feel some pelvic pressure. I was so aware of every little detail during this pregnancy because I had done it twice before - two perfect pregnancies, two perfect deliveries and two perfect children. I decided I should move my next appointment to Friday morning instead of waiting until Monday to avoid any stress during the weekend. By 1:30 PM, I started to feel something more than pressure and I called the doctor's office to move the appointment to that afternoon. I picked up the kids, I fed them and left them with Edwin. When I walked out the door I thought I would be back in a couple of hours.

I arrived at the doctor's office at 3:30 PM. I started contracting as I was sitting waiting for her to see me and the contractions were 10 minutes apart. When she came into the room, I had been waiting for about 40 minutes and I was keeping a log of my contractions: 3:30, 3:50, 3:57, 4:08. The doctor sent me to the hospital. She said they would put me on a monitor and run a few tests. When I arrived at the Triage, I had to again wait for a bed, my contractions were becoming stronger and stronger, but when they connected me to the monitor, it wasn't picking up the contractions. By then it was around 6 PM. When the doctor came in to see me, he said that he knew that this was my 3rd baby and there was no reason to think anything was wrong because my other two pregnancies were term. He didn't doubt I was contracting, but since the monitor was not picking up the contraction, he was going to run a test (FFN) that predicts the risk of labor within 2 weeks with 99% accuracy. For other reasons the test was ruled null and they sent me to ultrasound. I couldn't walk to the US suite because of the pain so they wheeled me there. The tech told me it would be a 45 minute exam. I assured him we would go through 9 contractions together since I was contracting every 5 minutes even though the monitor wasn't picking up the activity. He picked up on the contractions right away and called Triage to inform them. He then continued to complete his exam, which was 45 minutes indeed, however I counted more than 9 contractions... When he was done, he said that I would be taken back to Triage where they would give me instructions, but that I shouldn't walk. I had called Edwin a few times to update him and I would always tell him to stay put and that I would keep him informed. I was certain that I wouldn't deliver the baby on that day. In my head, worse case scenario was bed rest for a few weeks. On my way back to Triage from US, I called him and asked him to pack the kids in the car and come to the hospital where my mother and father would pick them up. I then called my mother and [very calmly] asked her to come to the hospital. She asked me if the baby was coming that night and I said no.

Once I was back at Triage, the nurse told me that I was 10 cm, membranes buldging (sorry if there are any gentlemen reading the blog) and that I was going to be taken to L&D for a steroid injection for the baby's lungs. Baby was coming, but I was still convinced that it couldn't be happening. In L&D, I signed a bunch of papers with an X. I was in pain like never before. The doctor came in to tell me that I had something called placental abruption. "Is this reversible?" I asked. He said no with a smile. I asked him if I could deliver the baby and when he checked, the baby was transverse and he determined it would be emergency c-section.
Edwin arrived, baby was born at 8:50PM, 3 lbs and 5 oz. I heard him cry. It was a beautiful noise. Then I broke down and he was off to the NICU.

I will continue the story either later today or tomorrow. 

Thanks for your interest in the details. More details to come...

Let me leave you with this verse: Joshua 1:9 - "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Rosie