Our birth story; Part 1

It's taken me a long time to write this story. I've started and stopped and started again many times. I wanted to give it justice, I wanted to write it right. It never seemed to be the time or the place. 

This is a story that is like so many others, but so extremely personal to me, and my husband. I think of it sweetly and slightly hauntingly. I take pride in the strength God gave me and pride in the selflessness and kind spirit of my husband for me. Even though not the most ideal, I wouldn't change a minute of our journey. This story will be long and full of the smallest details, as I am writing this so that I can remember. Here is the birth story of our son:

At my 38 week weekly appointment, everything looked good. Jack's heart rate, which has been a concern at the end of March because it was slower than normal, had returned back to what it was supposed to be. We went through the normal routine of peeing in a cup, checking blood pressure, etc. But at this appointment, my my blood pressure checked a little high. The doctor came in to check my cervix - it was still dilated at 1 cm, as it had been for the past few weeks. Disappointing. I had to lay on the bed for 10 minutes so they could check my bp at a resting state, but it was still high. So they ran tests that found no protein in my urine (protein in the urine plus high blood pressure equals pre-eclampsia). Since my bp wasn't too alarmingly high, she sent me home.

I came back to the clinic on a Friday for my 39 week appointment and found the same thing, but with slightly higher bp this time. Still no protein in my urine, so she sent me home for the weekend with warning signs I should look for and to go to Labor and Delivery in any showed.

The weekend went by quietly. Scott was at work (he planned to come home on April 22, our due date. We both figured Jack would come late), so I had a lot of couch time - I knew it was my last few days as a childless lady, plus my feet were the size of watermelons. 

At the end of March, when Jack's heart rate was low, we had been so excited that we might have our baby early. We didn't want him to be in trouble like that, but we selfishly wanted him to come out then. Since that blew over and his heart returned to normal, I just assumed this blood pressure thing would be the same. I didn't get my hopes up too high. So I prepared things to do all week until my induction date on April 25th. I was dreading a long week of waiting. 

On Monday I went into the clinic again. Still high blood pressure, so my doctor wanted a 24 hour urine sample from me. She told me that since I was having consistent high bp (Jack was fine), that she wanted to induce early and not wait the extra week. She gave me two options - if the urine sample came back proteinless, she would induce me on Wednesday. If it came back positive (I was to hang around town until we got the call with the test results), I was to go to Labor and Delivery right away and they would induce me Tuesday afternoon. 

My head was spinning. We would have our baby for sure within 48 hours, possibly even get the party started the next day! I texted Scott and told him. He told him this better be for sure, not like last time. (He had gotten so excited that I might have had to be induced early before.) I told him this was the real deal. 

So I went back home and began the 24 hour urine collection. That was fun. And the best part? I had to keep this big orange jug of my pee refrigerated. A jug of urine in my fridge… It just grossed me out. 

I told Scott he better come home that night (he works and stays three hours from our house, 3.5 hours from the hospital) so he could come with me to the clinic in the morning to get the results. I could barely sleep that night. I knew I should, but the excitement was way too much. I wasn't scared at all. I was ready for this. 

The next morning we headed to Bismarck, dropped off the pee jug and went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I told him it was the last time we'd be able to sit in the bar area for a long time, the next time we would be in here we would have a baby! 

We were supposed to get a call with the results within the hour. Two, three hours passed and no call. My doctor wasn't in that day, so we had a difficult time getting through to the clinic that we needed these results because it was a matter of having a baby today or waiting until tomorrow. After a lot of frustration, we finally got a call from my doctor's nurse who said my protein was slightly higher than normal - I had mild preeclampsia. We were to head back into town (we had started going home because no one called us) and get to the hospital to start being induced. We were having this baby today! (Or so we thought.)

More to come...