Still Am....
[i][c=BF0000]I am still terrified of giving birth. You would think that as a 3 time mommy to be I would not still be afraid of giving birth but I am. I was induced with my son at 32 weeks, my epidural failed and I felt everything! My labor lasted almost 24 hours. I was induced at 32 weeks because I was experiencing symptoms of preeclamisa. (High Blood pressure, not controlled by blood pressure medicine, and protein in the urine) It was my first baby and no one prepared me for what was about to happen.
I had no idea that I would not get to hold my baby or see him. I had no idea that it would be almost 36 hours before I could even go see my son in the NICU. When I finally did get to see him, no one prepared me to see him hooked up to all the tubes and breathing machine. No one explained to me that I would not get to hold for another 24 hours. Watching my baby in the incubator all alone hurt my heart in a way that to this day I can not explain. I was discharged from the hospital and to be told that I would be going home without my baby boy was so hard, was not something that I ever thought could happen. My doctor failed to inform me with information that I needed about what was going to happen in the next coming days.
The next 14 days that he was in the NICU watching the monitors like a hawk, watching his breathing and food intake drove me crazy. When the day finally came for us to bring him home I was so happy and so scared at the same time,
He was being monitored 24 hours a day, a machine keeping an eye on his breathing and heart-rate to go home and to be solely responsible for this little man had me scared out of my mind. He is now almost five years old and there are still days that I am not 100% sure that I am equipped to be a mom....
It took me a couple of years to get over the traumatic birth of my son, and to even think about having another baby, when I did think that I was ready it was not that easy. It took my husband and myself about a year to get pregnant with my daughter. I of course what happy once we got the positive pregnancy test, sadly that is when my problems started.
I had morning sickness with my son but with my daughter I had something called Hyperemesis gravidum, (HG) which is a rare form of morning sickness that only effects like 2% of pregnant woman. Its a severe form of morning sickness that requires medication, fluids, and in extreme cases a PICC line or a feeding tube. With my son my problems didn't happen until later on in my pregnancy but with my daughter I was sick from the beginning all the way up until I delivered my daughter.
I knew I was at risk for preeclampsia again as it happens a lot if you have already had Pre-e. I was sent to the high risk doctor because of a previous pre-term delivery, and was seeing them every two weeks, when I went to my OB for my 25th week check up, they didn't like how high my blood pressure was with the dose of medication I was on for blood pressure and sent me to the hospital for a 24 hour observation. Little did I know that the hospital would become my home for the next 8 weeks.
It was not something I was prepared for as my BP was just a little high, nothing crazy, and I thought I'd only be there for 24 hours. After a week of being there and me asking them every single day when I was going home they told me that I would be there until I gave birth. I couldn't believe it. Luckily my son and husband were able to come and spend time with me, but a hospital is no place for a toddler. It was incredibly lonely and frustrating. I couldn't go anywhere and was limited on so much of what I could do. I went for daily ultrasounds and had fetal monitoring 3x a day. When I made it to 34 weeks they said that all that needs to happen now is for her to grow. She wasn't as active as they would have liked but they said that had a lot to do with the medicine I was on. I figured that since my son was born at 32 weeks and spent 14 days in the NICU that this baby would not need any NICU time. The NICU team came by and told me that they were not that concerned about her, and said if anything it might be a few hours or a day or two. So when I hit 35 weeks and my liver started failing and my kidneys stopped working and they made the decision to induce me I figured I got this. Little did I know I was in for a rude awakening...
I was on a medication, actually on 3 different medications to keep me from going into labor and now they needed to jump start my labor. I was in labor a total of 74 hours from the time they started the induction. It was rough, hard, and long. My epidural did work, but it had been so long since I had got one that it was starting to ware off before I was ready to push so they gave me a bolus of the medication which kicked in and then 5 minutes later they checked me and the baby's head was coming out and they said it was time to push. My doctor barley got there in time.
They placed my daughter on my chest and it was the most amazing feeling in the world I got to hold her for a few minutes before the nurses came and took her, said they had to check her vitals. My vitals started to drop. My heart stopped beating and they had to shock me, when I remember coming to I was in a room with my husband asleep next to me. I looked around and saw that Bella was not in the room, and asked him where she was, and he told me that she was in the NICU. She was having problems breathing. I asked how she was, and he said good she just needed some support. I couldn't believe we were going through this again. I asked for him to get the nurse because I wanted to go see her, but the nurse said I couldn't go because I still had a catheter in and needed to stay in bed. The doctor had to come in and give me something to calm me down because I was freaking out. My daughter was almost 2 days old before I got to see her. When I once again was released from the hospital without my baby coming home with me I fell into such a deep depression my husband was so worried about postpartum depression. My daughter ended up having a heart defect and spent 23 days in the NICU. Since coming home she has been super healthy and has met all her milestones early. She is doing so well.
I am now 27 weeks pregnant and as I get closer to the end of my pregnancy my anxiety is creeping up. I do not want to go through the NICU experience again because its not something that I would wish on my worst enemy. I want a normal birth, bonding time with my son after he is born. Being able to breastfeed, being discharged with my baby with me. This is my last pregnancy and I want so bad for it to be as smooth sailing as possibly. This pregnancy has been the hardest and I am on so much medication to stay alive and healthy, but this baby so far is measuring ahead by 2 weeks and is so damn active. I am just starting to have BP issues which is the furthest I have ever gone in a pregnancy before I started having BP issues. My cervix is also thinning out, so now I am on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy which is 13 more weeks.
I am hoping like hell to have an easy delivery. I am still very terrified about child birth even though I know what is going to come. I do not think there is enough preparing I can do to get ready and not be scared because childbirth is unpredictable. Anything can happen and will happen. I am just praying that I can have a normal delivery where my pain management works, I hope the next 13 weeks go by fast, as we get the final preparations ready for the last baby. I am hoping to just make it to full term, which is 37 weeks, which means I only have 11 weeks ago. [/c][/i]
I had no idea that I would not get to hold my baby or see him. I had no idea that it would be almost 36 hours before I could even go see my son in the NICU. When I finally did get to see him, no one prepared me to see him hooked up to all the tubes and breathing machine. No one explained to me that I would not get to hold for another 24 hours. Watching my baby in the incubator all alone hurt my heart in a way that to this day I can not explain. I was discharged from the hospital and to be told that I would be going home without my baby boy was so hard, was not something that I ever thought could happen. My doctor failed to inform me with information that I needed about what was going to happen in the next coming days.
The next 14 days that he was in the NICU watching the monitors like a hawk, watching his breathing and food intake drove me crazy. When the day finally came for us to bring him home I was so happy and so scared at the same time,
He was being monitored 24 hours a day, a machine keeping an eye on his breathing and heart-rate to go home and to be solely responsible for this little man had me scared out of my mind. He is now almost five years old and there are still days that I am not 100% sure that I am equipped to be a mom....
It took me a couple of years to get over the traumatic birth of my son, and to even think about having another baby, when I did think that I was ready it was not that easy. It took my husband and myself about a year to get pregnant with my daughter. I of course what happy once we got the positive pregnancy test, sadly that is when my problems started.
I had morning sickness with my son but with my daughter I had something called Hyperemesis gravidum, (HG) which is a rare form of morning sickness that only effects like 2% of pregnant woman. Its a severe form of morning sickness that requires medication, fluids, and in extreme cases a PICC line or a feeding tube. With my son my problems didn't happen until later on in my pregnancy but with my daughter I was sick from the beginning all the way up until I delivered my daughter.
I knew I was at risk for preeclampsia again as it happens a lot if you have already had Pre-e. I was sent to the high risk doctor because of a previous pre-term delivery, and was seeing them every two weeks, when I went to my OB for my 25th week check up, they didn't like how high my blood pressure was with the dose of medication I was on for blood pressure and sent me to the hospital for a 24 hour observation. Little did I know that the hospital would become my home for the next 8 weeks.
It was not something I was prepared for as my BP was just a little high, nothing crazy, and I thought I'd only be there for 24 hours. After a week of being there and me asking them every single day when I was going home they told me that I would be there until I gave birth. I couldn't believe it. Luckily my son and husband were able to come and spend time with me, but a hospital is no place for a toddler. It was incredibly lonely and frustrating. I couldn't go anywhere and was limited on so much of what I could do. I went for daily ultrasounds and had fetal monitoring 3x a day. When I made it to 34 weeks they said that all that needs to happen now is for her to grow. She wasn't as active as they would have liked but they said that had a lot to do with the medicine I was on. I figured that since my son was born at 32 weeks and spent 14 days in the NICU that this baby would not need any NICU time. The NICU team came by and told me that they were not that concerned about her, and said if anything it might be a few hours or a day or two. So when I hit 35 weeks and my liver started failing and my kidneys stopped working and they made the decision to induce me I figured I got this. Little did I know I was in for a rude awakening...
I was on a medication, actually on 3 different medications to keep me from going into labor and now they needed to jump start my labor. I was in labor a total of 74 hours from the time they started the induction. It was rough, hard, and long. My epidural did work, but it had been so long since I had got one that it was starting to ware off before I was ready to push so they gave me a bolus of the medication which kicked in and then 5 minutes later they checked me and the baby's head was coming out and they said it was time to push. My doctor barley got there in time.
They placed my daughter on my chest and it was the most amazing feeling in the world I got to hold her for a few minutes before the nurses came and took her, said they had to check her vitals. My vitals started to drop. My heart stopped beating and they had to shock me, when I remember coming to I was in a room with my husband asleep next to me. I looked around and saw that Bella was not in the room, and asked him where she was, and he told me that she was in the NICU. She was having problems breathing. I asked how she was, and he said good she just needed some support. I couldn't believe we were going through this again. I asked for him to get the nurse because I wanted to go see her, but the nurse said I couldn't go because I still had a catheter in and needed to stay in bed. The doctor had to come in and give me something to calm me down because I was freaking out. My daughter was almost 2 days old before I got to see her. When I once again was released from the hospital without my baby coming home with me I fell into such a deep depression my husband was so worried about postpartum depression. My daughter ended up having a heart defect and spent 23 days in the NICU. Since coming home she has been super healthy and has met all her milestones early. She is doing so well.
I am now 27 weeks pregnant and as I get closer to the end of my pregnancy my anxiety is creeping up. I do not want to go through the NICU experience again because its not something that I would wish on my worst enemy. I want a normal birth, bonding time with my son after he is born. Being able to breastfeed, being discharged with my baby with me. This is my last pregnancy and I want so bad for it to be as smooth sailing as possibly. This pregnancy has been the hardest and I am on so much medication to stay alive and healthy, but this baby so far is measuring ahead by 2 weeks and is so damn active. I am just starting to have BP issues which is the furthest I have ever gone in a pregnancy before I started having BP issues. My cervix is also thinning out, so now I am on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy which is 13 more weeks.
I am hoping like hell to have an easy delivery. I am still very terrified about child birth even though I know what is going to come. I do not think there is enough preparing I can do to get ready and not be scared because childbirth is unpredictable. Anything can happen and will happen. I am just praying that I can have a normal delivery where my pain management works, I hope the next 13 weeks go by fast, as we get the final preparations ready for the last baby. I am hoping to just make it to full term, which is 37 weeks, which means I only have 11 weeks ago. [/c][/i]
