Sunday, June 9th while Mitchell was at work, I felt very odd. I felt light headed and my chest hurt. Almost like I had run five miles in the snow but I had done nothing that day but go to church. I decided to take my pulse using an app on my phone. I was concerned when the app said my pulse was 34 bpm. I told Mitchell and he thought it was a mistake for sure but asked if I needed to come to the hospital. I told him I would be fine. By the time Mitch got home that night, I was having very painful contractions. Very different than the Braxton hicks I had since week 20 of my pregnancy. These contractions hurt so bad and were seven minutes apart. I kept timing them hoping they would slow but they didn't. At around 6 am Mitch finished studying and got into bed to finally get some sleep. It was then that I told him we needed to go to the hospital. The contractions were now 5 minutes apart and had been for over an hour. I had work in 3 hours and was just hoping they could give me something to stop the contractions and send me on my way. My poor sleep deprived husband and I walked into labor and delivery and explained to the nurse what was going on. She took my vitals as expected and told me my blood pressure was pretty high. I asked how high and was shocked when she said 180/110. She explained she would be able to give me something to lower it when she was done with the rest of my vitals. She checked my pulse and told me the machine was acting weird. "It's saying your pulse is 34, that can't be right. Let me check again"
"No, that's probably right. That's what it was last night..."
She checked again and proceeded to tell me she had never seen anything like this. Great! Blood pressure meds were now out of the question because they would lower my pulse and I could not afford that. She was unsure of what to do so she called the on call ob since my ob delivers only at American fork hospital. It took the dr forever to get there and when he did he told me I had pre eclampsia and we would probably have our baby within the next couple weeks. I started to freak. He still had seven weeks to develop, he couldn't come out early! He had the cardiologist come talk to me about an EKG they had done on me while waiting for my ob to show up. The cardiologist asked me many questions about my heart in the past and didn't really have an answer for me other than we would probably be having the baby in 48 hours. I double freaked. Weeks was one thing. We were talking days now.y contractions were continuing and getting stronger than ever. I was in so much pain and was about to be in much more. The nurse told me I needed to get a steroid shot to help the baby's lungs develop. I was fine with that. I'd never had a steroid shot before but figured it couldn't be that bad. I will tell you right now, that was the worst part of my labor and delivery. Oh that shot hurt so bad. I cried. I screamed. I squeezed Mitch's hand as hard as I could. I hated that shot. After the injection from hell, the nurse wheeled me down to meet with the perinatologist. It was now almost 1 o clock and I hadn't eaten anything. My nurse Karen said after this she would bring me a menu and I could have whatever I wanted. I was so looking forward to that. We went into a little ultrasound room and got to see our little guy up on the screen. The tech printed off some pictures for us and left to get the dr so she could look at them. The perinatologist came in and looked at the ultrasound that was just done. She proceeded to tell me that as soon as the ob had an opening, we were having the baby. "I would say about 45 minutes how does that sound?"
"No. I am not having this baby today. You are crazy. He's not ready, I'm not ready. I can't do this."
She reassured me I could do this and told me that my body was rejecting the pregnancy. It was tired of being pregnant. She walked out the door telling us that June 10 would be such an awesome birthday and despite what Karen said about bringing me that menu, I couldn't eat anything. Screw you lady. Afterwards though, I did really like her and felt bad for the awful thoughts I thought about her.
Karen came back empty handed. She must have known I wasn't going to be able to eat. She tricked me.
I was moved to a bigger room where I met Dr Martin the anesthesiologist. He gave me the choice between a spinal block and an epidural since I would be delivering via c section ( he was breech and I was not dilated at all). I went with his recommendation of a spinal block and he gave Mitch a white jumpsuit to wear in the operating room. This was happening very fast. I was rolling into the OR and all I could think about was how bad that shot would hurt me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and held Mitch's hands while dr Martin got the shot ready. He was about to insert the needle when I got a bad contraction and made him stop. He was very patient and told me to tell him when it was over. I waited an extra 30 seconds just to put off the shot. I told him to go and he told me I would feel a pinch and that would be the worst part. I was sitting there looking Mitch in the eye. I was so scared. There it was. The pinch. " Ok Jordan. That was the worst part! Did you feel that pinch?"
I cried tears of joy. I was so relieved. "Mitchell, I did it! That was the worst part. It wasn't bad at all! That was the worst part!" There was supposedly another prick and 30 seconds later my legs were dead. What a weird/ awesome feeling. Now was the serious part. My baby was coming out within 15 minutes. Maybe less. All I felt was tugging and pulling. Not painful at all. Dr Martin was in my ear telling me everything that the doctors were doing (there were three just performing the c section). Soon enough he said " okay Jordan. He's going into your uterus now to get your baby out. Are you excited? Oh look there he is! Look Jordan he's beautiful!"
I will never be able to forget the first time I saw our son. He was perfect. He looked so scared and concerned but I knew I was going to take care of him. I cried tears of joy. I finally got to see the little guy who constantly had hiccups in my stomach. Who kicked me like crazy. The little boy we would raise and take care of. This was it. The second my biggest dream came true. My dream of being a mom. I saw him for 3 seconds before they took him away again. Those were the greatest three seconds of my life. The rest of the surgery, I looked back on the day and came to the conclusion that if I could feel that joy I had just felt again, I would do the whole day over again. Those three seconds made everything worth it.
