At 20 weeks, my Dr found that my blood pressure was high. She put me on close watch for being pre-eclamptic, and sent me to another Dr in Arlington to help watch me. They put me on some blood pressure medicine, and that helped up until I was 30 weeks.
At 30 weeks, my blood pressure rose to a very scary level, and they put me on bed rest, and told me I would deliver on March 15th, hopefully by a V-birth, depending on if the little boy would be able to handle it, and my blood pressure didn't rise much higher. They gave me steroid shots then, just in case something bad happened.
By 33 weeks, my blood pressure had risen again at the other Dr on Monday, and he sent me over to my main Dr the next day to monitor it. Tuesday, it had dropped and she sent me back home.
At the routine visit at 11:45am that Friday morning, my blood pressure was fine. They hooked me up to the belly monitor for about 10 minutes, then when the Dr came in to review the printout, she wasn't happy. He wasn't moving as much as she thought he should be. She started the sonogram, measured my fluid, and I was down from 12 to 8 from Monday, then when she was checking the baby, he was not doing his practice breathing. During the time they had the belly monitor on me, I had a BH contraction, and he didn't handle it well. There was no longer a chance of a V-birth. Without him doing the practice breathing, she figured that my high blood pressure had done enough damage to the placenta that it was no longer able to support him. I was going to have to deliver right then.
She told me she would have one of the office assistants get me a wheel chair, and I called Jesse at about 12:30pm to tell him how badly things had turned, and he was on the way to the hospital. They wheeled me over from the office building to the hospital, and there were already 3 nurses in the room waiting for me. I was stripped and put in a hospital gown right away. One of the nurses was putting in my IV, one was shaving me, and the other was making sure I got all my paperwork filled out to get me admitted into the hospital. It was then that it finally begin to sink in that this was really going to happen.
I was worried about the baby, and had been crying pretty much since I'd called Jesse. Wasn't so much worried about the c-section, because I know that it's a standard operation, and that chances of anything going wrong with me was not likely to happen. But the "un-reassuring fetal response" was very very scary. They told me it would be around 1:30pm when they'd take me to surgery. They strapped the belly monitors around me again, so I could hear his heartbeat, and it was still so comforting when I felt him moving.
Jesse got there a little after 1 I guess, and they had him put on this white hospital outfit from head to toe so he could go into the delivery room with me. They gave me some nasty crap to drink so that it would help with the nauseousness, and then put a dose of magnesium sulfate through my IV. They warned me that I would feel it burning as it entered and spread through me, but I didn't feel a thing. Adrenaline, I guess. So many people were in and out of my room, I couldn't count them all. I know the anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself, and told me what all he would be doing in the delivery room. He would administer the epidural, and also have something ready to calm me down, but if they gave it to me before the baby was out, he would get it too.
1:30pm came fast, and they were still waiting on the paperwork to be finished for my admission. It was around 1:45pm when they wheeled me to the delivery room. I have no idea where it was. They took me in the bed I was in. They helped me over to the surgery bed, and then the bed I was wheeled over in disappeared. They prepared to give me the local in my back so the anesthesiologist could administer the epidural, and the nurse told me the local was going to hurt bad, and when it started to hurt to count backwards from 7 and by the time I got to 1, the pain would be gone. I could feel him poking at my back, could feel the needle go in, and I was waiting for the pain, but it never happened. I felt the prick, but nothing that hurt like the nurse had warned me about. Then I felt pressure as the epidural was administered, and they laid me down on the bed. My legs were tingling as they went numb, and the nurse inserted the catheter. All I could feel was pressure everywhere, and I couldn't feel or move my legs at all. They stretched my arms straight out to the sides, and all I could think was this was like Jesus on the cross. Odd thing to think, I know, but that's what I thought. They strapped down my arms and put warming blankets on them, then put that blue cloth up over my face.
That's when I started to panic, and felt so claustrophobic. My arms were strapped down, my legs were numb, and that cloth was right in front of my face, I couldn't breath. I asked if they could unstrap my arms, and the nurse did, and held them down against my chest, but not in a bad way. They let Jesse into the room then, and started the c-section. She was pushing around at the top of my stomach, and I felt pressure enough for it to hurt and be very uncomfortable. Someone said he was still high up in my stomach and they were trying to get him down. Then the next thing I heard him crying and someone yelled, "It's a boy!" He was just screaming his lungs out, which is something I wasn't sure if we would hear or not since he was so early, but he left no doubts that all those steroids were working and his lungs were well developed.
At 2:09pm on 2/11/11, Noah Layne Johnson was born.
The anesthesiologist asked me if I wanted the 'cocktail' and I said yes, and someone said I could see Noah and pointed to my left. All I could see was a bunch of people dressed in blue. Then I saw his little foot sticking up in the air and that was all I could see until they got him wrapped up and brought over to me.
He had stopped crying by then, and his face was just so little and perfect. I didn't get to see him for very long before they took him away, and Jesse went with them to the NICU.
I do remember having to wait patiently for them to finish getting me sowed up, and to concentrate on not panicking again, because not being able to feel your legs is NOT fun. After that, I don't remember what happened. I don't remember being put back on my bed, being rolled back into my room, nothing. I never lost consciousness, but there are no memories there.
Jesse did get an awesome video of Noah that I got to watch, but it would be awhile before I actually got to leave my bed to go to the NICU to see him myself.
There's little Noah, born at 32 weeks, 6 days, nearly 2 months early. Such a precious little miracle
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