Catch Up & Keep Caught Up

That is my goal.....to get caught up and stay that way! Seeing as how this is the closest thing to a journal that I will ever have, I better get on it.

November 21, 2006. 37 (almost 38) Weeks Pregnant.

I wake up with a headache. The doctor had told me that, because of my high blood pressure, if this happened I should call him immediately. What does he know? People get headaches everyday! But, it does sound like a good excuse to avoid work for the day......call Laura and Diane (she's in town for Thanksgiving) and hit up Mimi's. Good plan:
Liz: "hey, you guys want to go to breakfast? i have a headache, so i'm skippin work"
Diane: "what? you have a headache? shouldn't you call the doctor?"
Liz: "no, it's not a big deal"
Diane: "do you want me to make my mother call you?" (her mom can convince me of anything) "we're not going anywhere till you call the doctor." she proceeds to take my car keys from me..

So I call the doctor and the nurse tells me to head to the hospital right away for monitoring. PANIC!!!!! I call Stevie (bawling)...."I have to go to the hospital...no, i'm not having the baby....they just want to check on me....okay, call you later."

Arrive at hospital with L & D. Luckily, I had pre-registered that very same morning (irony?), so check-in was a breeze. Get strapped up to all sorts of machines. Blood pressure is a bit high, so the nurse calls the doctor who says to wait it out for a bit. There's no way I'm having this baby today, I think. Ten minutes later, nurse comes to check readings, says, "you're not leaving this hospital till you have a baby!" HEART ATTACK, CRYING...BLOOD PRESSURE RISING! I'm too emotional to call Steve, so Diane gives him the heads up. They wheel me into a real birthing room where the long process begins.....

A long process I can hardly remember! Magnesium sulfate (to keep me from having seizures from the high blood pressure)........into the IV. Start feeling loopy and that's where my memory starts to fade....

November 22, 2006. Still Pregnant.

12am: doc starts me on Pitocin to "induce" labor, get an epidural (heaven in a needle) wait....

2 am: the doc breaks my water....what a bizarre feeling....still nothing happens. wait....

oh, by the way....i'm in zero pain at this point and throughout the entire process, yet, if i try to sleep, i throw up EVERY time i wake up. so i try not to sleep. by this point i am throwing up bile. so tasty. no gum allowed

2 pm: doc comes to "check" me. leaves the room. comes back and says this (verbatim): "it doesn't look like you are going to make it (long pause)." now, luckily (for her) i am a smart girl. there's no way my life is ending here and now. i had secretly been hoping for a c-section all along, so this was actually great news to me! i could have the baby without moving a muscle or sweating a drop! Everyone grabs their phones and calls in the troops while i am whisked away to the OR.

3:45: out pops a beautiful baby boy! okay, he didn't pop out at all. it took two doctors (four hands) and a serious tug-o-war match to get that kid out of me. steve says it was pretty gruesome and by the look on his face during most of it, i would have to agree. but i didn't feel a thing other than overwhelming emotion. by far, the best moment of my life. and here he is: