Back to the hospital

I'm still writing catch-up posts. This happened Cayden's second week of life.

The reason Cayden was born 12 days early was because for the first time in my pregnancy, my blood pressure went up and my doctor didn't want to take any chances. This actually happened my last week of pregnancy with Adalyn. The difference is that when I was pregnant with Adalyn I had insane swelling through my last trimester. It was glamorous.  When I found out I was going to have a baby in the middle of the summer, I was so scared about the swelling this time around. I just knew it was going to be horrible. Well, guess what. I never had much swelling at all with Cayden. So weird how pregnancies can be so different yet also similar.

Anyway, throughout my pregnancy I had no swelling, great blood pressure, no headaches and acceptable levels of protein. These are the four things they look for for preeclamsia. Once my blood pressure went up and stayed up two days later at my next appointment, my doctor didn't want to chance preeclamsia so I got induced.

Fast forward to Cayden's first week birthday. I was having swelling in my feet and ankles and had a pounding headache. So weird to start swelling after having the baby.  Yes, I had signed up to work at the Lil Lambs consignment sale that Saturday which meant that Thursday (7 days old) was early shop night. I signed up to work this sale months ago thinking that I would still be pregnant. I decided that I needed to go to shop Thursday night. I sucked up my pain and just did it. This is the sale that I get the majority of clothes for the kids' wardrobes and I took one for the team because we now have 2 kids that needed a full fall/winter wardrobe. I did get some amazing buys so I'm glad I pushed through and did it.

When I got home late that night it was my birthday and we ordered take out and ate dinner at about 9:30 at night. Not my ideal birthday but what can you do? At that point my head was pounding bad and my swelling was bad but I figured it was because I had been on my feet all night.  Jonathan was really worried about me especially when I had to lay down Friday evening because my head was pounding so hard. He offered to work my shift on Saturday. I was so thankful. I didn't want to look like I signed up to work a later shift so I could shop early and then skip working.

By Saturday I called the on-call OB and he told me to go get my blood pressure taken and to take some pain meds. Well, of course I didn't get out to take my blood pressure until Monday. We were running to get Adalyn from daycare and stopped at the store to get some thank you notes (for all of the amazing people who brought us dinners and gave us baby gifts!!) so I stopped and took my blood pressure at Kroger and it was high. I called my OB office and told them what my bp was and they told me to come in right away. We got Adalyn (who always looks like a hot mess after daycare) and ran to the doctor's office. The nurse took my bp and it was so high that she went and got an electric cuff. That reading was still high. My doctor was out of the office that day so I saw a different doctor. He walked in and immediately told me he was admitting me to the hospital for postpartum preeclamsia.  I was not expecting that. Couldn't I just get some pills to make my headache go away? I called J who was waiting in the car with the 2 kids and told him the news. We were in a bit of a frenzy about childcare. We had no clue how long I would be at the hospital. It was crazy.

Of course Adalyn had no shoes on so J was carrying both kids through the hospital. We looked like a mess. I got all checked in. They told me that they were going to start me on a magnesium IV and that I was allowed to have Cayden stay with me in order to nurse him but that the IV would make me so sick that I would not be allowed to be alone with the baby so someone had to stay with me. (Even if J went to get food or ice down the hall, he had to take C with him.) We have no family in town so we called Adalyn's daycare sitter and she was so kind about keeping A overnight. I was thankful because A loves her and her kids and she knows Adalyn better than most anyone else since she spends every day with her. She also doesn't need prompts on what to feed and what time to do things. That was a relief. But in order for J to take Adalyn to her house, he had to take Cayden since he couldn't stay with me at the hospital. I felt bad that he was toting both kids around on top of being stressed about me. J ran home to pack a bag for Cayden and for me.  At that point we still didn't know how long we'd be in the hospital.

They got my IV started and oh my, they warned me about many possible side effects and thankfully I didn't have a lot of them, but the ones I had were awful! I felt like my insides were on fire. The nurse had even turned my AC in my room as cold as it would go before she started the IV. It was so weird to feel hot from the inside out. Then my muscles all felt heavy and I felt like I was in slow motion and couldn't walk or talk well. I couldn't focus very well to read anything or text. It was such a weird feeling. (Jes came to sit with C and me on the second day so J could pick A up from the sitter and she told me later that I said some crazy stuff. Ha! After living together for a few years back in the day, she's seen me at my worst so I wasn't too worried about being a hot mess in front of her.) I did get a nauseous feeling but thankfully didn't get too sick.  After the first 15 minutes they back the IV off to a much slower dose that was much more manageable. J came back with C at that point. My nurses (all but one) were awesome and that first night I was so impressed with all they did to make us comfortable having Cayden with us. They brought us a bassinet from the nursery, towels, soothies, diapers and wipes. Seriously it was wonderful how they took care of all the details.

Poor Jonathan had a sad little chair to sleep on but I was so thankful he was willing to be at the hospital with me. We were hoping to go home the next day. We were told the IV took 24 hours so we thought we'd be out of there by then. No luck. I had to be observed for another day off of the IV to make sure everything was ok. Seriously my bp readings were scary high when I first got in there and then they went scary low (and I got sick) while I was on the IV. And through it all I had my awful headache. It was miserable. Finally they got my bp regulated and on some meds for it (which I'm currently still on for who knows how long). I still just had this tiny twinge of a headache even with the bp meds and the last day my nurse brought me a cup of coffee to see if caffeine would help and it did!! Yay!

I ended up being in the hospital for about 48 hours and I was so thankful that I felt better and was ready to be home with my family!! My doctor said that there is nothing I could have done to prevent this and it just happens sometimes. It was a bit scary but I was glad I was in good hands.