I wrote this back in 2019 when I had Cooper and was still recovering both physically and mentally. For those who don’t know, I had a traumatic birth experience with Cooper due to severe preeclampsia, anesthesia complications, etc. If you ever find yourself in the same situation, please reach out and I’m happy to chat about my experience. Luckily, now he is a happy, healthy, almost three-year old amazing little boy.
The past week and a half have been, well honestly I don’t even know the right word to describe it. Unexpected, that’s for sure. Truthfully it’s been traumatic. Lots and lots of ‘lows’, with the obvious ‘high’ being our baby boy was brought into this world with 37 extra days to love on him. A lot of times typing and writing help me to process situations and release thoughts and emotions. It’s an outlet for me to express myself instead of holding everything in. So I’m hoping this will do exactly that. This is Cooper’s delivery and birth story.
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Saturday night I suddenly got a severe migraine out of nowhere. Now I’m no stranger to migraines, but it was odd because I hadn’t had any type of headache in months and this one was a surprise. I tried not to think too much into it and decided to see if taking Tylenol and sleeping would take care of it. When I woke up on Sunday, the headache was still lingering. Not as bad, but definitely there. Isaac and I decided to call the OB on call and he recommended going in to labor and delivery to get checked out and be on the safe side. At first, the nurses/hospitalist thought I was just dehydrated and that’s what was causing the headache. Then out of nowhere my blood pressure shot up. This is a cardinal sign for a complication called preeclampsia. My OB made the decision to admit and monitor my pressure overnight. They started a series of steroid injections to help quickly mature baby’s lungs in case preeclampsia was to develop. Baby’s lungs are one of the last organs to form; the steroids help to expedite the process. I am so thankful the nurses and doctors were proactive and decided to move forward with the steroid injections knowing that in a few days things would quickly go down hill.
Monday, October 7, 2019
When I woke up (let’s be honest, I didn’t really sleep much in the hospital) my head still hurt, but it felt significantly better. I had done a test called a (TMI) 24-hour urine. This is ordered to test your protein levels in your urine, another sign of preeclampsia. Typically they’re looking for anything over 300 and mine was in the 140’s. Thinking we were in the clear, my OB decided to discharge me to bed rest at home with the plan to deliver around 37 or 38 weeks of pregnancy due to what was being called ‘pre-preeclampsia’ or gestational hypertension. Being that I do have a history of migraines as well as anxiety, it was hard to pinpoint a root medical cause. Home we went.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
I felt horrible. I could feel my heart racing. Doing any type of movement would shoot my blood pressure through the roof and my chest would start piercing. I stayed in bed all day thinking maybe it was all in my head; maybe it was just my anxiety. I got up to go to the kitchen and I could feel my blood pressure shoot up. My ears started ringing, a stabbing pain started in my chest. Isaac had brought home a blood pressure cuff machine the day before. I went to take my blood pressure and it was 147/97, which is extremely high for me. Once again, I decided to try to sleep it off all day. Took a bath that evening hoping it would help me relax, and went to sleep.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Isaac woke up and went to work early in the morning. I woke up around 7:30 am and rolled over in bed. Just from rolling over my blood pressure went to 143/99. I called Isaac and told him to come back home so we could go back to labor and delivery. I knew something wasn’t right. In the car I started having contractions. By the time we got back to triage my blood pressure was 177/107. Thankfully, baby’s heart rate was perfect and he was never in distress during the entire ordeal. They drew blood, ran labs, took a urine sample, and started an IV. The hospitalist came in and bluntly said, “You’ve developed severe preeclampsia, you will more than likely need to deliver today”. I looked over at Isaac and as I’m sure you could assume we were both in complete shock. She said the maternal fetal medicine physician agreed and that they were waiting on my OB to confirm and decide on a plan. Unfortunately I knew it would be a while before I could see my OB. The hospital I was delivering at is one of my facilities in my territory that I am a device rep for so I was aware Wednesday’s were his big surgery days. Hours passed extremely slowly. At this point, I had been started on a medication called magnesium sulfate. The purpose of this is to prevent seizures/eclampsia brought on by the gestational hypertension. It’s the worst medication I have ever been on in my entire life. It makes you feel like you got hit by a truck. I felt paralyzed; I literally had to pick my legs up with my arms to move. My vision started going in and out and it made my dizzy and nauseous. Around 4:30 pm my OB came in, sat on the couch, and said, “well to be honest, I thought this was all a false alarm”. He agreed I needed to deliver right away. He told me I could be induced for vaginal labor, but I was only dilated 1 cm and 70% effaced meaning it could take me around 72 hours to labor. I was so nervous to be in labor that long with my blood pressure as high as it was and opted to have a c-section. Isaac looked at my OB and asked when we would get started and he said, “oh, we only need about 30 minutes”. My parents had been in California this entire time on a work trip for my dad. It was mind boggling that I would be going in to have baby boy without them being here. At this point we didn’t have any choice, and I knew that they would be at the hospital by the time we were out of the operating room.
C-Section Delivery-Wednesday, October 9, 2019
I’m going to try and keep this part short and concise. It was horrifying. I have a pretty decent pain tolerance, I have had 7 surgeries, I know what to expect. The anesthesiologist completely botched my spinal. While he was doing it I had nerve pain shooting down my left leg all the way to my foot. It felt like there was lava in my veins. I knew something was wrong but anesthesia wasn’t listening. They laid me back and I immediately felt the need to vomit. They got started and honestly I could feel everything. Luckily a new anesthesiologist (who was amazing) came in and took over. She put a mask on me with nitrous oxide because I was in so much pain. On the last ‘pull’ and I screamed bloody murder. I heard baby’s cry, followed by the staff yelling to put me to sleep. Isaac was so amazing. He was there the whole time. Honestly he probably has PTSD. At this point, his wife had been put to sleep, and his over 5 week early baby was in respiratory distress being worked on by an entire neonatal team. The last thing I remember was muttering, “how much does he weigh”, before falling asleep and then waking back up in my hospital room.
Baby Cooper
Cooper was immediately put on a CPAP machine to help him breathe. He was also setup with a feeding tube since the NICU wasn’t sure if he would know how to suck or be able to self-feed. This little boy, all of 5 lbs 0 oz, was the strongest little man. He was off the CPAP in 24 hours. He only had a feeding tube for a few days. He was feeding like an absolute champ. One of the NICU nurses said she could tell when a baby is going to skyrocket through the NICU and that he was absolutely one of those babies. All of his nurses nicknamed him ‘Cooper the Trooper’. It’s almost as if he knew my body couldn’t handle being pregnant anymore and came into this world to prove to me he was strong enough to do it on his own.
The Day’s After
I was in the hospital for 6 nights; 6 long, miserable nights. The magnesium sulfate was a nightmare. I passed out in the bathroom. One of those ‘as seen on TV’ type of situations where my nurse had to pull the ‘I have fallen and can’t get up’ switch and medical personnel came rushing in. I was on so many medications I couldn’t even think straight. I ended up having a panic attack one night at 3 am because I never thought I would function normally again. Prior to my c-section, during, and immediately after I had been given 10+ medications; toradol, tylenol, codeine, ibuprofen, morphine, magnesium sulfate, propofol, protonix, zofran, labetalol, simethicone, etc. I felt like I was detoxing. I would wake up in a cold sweat with my whole body shaking. I was mentally exhausted. As a part of my botched spinal, I ended up developing a spinal headache. My injection site hadn’t healed and clotted correctly so I was leaking fluid causing intense headaches. I had what is called a ‘blood patch’ procedure where they remove a good amount of blood into a syringe and inject it into your spine where the original injection was done. Luckily it worked. I was taken off the magnesium sulfate. I told the nurses I didn’t want anything but over the counter pain medications, no narcotics. I started feeling better. My body was on the mend. It had suffered a lot and I needed to realize that it would take days, weeks, and maybe even months to recover. I started to trust the process.
We were both discharged on Tuesday, October 15. I felt like we had been in the hospital for a year. You don’t realize how much more quickly you can heal when you’re in your home. We still have a long way to go. I’m on a beta-blocker to control my blood pressure, I still have some spotty vision, and not going to lie recovering from having a c-section is way more intense than I had ever imagined. I share all of this not for people to say ‘I’m so sorry’, for people to feel bad for me, or to complain about what happened. I share it to say listen to your body. Trust your gut instinct, you know when something is wrong. Don’t push things off or blame them on anxiety/depression. If you are having symptoms of preeclampsia, go to the doctor or labor and delivery immediately. There is no harm in getting checked out, and for all you know it could save your life. I didn’t know any of the signs or symptoms of preeclampsia. Even though it took me a couple of days, I’m so happy I listened to my body and the warning signs it was sending me. They saved my life and possibly Cooper’s as well. We are home, healthy, and incredibly grateful that God gave us 37 extra days on Earth to love each other.
Thank you for sharing this. I had a similar experience when I had my daughter this summer. I went into labor three weeks early and developed postpartum preeclampsia. I was stuck in the hospital for 5 days while they tried to bring my blood pressure down, meanwhile I was also suffering with a spinal headache that they didn’t correct for several days. It’s so, so hard, especially when all you want to do is be with your baby again. I’m so glad you are both okay now!