Cara Ellie

I have so much to be grateful for on Mother’s Day this year. I am alive. Our daughter was born on Saturday, May 8th at 6:12pm. She was born at 36 weeks and is a solid 6 lbs and 18 inches long. She’s doing amazing for how early she was born. She’s eating & sleeping like a champ!

I want to thank everyone that has kept us in the prayers over the last few days. It’s been a little sketchy, and all your words of love and encouragement on facebook, twitter, and text messages have been greatly appreciated! We’ve had some questions about what happened, so here it is if you’d like to read on…..

This delivery took us completely by surprise. On occasion, over the last few weeks, I’ve woken up in the morning with some pretty severe cramping on my right side that radiated over the top of my uterus and under my ribs. This was usually accompanied by nausea, but if I lay down I’d feel better by about noon and be able to get on with my day. Friday morning I woke up with the same pain/nausea but it didn’t get any better.  By Friday night I was in pretty severe pain, but thought that if I could just sleep it off I would get better. By about 4am on Saturday I pretty much thought I was going to die. I called my OB’s after-hours office, and the on-call doctor immediately recommended that I go to the hospital and get checked out. No worries. We figured we’d make sure the baby was okay, see if I was dilating (I was up to a 3 as of the previous Monday at my regular appt), get something for the pain and head home.

Only, you don’t just “head home” when the nurse starts using words like “gall bladder,” “appendix,” and “surgery”.  The nurse examined me, tested my urine, and sent off some blood samples to the lab. After receiving the results from the lab, my doctor came in and told us the bad news. My blood work was abnormal, and it could be a couple of different things. My placenta could be having problems (ie tearing), I could be showing signs of preeclampsia,  or I could have a problem with my gall bladder/appendix. Because there was no way to really diagnose while I was still pregnant he said he would deliver the baby and then we’d see if the pain went away (something wrong with my placenta) or if the pain continued and it was something else.

I was officially admitted, they started me on pitocin, broke my water, but also put me on Magnesium sulphate (which actually slows down labor) to keep me from seizing and to help with PIH or pregnancy induced hypertension. So, it took awhile. I’m grateful that my epidural also numbed the cramping pain in my side, otherwise it would have been a completely miserable experience. My amazing photographer friend Jami came to take birth photography photos, but unfortunately had to leave about 45 min before I actually started pushing. I’m grateful she was able to come and capture photos of Sam & I as well as just hang out and keep us entertained while my body figured things out.

Cara made her appearance at 6:12pm after pushing about 3 times. She started crying immediately (which is a great sign!), they got her cleaned up, I held her, and then she was having a bit of trouble inflating her lungs so they took her to the nursery. She promptly fixed herself and started breathing just fine. What a great little girl!

Meanwhile, the pain in my side returned immediately and I, once again, thought I was going to totally lose it. The doctor gave me some morphine  to help with the pain, they drew some more blood to test, and we waited. My mom brought Rachel & Andrew to the hospital to see their baby sister, and they were so excited! Unfortunately, I was still feeling awful at this point, so they didn’t stay long, but I’m glad they were able to come for a little while.

My blood work came back with my platelets still low and my liver enzymes still elevated. At this point, the doctor knew I had developed HELLP syndrome.

Preeclampsia is “is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby. Affecting at least 5-8% of all pregnancies, it is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine. Swelling, sudden weight gain, headaches and changes in vision are important symptoms; however, some women with rapidly advancing disease report few symptoms.”

HELLP is severe preeclampsia. I didn’t have any of the normal signs, such as high blood pressure, or protein in my urine, I went straight to the dangerous high liver enzymes & low platelet counts. HELLP can lead to a liver rupture, seizure, coma, or death. The scary thing, is that women still die from this disease today. If you don’t catch it, if you seize out, if you start to bleed and can’t stop…. And, the only effective treatment is to deliver the baby and then let mother nature take its course.

They would have delivered my baby no matter how far along she was to save my life. I can’t express my gratitude to a loving Father in Heaven who helped my body fight this long enough that I could safely deliver my baby girl. I’m so grateful she doesn’t have any complications, I’m grateful we caught this before I took a turn for the worse. I’m grateful to just be alive.

The good news is that I am feeling much better. I got an IV injection of morphine about every hour until 1am last night and then the pain finally started receding. My blood work Sunday morning came back still abnormal, but that was to be expected. They will be drawing & testing my blood again tonight, but the doctor expects things to be looking a lot better. He said that its the first 24 hrs that can be scary, and then you’re out of the woods. I’m still on magnesium sulphate and its doing weird things to my vision and pretty much stops me from keeping any food down, but I’ll take it. I should be able to be off it by about 6pm tonight and then I can eat & see again! Pretty excited about that. I’m really just dealing with “normal” post-partum-ness now, but I have percocet & motrin to help with that. 🙂

Most women don’t think that dying could be even a possibility with childbirth. We have such amazing advances in technology & medicine that it seems like an antiquated notion. I still am having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept that I could have died. It scares me.

So, today on Mother’s Day I’m grateful to be a mom. I have 3 beautiful, healthy children. I have a husband who loves me. I have family & friends that are doing anything and everything they can to help us out. I feel so blessed and loved. Thanks so much for all your prayers & thoughts on our behalf!!

P.S. I’ll have more pictures to post soon, but I’m on my hubby’s Mac and we don’t get along so well. 🙂