Here's The Story...

Many of you have been asking about how the birth of Paisley went, and how we ended up in a c-section, spending 4 nights in the hospital, and I have told you guys I would blog soon and tell the story, that way I am not telling it over and over again. :) Well, here goes!

We went in Sunday night 12-27 at 6:00pm (well, 6:20, yes we were late for our daughter's birth). Jason had to work until 5:00pm, and got someone to cover his shift (Praise the Lord!) so he could leave and take me to the hospital. He ended up not getting to leave until 5:20, and it was snowing like crazy, so we were late. Oh well, I knew they wouldn't start without us. :)

We started the induction process about 7:30 with the dose of cervadil, and I started having contractions or cramps within 15 minutes. Not too bad, but not too fun. 4 hours later, I had a second dose because there was no progression. They started the pitocin about 4:30am and things heated up a bit for me pain wise, so I got some pain meds in my IV, no epidural yet. They wanted me to be 2-4 cm before getting it. To make a long story short, they increased the pitocin every 30 minutes, and by 11:30am I was on the maximum dose. Still no epidural, but I wasn't in horrible pain, but knocked out and crazy from the pain meds in the IV. My Dr. came in and I had only dilated 1 1/2 cm (and I had been 1cm for 3 weeks). He said keep me on the pitocin, and by 4:00, we will see what's happened. At 3:30pm, I was still 1 1/2 cm and 70%. She had no plans of coming soon. We were given the choice of doing a c-section then, or taking a shower, eating, and starting the process all over again, but my Dr. and most everybody at that point believed that it would not help. I would have to have a c-section the next day anyway. So there we went, into the OR and had a c-section at 4:00pm. Paisley was born at 4:38pm, and everything was great!

SO later that night Paisley, Jason and I were in our room and I had just gotten finished feeding her. I went to set my bed up a little and let everyone back in, and my heart monitor went off. My heart rate was 153 beats per minute. Jason asked if I was dizzy or felt funny and about that time I got really light headed and nauseated, so we called for a nurse. By the time she got there, I was so faint and weak, and my blood pressure was 68/30. Whoa, we were shocked. They gave me lots of extra fluids, and took some blood to check my hemoglobin level, and I felt fine a few minutes later. Later that night, it all happened again. Blood pressure 68/30, and they started to worry a bit. They took my blood again, and the results for the first time had just came back. A healthy person should have a count of 12, and I had 10 after the first count, and 7.5 after the second. There was a time they were concerned that I was bleeding internally, but they ruled that out pretty soon, after pushing of my belly lots of times (Youch!). The next morning, they took blood again, and my level was a 6..5, almost half what it should be, so I had to get a blood transfusion. 3 bags of blood in fact. I felt okay most of the time but i was extremely exhausted. I would be talking to people and fall asleep. Eating and fall asleep. I could not stay awake for anything. That was from the severe anemia, and it was l most comical actually! After having the transfusion, (I got it through the night Tuesday night) they finally let me out of bed and I was able to take a shower! Glory day!

From that point on, things were much better. Still dealing with the weakness, but I got better each day. Now I am really doing much better, but recovery has been a bit slow go because I wasn't able to get out of bed for 2 days after the surgery, and my body was trying to make up for all the lost blood. It's a crazy story, but it is all great in the end! Here are a few more pictures from the photographer at the hospital. She did such a great job! Have a great weekend!