My Little Princess

In August it will be three years since I had my beautiful baby girl and it seems like the time has flown by, but she had a rough beginning.

My pregnancy with her was much different from my first one with my son. I had very high blood pressure all throughout, even with medication, I had gestational diabetes and I was very sick the whole time when I was pregnant with my daughter. For my daughter I had chosen to continue seeing my family doctor instead of going to my O.B.G.Y.N. that I had used for my son, but soon my pregnancy became so high risk that she had to send me to an O.B. who specialized in high risk pregnancies. I was not quite 32 weeks when I got in to see the specialist and that office visit would be the beginning of my nightmare.

My blood pressure when taken at that appointment was 200/130, for those who don’t know that is extremely high and I was at risk for a seizures with it being so high. The doctor immediately sent to the hospital so he could run more tests and get the results faster. A few hours later the decision had been made that they had to get my little girl out as soon as possible. This left me absolutely terrified knowing that my baby was going to be premature and because of that many things could be wrong with her.

They tried to induce me by doing some strange things but I knew they wanted it done quickly. After almost a day with all the methods they had tried including pitocin I was stuck dilated at a 5 and every time I would have a contraction my baby’s heart rate would drop. They became very scared and started talking to me about my options. Of course the big one was to get a C-section and get her out quickly, but I was terrified of being cut open like that and even more scared of the recovery. In the end though I had to decide what was the best way to keep me and my little girl safe, so I went to have a C-section.

The whole surgery was very uncomfortable and I continued to feel pain and kept asking for more meds. Because of my high blood pressure I was also on Magnesium Sulfate which can cause flu-like symptoms. So in between yelling that I was in pain and continually asking if they were done yet I became very sick to my stomach and ended up throwing up all over my husband.

They told me they were about to bring her out and then as soon as they do she is breathing and screaming her head off which made me super happy, but they didn’t let me see her. They whisked her out of the room so fast I didn’t even get a glance. My husband went with her to watch her be evaluated and met me in the recovery room later with a million pictures and videos. However they had pushed so many pain meds that I was very lethargic and would often quit breathing so they would have to shake me and scream to get me to breathe.

I finally got back to my regular room and was slightly more aware of my surroundings when I asked to see the pictures.

This absolutely broke my heart. My poor baby was just 3 lbs and 12 oz and hooked up to so many machines! Thankfully she was very healthy for her little size and was off the ventilator in just a few hours, but I still get not get to see her in person until the next day.

When I did get to see her I just bawled and bawled. It tore me up so bad that I could not hold my own baby, that I would be leaving in a few days and I wouldn’t be taking her home with me. At this point they determined she was healthy but being so early she still had to learn how to eat. She was tube fed for two weeks or so but I still hadn’t been able to hold her yet. When I got the phone call that I could hold her finally I dropped everything and just about ran to the hospital.

This is probably the first smile I had on my face in weeks. I didn’t want to give her back, I just wanted to hold her for forever. They started her on bottle feedings and she had it down in a week and a half but there was one small issue. After she would eat when they would put her back in her crib her heart rate would drop. At 4 weeks old they decided I could take her home but they wanted her on a heart monitor to monitor for more bradycardic episodes. When they are going to let you take your child home from the NICU they have you do a “trial run” so to speak. They put you in an isolated room with you and the baby and they only had the heart monitor on her like we would at home.

This is her at 4 weeks and almost 5 lbs. After spending the night with her and the heart monitor I changed my mind and told them that I would rather her have to stay a little bit longer so they could try some other options to help the the episodes. I also decided that I wanted to stay there so I could be with her as much as possible, but in choosing to do that I would not see my son much. Which really sucked because his birthday was that week.

Fortunately my mom threw him a little party and I was able to go see my boy turn three. With my daughter they tried a medicine to help with reflux and it did not seem to help but then they took her off breast milk and started her a formula for spit up and it worked! After five weeks I finally got to bring my baby home.

.

He was instantly in love with his baby sister and I was finally happy to have everyone at home. Throughout this whole process I was a mess. I cried daily and it hurt so much not to have my child. But yet I saw other babies in the NICU that were much smaller and had many more issues and I couldn’t have even imagined if that had been me. I got very lucky with her but there is definitely still a part of me that is scared to have another one because I know I couldn’t make it through that twice. But there is definitely a happy ending to this story. As I said she will soon be three and her intelligence amazes me. She has had no delays whatsoever and she starting doing things like walking  and crawling before my son who was born at full term. Here is one last picture of my beautiful babies from just a few weeks ago.