"Unsure of what the balance held; I touched my belly, overwhelmed"

So I ended my last post as a sumo-wrestler (which my mother graciously sent pictures of). 

You can probably guess that I was diagnosed with preeclampsia which is actually fairly common now in our overweight America. Preeclampsia is high blood pressure coupled with high protein secretions in the urine during pregnancy. Preeclampsia, can but usually doesn't, lead to eclampsia which is is the proteinuria and hypertension but with unexplained seizures to boot.

It was the weekend and my blood pressure continued to rise to insane numbers so my mom decided to take me to the hospital. I'm not kidding when I say an anesthesiologist had to draw my blood;  and she had to poke around my ankles and feet a little before she finally was able to find a vein in my hand because of how swollen I was. The nurse monitoring the baby went to call Dr. AG to update him and came back with a puzzled expression when she told me he wanted me to go home and he would see me in his office at 8 am Monday morning. This news seemed to surprise the doctor who was currently stealing a second vial of my blood and had a clear view of the monitor connected to my tummy. My guess is that if I knew anything about how to read the monitor myself, I would have taken control of the situation right then, but it took me almost another week to get so contentious.
I saw Dr. AG a day or two later on Monday; he then explained to me that he wasn't affiliated with the hospital I went to over the weekend and if I need anything again to visit the main campus of that network. He gave me an Rx to help control my water weight, a suppository for gawd knows what, and sent me home to "rest and watch my salt intake." Had I gone to the main campus in the first place, would he have still sent me home?

Tuesday, I started feeling sick like the flu. My mom just had the flu and she's never ever sick so I figured I got it from her. I laid around in a blanket (even more than before) and took whatever OTCs pregnancy would allow to try to feel better.
Wednesday was worse; I was getting a sore throat and chills, a fever and the pukies. Not to mention my BP was still much too high and my body ached.
Thursday I was fed up! I was a water balloon with the worst case of the I Hate Being Pregnant any woman has ever faced and now I had the flu. I talked my dad into taking me to the hospital. The last time I had the flu this bad was my sophomore year of college. I went to the emergency hospital, they gave me IV fluids and I went home lethargic but feeling almost completely healthy. The plan that Thursday morning was to go in, be coddled, and get home in time for supper back to the "normal" I Hate Being Pregnant sick, leaving all the chills and pukes at the hospital.
At about 10:30 I was escorted from the ED of the main campus (because I'm being a good girl and going where Dr. AG is welcome) to triage of the Women's Hospital. I had no idea then that being home in time for supper was not going to happen--that this hospital is where you would find me, up on the third floor, for almost the next 6 weeks.

In triage, there were 8 rooms and 2 bathrooms and I got to call one of them all to myself for 4 hours while they were collecting my urine. I like to think they were sending it down to a lab in the basement where some super smart scientist was in a white coat with goggles examining test tubes full of my piss saying "ahh ha!" as he was figuring out how to cure the sumo-wrestler of her flu bug. The reality is that a nurse who had just lost Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock was probably waiting outside the washroom door with a pH stick she just "won" the privilege of dipping into my pee bucket before she emptied it and flushed.
The triage doctor was a hottie but didn't seem comfortable with vaginas, at least not medically. I'm hoping he was filling in for someone because I could not imagine him being in the Vagina Hospital full-time.  After a few hours of pee dipping and tummy monitoring, we heard from Dr. AG. Since it was nearing closing time, and Dr. AG isn't in his office on Friday,  I was given another 8 am Monday appointment. I'm not normally a bold girl. I have a somewhat strong personality, but I'm polite, generally do what I'm told (or at least pretend to), but something took over then.
The combination of remembering the look of confusion on the anesthesiologist's face after being sent home a few days before that; feeling like hell with the flu and ankles the size of my knees; and this insecure doctor out of his element telling me to go home in a far from confident tone brought me to speak up and demand another opinion  "You know what Dr. Hottie? I've just fired Dr. AG! What would you do if you were my doctor?" Dr. Hottie's jaw dropped. I swear this man was stunned. He didn't have an answer but I could tell he wasn't happy with putting this off til Monday. He left the room and was back in maybe 3 minutes--if that. He said I wasn't leaving the hospital until the baby was born.

Everything after that was fast. It seems like I was admitted and sitting in my own room with every single family member I have chatting over each other all in 2 seconds; like one of JD's coming out of daydream sweeps on Scrubs. I couldn't hear what anyone was saying or process anything that was happening.
Dr. Sarah, fresh out of med school, came to talk to me. I had HELLP syndrome which is life threatening to me and baby. This is Hemolysis (breaking down of RBCs), Elevated Liver enzymes, and Low Platelet count. The only cure is to deliver the baby. It was March 5th, my due date was April 16th. "So I'm going to be here for 6 weeks?!" Dr. Sarah looked surprised that I asked that, "No, you're having that baby tonight. We're waiting for Dr. AG to get here." Later, I found out Dr. AG did not want to come and took some coaxing to get there--probably from Dr. Sarah who was eager to assist in a C-section.


At 6:12 pm, "Rock-a-bye Baby" chimed through the Vagina Hospital as three pound Spidey was lifted out of my tummy.

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

So a good place to begin explaining what is going on is to explain my first pregnancy.

In the fall of 2008, as I was late in the first trimester and going into the second during the pregnancy with my son, some routine blood work was concerning.  The alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels were double what they should have been prompting my doctor, Dr. AG, to be worried about neural tube defects.  NTD (Everything is abbreviated in medicine I think), is basically when the brain and/or the spinal cord are not developing correctly and because the levels were high, the idea was that baby may have a hole somewhere in this area causing the AFP to “leak” and be more concentrated in my blood.  I visited a specialist and had a 3D ultrasound of baby’s inners and outers.  The result of the day was that everything seemed to be developing appropriately, I was having a boy who had my nose (which is inherited from my Great Grandma Sybil), and that my baby could wrap his leg all the way around his head—which inspired some excellent Mommy and Me yoga classes after he was born!

Pregnancy was not good to me.  It’s interesting how I look back and glorify my pregnancy now, but the reality was that I knew several women that had due dates within weeks of mine who bounced around glowing, growing their bellies straight out like there was a beach ball they were trying to hide.  Meanwhile, I grew out to the sides, like I was trying to hide the wall behind me—if I ever got the energy to stand in front of it.  It wasn’t all misery.  Right after the extreme body aches ended and I was able to stomach something other than taco salad, I took off my acupressure anti-nausea wristbands and I felt terrific for about 10 days during the second trimester!  Then it was right back to dry heaving over the thought of drinking a glass of water from the refrigerator since the change filter light had been on for 2 days.  I began to swell up; first resembling a Cabbage Patch Doll—which we all have to admit is adorable for an obese child with darling eyes and a playful wardrobe.  But towards the end of my pregnancy, which was really the early to mid-third trimester, I ballooned to what my mother loves to describe as looking like a sumo-wrestler.

This is a fair assessment, though I hate to admit it.  At this point in my pregnancy, I was so big and miserable that I didn’t want to move, let alone put on makeup or do anything with my hair but pull it tightly out of my face.  And those playful maternity outfits stopped covering my belly button around the same time that my super comfy, way over-worn and probably extremely stinky UGG slippers had to be retired because my swollen feet couldn't fit into anything except flip flops—luckily the snow was (almost) gone that Indiana February.