Zelly's Birth Story, December 1999, by Wendy
Wednesday 12/15, 5pm: appointment with Linda (midwife). Camey has elevated protein in her urine and her blood pressure is up. Linda sends Camey to get blood lab work done. Cam is put on bed rest through the weekend, part-time work on Monday and Tuesday, back to see Linda on Tuesday.
Thursday 12/16, 9am: Linda calls Camey with lab results. She has pre- eclampsia. I post a "help" message to MOMS email list and get lots of replies. Camey's mom takes her in to see Linda and get a steroid shot to improve the chances of baby's lungs being ready for premature birth. At this point we are told we'll probably have to deliver her around 34-35 weeks. Sidenote: my friend (Holly) returns from a 2 wk business trip to learn her mother has died.
Friday 12/17: Cam's second day of bedrest. We go in to see Linda again, Camey gets another steroid shot and Linda tells us to not count on making it to 35 weeks. Sidenote: I spend the afternoon helping my friend start cleaning out her mother's house.
Saturday 12/18: Cam's third day of bedrest. I wake up with a migraine and have wicked nausea. Our friend Jeanne takes me to doctor; I get a shot of phenogren and something else... pain and nausea persists, get a shot of Demerol. Several hours later I am still vomiting and migraine is stronger than ever. Jeanne now takes me to ER and I get an IV of Benadryl and compazine. Finally, I get some relief from migraine, but nausea persists and I vomit once more after returning home. I'm thinking I had a nasty 24-hr flu (I realize later that I probably had a GI bug of some sort from cleaning Holly's mother's house.)
Sunday 12/19: Cam wakes up with pain under her ribs (right side). She begins to feel very nauseous around 3pm. We call Linda (the midwife) at 4pm, who tells Camey to go to the hospital (St. Pete's in Olympia), and that if she has the bug I had yesterday, she will be under observation and get fluids and probably come home the next morning. She calls ahead so we can go thru admitting (instead of ER!). In admitting, Camey vomits (4:20pm). We go up to Labor and Delivery examining room where she is hooked up to fetal monitors... baby is doing fine. She vomits some more. They get a saline IV going on Camey and do blood labs, we are moved to a birthing room.
Around 7pm, Linda shows up and the blood results come in awhile later. Camey's liver numbers are up 3 times higher than on Wednesday. Linda goes to call her consulting doctor. She comes back and tells us we'll probably have to deliver within a few days and she is working on getting us moved to Tacoma General where they have a neonatal ICU. I call Cam's parents and Jeanne. After more calls, we find out we are going all the way up to Seattle, to Swedish Medical Center, as there isn't room at Tacoma General. Linda will not be going with us since she's on call for St. Pete's. I call my mother in Richland and ask her to come... NOW! At this point I feel like a 12-yr old being sent up to the big city on my own!
So, the ambulance crew shows up about 8:30pm along with a nurse. Linda tells them I'll be following them up and the nurse says that if she sees me behind them, she'll call the state patrol since I'll have to be speeding to keep up! Wellllll, I just got on the freeway first and they were 1.5 to 2 miles behind me the whole way. I could track them easily since they had the lights going (but no sirens until they got onto Seattle city streets). I actually got up to Camey's room before she did at Swedish. Sidenote: I suffer from panic attacks, so I take an amyltriptilene (sp?) en route, about 9:30.
So, now it's 10:10pm. Jeanne arrives at 10:20 with my other panic meds, the non-sleepy ones (yeah!) and our address book. I try calling Camey's parents again, as the last news they heard was that we were going to Tacoma. Can't reach them... they walk in about 10:45pm, they had taken off for Tacoma right after I called, then got redirected to Seattle.
Camey gets another blood draw to see where she is now. The resident attending (Anthony Barnette) and labor nurse (Jane) proceed to ask all the questions. The OB doc (Dale Reisner) shows up around 11pm. The lab results aren't ready until almost midnight, at which point they tell us we're going to surgery tonight as cam's liver numbers are up even more -- 4 times the already elevated numbers from Wednesday. Dale does a quick ultrasound to see how the baby is doing, she says the baby looks small... this is the first time we've heard this!
So, it's Monday now, 12/20, midnight or so: Camey gets to have one last pee before getting numbed and having the catheter inserted. In the bathroom I ask her, "If we have a girl, should we give her 'Jeanne' for a middle name?" She agrees. Jeanne has been like a little sister to us both since we got together and is very important to us.
Camey is wheeled up to surgery. I am given a *lovely* shower cap and gown to wear. They get her spinal in and she almost immediately has to vomit again. I bow out of the room for that! Ironically, what she threw up was the anti-nausea liquid they gave her! Surgery actually begins about 1am and Hazel is out at 1:34. We were very excited to hear her cry right off the bat!!!!! Those steroids shots worked. She is 2 lbs, 3 oz, 14.25 inches long. Apgars are 6 and then 9, five minutes later. I follow the baby up to the Special Care Nursery (SCN) while they sew Camey up.
I stay with Hazel for 20mins or so while they get her set up, all the while the SCN nurse is streaming information at me... as if I'll actually remember it!! I go get Cam's mom (Kathy) to come up and see Hazel, she seems a bit overwhelmed by the smallness of her granddaughter. Cam is still not back in her room. Then I bring up Cam's dad (Dave) who grins from ear to ear at the sight of Zelly. Finally, after going back to Cam's room, she is wheeled in... I guess it's about 2:15 or 2:30 by this point. I ask her again if she wants 'Jeanne' to be the middle name, she agrees. I announce it to the room and Jeanne immediately gets weepy about it. After hanging for a bit, Jeanne and I go for a MUCH NEEDED smoke break. I guess we did have 1 or 2 of them while we waited for Cam's blood labs to come back earlier... but it felt like I hadn't smoked in years! (all you smokers will know what I mean). Oh, I also managed to get my non-sleepy anxiety meds in me before the surgery.
Cam's parents left around 3am and my mother arrived at 4:30am. I was so relieved to see her!!!! I took her up to see my daughter (oh, I'm still not used to saying that!). Mother was enthralled by Zelly, she reached right out and touched her. Zelly grabbed her finger! Mother and Jeanne head back down to Olympia around 6am.
The morning continues, I've been up 24 hours now and Camey is moved from the birthing room to the ward where pregnant women are on long term hospital bedrest. En route, we stop by the SCN, bed and all! Camey is very glad to see Zelly (she only got a tiny brief glance at her in the operating room). We get the room at the corner, the largest and quietest.
I start to call EVERYBODY we know... it was hard to wait til 7:30 or 8am... though I wanted to catch folks before they went to work. Our first visitors came around 11am. The Kennedy's. Bill is a friend from high school and my soul mate. After they left, I finally went home. I do not recommend driving 60 miles after being awake for 27 hours! But I made it fine and as I rolled into the driveway, was worried about getting to sleep.
Monday 12/20, 5pm: Camey calls and wakes me up. Five hours of sleep is plenty ! I get up, shower, eat a bite, grab my mom and head back up to Seattle. We visit until almost 2am.
Tuesday 12/21: I get to sleep around 3am, and am awakened by a friend calling at 8:30am. Oh, I'm up to 5 and ½ hours of sleep! I go to work for a couple of hours to start the paperwork . Around 1:30pm, I head up to Seattle again with my mother. When we get there, Cam is ready to go see the baby. We get Cam up to SCN in her wheelchair and she gets to hold Zelly skin-to-skin! We are there til 2ish again.
Wednesday 12/22: Awakened by phone call at 8:30 again. Do some errands, go to work, head up to Seattle alone around 1:30.
Thursday 12/23: Camey is discharged.
Wendy, 12/27/99
Posted by wndl at December 27, 1999 03:26 AM