Birth Day

The Birth...

Last week started like any other week. I was looking forward to Thursday the 12th - the day Philomena was scheduled to be born. When Tuesday rolled around I went down to the ATU department for my weekly ultrasound. They did the ultrasound and I waited (as usual) until the Perinatologist came into the room to consult. She put the file down on the tray and said, "Well the baby looks good, but looks like we will be delivering you today." I am not sure what I felt at the time; shock, anxiety and some other transient feelings I can't articulate at the moment. I made all the calls and got everyone scrambling.

The next few hours I went through all the preoperative things that you go through before major surgery. They put in two IV's (as if one is not bad enough!) and the dreaded catheter. Dreaded - this is the correct word to describe catheterization! Please peel off every layer of my skin with a dull potatoe peeler, but get that catheter far from me! I got blood work drawn and then went downstairs to interventional radiology to have the balloon catheters placed. This procedure was horrible. I laid on a flat hard table and they strapped my arms down and draped me for incision. I was told ahead of time that they might lightly sedate me. I wish now they had. Incisions were made in the groin area into two arteries. The catheters traveled into the opening of the uterus. This took approximately 45 minutes and all the while I was contracting, mostly due to stress and the pain that was enveloping my entire back from lying flat with an eight month pregnant belly.

From Interventional Radiology I went to the OR waiting or holding area. I was asked yet again if I wanted my tubes tied to which my automatic response was, "no." Again I had to lay flat and really it was agonizing on my back. I stayed in holding for about 40 minutes until the OR was ready and the teams were in place. They wheeled me into the OR and there must have been 15 people in there. One of the residents was saying she has never witnessed so many people in one room. My arms were strapped down again, but I made sure my rosary was tightly wound around my left hand. I had a lot of heads peer down into my face and say different things and then I don't remember anything else.

I woke up in a fog and I can't say even now where I was when I woke up. I remember trying to gather my thoughts and having a very difficult time with that. I did ask whoever was peering over me at the time how the baby was. "Good! She's doing good!" I felt relieved and then thought to ask if I had a uterus or not. My OB doctor came over at that time and told me yes, I did still have my uterus. I am not sure whether I was relieved or a bit stressed about that one.

I don't think I can really recall much of that evening except they gave me this button that delievered a heavy duty narcotic. I know that evening I had difficulty with shallow breathing and oxygen saturation.

I stayed in bed for the next two days. My husband surprised me by having one of the NICU nurses wheel Philomena down to me and I got to hold her in my hospital bed. What an angel she is. She just has this perfect angelic sweet little face. I cried.

I never did feel like I was getting better and by Thursday the 12th I just felt like I wouldn't make it. Truly, that's how awful I felt. I suppose that's because my hemoglobin levels dropped dramatically and it was decided that I receive two bags of blood in a transfusion. By that evening I felt much, much better and by Friday I was able to walk to the NICU for the first time and see my baby.

Today is exactly one week post-surgery. I feel better each day. I have been dealing with extremely swollen legs and feet and I feel like the swelling has gone down today a bit because I am walking more like a 70-year-old than a 90-year-old. I still have staples that have to be removed, but my belly even feels better today.

I cannot tell you how many people I had praying for me and Philomena, but the Lord God was definitely watching over us and seeing us through.

I will write more about Philomena in the next blog a little later on.