This is My December

December was a bad month. To spare some details, let me summarize the shitty month that ended my 2010. My beloved grandfather finally lost his battle with alzheimer's. I was completely torn up and not ready to grieve the great loss. My heart ached for the fact the world lost this man and I lost my wonderful grandfather. Although he had been mentally gone for a long time due to the dimentia and alzheimers, he was still my awesome grandfather who made growing up so fun and exciting.

Two days after his passing, still grieving, I started to get what I thought was severe acid reflux. For two nights I stayed up with this awful pain and on Sunday December 5 I went to Labor and Delivery triage for a pain cocktail as prescribed by my doctor who was meeting us there. Minor annoyance but all in the name of pregnancy. Well, not quite.

Once we got there and they started taking vitals and bloodwork they diagnosed me with Pre-Eclampsia. My blood pressure was sky rocketing and they had to admit me to the hospital. We then heard the most terrifying words we'd ever heard; "We hope to keep your son in for 48 more hours but we'll see how it goes." I've never heard anything more awful in my life. I was 29 1/2 weeks pregnant and they hoped to keep my son in for 48 more HOURS??

In a few short hours they diagnosed me with severe pre-e and severe HELLP Syndrome. Basically my liver was failing and self-destructing, my platelets were falling making it easier to bleed out and my blood pressure was so high they had to put me on a magnesium IV so I didn't have a stroke. Unfortunately the mag makes you feel like you have the flu but worse with no nausea. My face felt like it was on fire and I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

I got two steroid shots but I kept getting worse and worse. Even sitting still my blood pressure would skyrocket to 200/100. Even though I was getting worse I held on for four more days to give the baby the best chance at survival. I got him to 30 weeks pregnant when I started to take an even worse turn. My doctor told me at that point I was so bad they needed to take him out or I could die.

They prepped me for the csection and I've never been so scared. I was only 30 weeks, how was this happening??

On Dec 9, 2010 at 9:27PM Graham Patrick was born. He weighed 2 pounds 7 ounces and he came out crying. They told us not to expect him to cry since he was so early but he was yelling his head off; the sweetest sound I've ever heard. He immediately peed on my doctor, lol.



They whisked him away to the NICU and sewed me up. They took me to the intensive care recovery room to monitor me for 4 hours to make sure I didn't bleed out due to the HELLP.

The only way to stop the HELLP Syndrome is to deliver the baby but with severe HELLP, that isn't enough to stop the syndrome. I kept getting worse after he was out and was in the hospital for 6 more days. I wasn't able to see Graham until his 3rd day which almost killed me. I wanted to see him so bad but my blood pressure wouldn't stabalize enough to let me get out of bed. Finally my nurse got a lower pressure reading and snuck me down to the NICU so I could finally meet and hold my son.


(sexy, right? i especially love the bags under my eyes, yikes!)

It was an incredibly scary, traumatic experience but our son is doing amazingly well in the NICU. I'll post some updates later but he's doing so well, I couldn't ask for a stronger, more feisty child. He's fantastic and the light of our lives.