So, I should have done this two weeks ago when Avery first got here, but I didn't, so I'm doing it now before I forget even more than I already have. Here is the story of Avery's arrival from her daddy's perspective.
We learned at Sarah's 36-week appointment that her blood pressure was pretty high and so she was put on bed rest to try to bring it down. I was CONVINCED that would work as I was sure it was Sarah's job raising her blood pressure. Well, Sarah went back on Thursday to get more lab tests run and we would get the results on Friday.
Anyone who has ever lived in the Atlanta area can understand why any expectant parent in this city is terrified by the thought of getting "that phone call" on a Friday afternoon with Atlanta traffic being as awful as it is. Of course I was downtown at Turner Field that day, finished up a tour of the ballpark when, yep, I got the call...or the texts actually. "Call me" "ASAP." I also see that Sarah has already tried to call me. Her doctor had called and told her that she had preeclampsia and said that she should go ahead and come down to the hospital and that she should go ahead and pack a bag. She had texted me at 2:37 pm. I'm at Turner field, 35 miles from home. Doc wants us at the hospital (another 15 miles from the house) for an ultrasound by 5:00pm. After nearly having a heart attack when I get on the highway to head home, only to find traffic crawling...OF. COURSE., I slowly get out of downtown and make good time getting home, my heartbeat climbing with each mile.
I get home, Sarah's nearly ready to go. I throw some clothes and laptop in the backpack and walk Layla. We get down to the hospital shortly after 4 and they pretty much took Sarah straight to ultrasound after putting us in what I have to think is the smallest room at Northside Hospital. I'm pretty sure it wasn't originally a room, rather some extra space that they converted into one. Sarah was gone for close to an hour, but once she got back, we just kinda settled in to wait for whatever was going to happen next. At this point in time, we were still thinking there was a chance that we could be going back home.
Before we saw a doctor, the nurses returned and began prepping her for an IV, our first indication we weren't going anywhere. They said they expected the doctor to put her on magnesium sulphate to regulate her body and the BP so that we could try to get Avery to full-term (37 weeks). If Avery didn't tolerate things to well or Sarah's BP didn't calm down to a safe level, they would induce delivery even earlier so that she couldn't have a possible seizure. Awesome. Reality really settled in when a nurse told Sarah that the next time she went home, she would have baby.
Thoughts on the magnesium sulphate: it was described to Sarah that "the mag" would make her feel like she had the flu. By my observation, that was underselling it. That stuff looked like it packed quite a punch on Sarah. I've never seen her with so little energy. Even though they tried to give her meds for the headache that developed on the way to the hospital, those didn't seem to help because we were told the mag could cause headaches. Sarah was on that stuff from Friday to Sunday morning, making for a very long weekend. But the stuff did its job, it regulated her BP well and while she was on it, we didn't have a lot of worries, other than her over all lack of comfort.
Back to Friday night. Right before Sarah was put on the mag, we had a surprise visit from one of our church elders and his wife, whose daughter is one of our best friends and also works in Labor & Delivery at Northside. They were so nice to spend a few minutes with us and pray over us before heading out.
We had already asked a couple times about whether we were going to be in this "room" for the night or if we were possibly going to get an actual room? By midnight, I was worried we were going to be spending the next 4 days there. There was no room for visitors, and I cannot describe how much noise there was around the room. Several times, it really sounded like someone was slamming a hospital bed into the other side of the wall next to my chair. After spending about 30 minutes trying to get to sleep, I had just decided to go ask what was going on with the noise when the door opened and some angels disguised as nurses appeared and asked if we were ready to be moved upstairs to our room. I was up and ready to go in less than a minute, and we were taken up to the High Risk Perinatal unit where we would stay until Monday...and most importantly get some sleep after an emotional roller coaster of a day.
To be continued...
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