The nine day migraine and a spinal tap.

I forgot to write about the nine day migraine.  Every night for nine days I was in the ER with this migraine.  They would keep me there all night and release me at 7 AM.  On one of the those nights the ER doc decided I had to be bleeding in my brain.  He said they had to remove fluid from my spine. Is he kidding, I am the woman who had natural child birth twice because I was afraid of having a needle in my spine.  And my first baby was 36 hrs of hard labor.  For those of you that don't know what that means, it's NO DRUGS just raw pain and a ton of screaming.  And this guy now wants to take fluid out of my spine. I said, "no!" We asked if there was another way.  He said, they could do an U/S but they are not 100% effective and if it showed nothing they still had to take out the fluid.  Of course the U/S showed nothing.  I am guessing there were many tears and my husband pleading with me to do the test. So the test got done.  The ER doc calls the neurosurgeon, who says, he's not impressed and is not coming in to open my head.  We sit in the dark wondering what is going on.  he told us what the neurosurgeon said.  We were not sure what to think.  After some time the commander comes in an apologizes to us, he said the ER doc was wrong.  Well this mostly turned out to be a good thing.  Now that I had that done I was no longer afraid to have an epidural and that was one of the best things that happened to me in hindsight.  The only bad thing to come of that was now I also had a spinal headache.  So now when I stood up I had another headache on top of the migraine. 

This was the headache I had when I first met Dr G.  He was very protective of me from the very beginning and never wanted me to feel physical pain. He called the Anesthesiologist to come fix me.  As I understood it they take my own blood and put it back to fill the area where the fluid was taken from to stop the headache.  It did not work.  DR G got mad at them and called the chief.  He said this works 99% of the time.  I always seem to be in that 1 % so I declined to go through that again. It was not fun having a needle in your spine being fed from the needle in your arm, ugh.

On the ninth day the headache stopped and never returned.  I have always wondered if that was my body's way of telling me something was wrong.  I do not suffer from migraines

The day before.

It was a beautiful fall day and I was so happy we had made it to the end.  Baby boys due date was the next day.  We were being admitted to the hospital to have the excess water drained.

On this day I took pictures.  There are pictures of me before "bad news" Tues and then none till this day.  I even took picture of my HUGE belly, it was something to see.  I'm going to look for those pics and post them.  I'm smiling.

Now for this draining business.  It's just like getting an amnio except instead of getting a small amount of fluid in a tube they are removing it into a bottle.  I don't recall any pain but I don't know why.  I think they waited till right before I got induced so they could do an epidural.

I told you baby boy always waved.  They had the U/S on while they took out the fluid to make sure they did not harm the baby.  Well he outdid himself this time, he grabbed the needle and brought it to his mouth so he looked like he was holding a mike and singing.  They pulled the needle up because they were afraid he might hurt himself.  After all these years that still amazes me.  I had not idea an unborn baby could do that.  They drained a liter of water and there was plenty left.

Planning for life and death.

I tried to plan everything.  I told the DR's they could have time to look over my baby and tell me what was what.  However, if things were as bad as they seemed to be I did not want him to undergo any worthless surgeries.  They said, it would take 2 hrs to evaluate him. I told them I did not want him kept alive.

I even asked about donating his organs.  I knew with his health issues we would be limited in what could be donated.  I think I shocked them because no one really said anything.  I asked about it again, later but I just got this impression that it would never happen and it may have been because of the trisomy 21.  But this is just an impression, I never did know what it was.

I even picked a funeral home.  I could not call so my 19 yr old daughter called for me.  My husband and I went and made the arrangements before I gave birth.  To the guys credit he maintained his composure when we explained we were there to make arrangement for someone who was not born yet and had not died, yet.  And yet I could tell he was surprised.

I thought I had planned for everything, how wrong I was.

Two weeks before due day

I am now 38 weeks pregnant.  We are all amazed we have made it this far.  DR. G tells me he wants to schedule the birth. Hmm, I'm not sure about that.  It was my goal to stay pregnant as long as possible and baby boy was not showing any signs of leaving his happy place.  It's almost like he knew that birth was the end for him.

He explains that we cannot just show-up in the middle of the night, that they need to be ready for us and we would be a huge shock to the young DR's on-call at night.

He said that the excess fluid was a risk. That the baby could come out with the large amount of water and if his cord was in the wrong place.....well you get the picture. 

Now would be the time to mention that my first child at 6 lbs 10 oz tore me apart. But I was not thinking about that when he made me have visions of baby boy being flushed out with all the water.

He also told me that they needed to have all the specialist there just in case so I needed to deliver during the day in a planned environment.  We went back and forth on days but somehow I got him to agree that I would come in just 1 day before my due date to have the extra water drained and on my due date, very early they would induce me if I was not already in labor.  I'm sure I had to agree to get get checked everyday or something.

Dr G also agreed that I would deliver in one of the new birthing rooms instead of the OR where they really wanted me.

9/11

It was a beautiful Tues as I drove to the military base for my Tues appointment.  I was 34 weeks pg.  I  had the radio on as usual when I heard that a plane hit the world trade center.  I thought it was some sort of joke and called my husband.  He had not heard.  I walked into the clinic to see everyone out in the reception area glued to the TV.  At just that moment the second plane hit the other building.  Everyone was in shock.  After a while the DR's realized they had patients and they went back to there offices.  I was called for my apt with Dr. G.  This was the one and only time I saw Dr G and did not have his full attention, he was distracted.  I asked if something else was wrong.  I don't recall exactly what he said but he was concerned about the war he was certain was coming.  I recall commenting that there was no possible way he would  have to go because he treated high risk pg.  He said, he was not worried about himself but rather for all the woman having babies who's husbands would be at war.  I don't recall anything else about that appt.  Everyone was still in shock when I left.

My MIL and religion.

My Mother-in-law was a gentle, southern woman who thought I spent my entire pregnancy sleeping or at Walmart.  She was religious so once I told her the bad news she would call every Tues afternoon to ask how my appointment went.  She was always surprised that things were either still just as bad or worse.  She would always tell me that everything would be fine, that God would make sure my baby would be fine.  I would tell her it was not going to be fine, he would not get better.  I needed her to accept the reality but she wouldn't.  What planet was she living on?  It got to the point that I could no longer talk to her.  I would not answer the phone and my husband always said I was sleeping or at Walmart and she believed him because her baby would never lie to her.  :-)  Gotta love it.

My point is this, I was struggling to accept the truth but I needed to.  Tuesday's were always the worse because they were "bad news  Tuesday's"  I struggled everyday to accept what was happening but I knew I had to or I would not survive.  Embracing the truth and accepting what was, was my salvation.  I stopped talking to everyone.  People feel the need to say something uplifting but there was nothing they could say that was going to make this better so I saved them and myself from all the awkwardness.  This may not work for everyone but it worked for me.

Some people thought I was religious because I went to Church a lot but I went to different churches.  I was not a believer or a non-believer.  I was a seeker, I wanted the truth.  I believe in reincarnation and I believe in science. 

What should my baby wear.

Before finding out my baby would not live I had bought a few baby things. One of these things was a white blanket that looked like snow.  Once I was far enough along to realize he would be born I realized he needed to wear something for his only day of life.  The DR's said, he was big so I bought another light grey outfit in case he did not fit what I had bought many months ago.  The outfit had this silly looking beret but it was cute.  At this point I was around 6 or 7 months pregnant and measuring a year pg.  Of course I had to make many jokes about that because my Mom and Dad always said I was a yr old when I was born.  I was a month late!

It might seems odd that sometimes I could laugh but as more time went by I became happier as I realized we might make it to term.  I could not dream of survival so I dreamed of making it to term, that was my goal during that time.  From where we began, making it to term seemed like a huge accomplishment.

I did feel sad when I would open the Sunday paper and an ad for baby furniture would fall out.  If I could have bought furniture then it meant everything would have been ok.  I like to decorate so to keep my mind of the obvious I would decided how I would decorate his room if I had that furniture.  Most of the time I would decide I did did not like it for some reason and I would not have bought it.