So here we are...March 1st, 2010...29 weeks along...11 weeks until Kenley's actual due date which was May 17th and I am being wheeled into the operating room to have a c-section because Kenley is ready to join us. She might have been ready but I sure wasn't. I remember looking at the clock on the wall when they had me roll onto the table...it was either 5 or 10 minutes after 3...right at that moment I asked God to give me strength and to please be with me. I got a clear response from him which I heard. I know no one else in the room heard it but I heard him say clearly to me "I am with you daughter." I knew I wasn't alone. I knew He had been with me every step of the way and I knew for sure now that He was not going to leave me when I needed Him the most.
Remember I had to pee!?!!! I thought for sure it was coming on out! They had me sit up on the edge of the table, dangle my legs over the side and one of the OR nurses stood in front of me and held my shoulders and had me relax over into her chest. Here comes the spinal. My heart is racing because I know I have a funky spine and I kept thinking over and over again, please get the nerves because I don't want to have to be put to sleep. At that point Cami was with me and was getting my back ready. She was telling me what she was doing step by step. I had been lying down since 1 o'clock so to now sit up three hours later, it felt really weird. I could definitely feel that Kenley had moved down. It actually felt like if I wanted to I could have done a big push and she would have come flying out, thats how low I felt her. And I'm still holding my pee in!!! Geesh I had to go bad!!!!
She says, "Ok, a little prick" and it did feel like a little prick. It hurt, but not anything I couldn't withstand. Well I had to withstand it at this point I didn't have a choice. Right when she did the prick I felt a weird sensation run down the right side of my back and stop right when it got to my butt. At this point Cami has stopped talking to me and I feel the prick again and the same thing, tingling sensation down the right side to my butt. I remember sitting there and I kept moving my feet to see if they were numb yet. Then again, prick and sensation. Finally Cami asks me if I feel anything and I tell her I feel something but it stops right when it gets to my right butt cheek. Here we go again...prick and sensation. So then I hear her say "Call Dr. the other anesthesiologist (I can't remember his name) and tell him we need him." So basically she can't get my nerves and she needs the other anesthesiologist to come try. I think I'm doomed at this point. I think, well if she can't do it then I'm screwed. They are for sure putting me to sleep. So we sat there and waited for him to come in. Probably only took a few mintues for him to get there but it sure felt longer then that. So he goes to my back and says to me "Well you told me I would be able to see your scoliosis and I can." When he had come to talk to me when I was still in my room and I had told him I was worried about my back I had said "You'll be able to see it." Because I have such a pronounced (as I like to call it) hump on the left side of my back. He said "Ok, little bee sting, and...go ahead and swing your legs on up here and lay down." I remember almost asking, "don't you want to make sure it worked first because the last few times it didn't" But I followed directions and swung my legs up and right at that point I started to feel tingling down my waist into my legs. Now I'm not one to just lay there and be quiet. If something feels weird or I have a question, I'm going to ask to find out what is going on. So right then I say that I feel a tingling in my legs, is that normal. And he tells me yep, thats what you're supposed to feel. Also as I swung my legs up to lie down I remember seeing my doctor standing to the side with her arms crossed and I remember thinking she was probably pissed because it took so long to get me numb. Oh well. So right then I also feel my HUGE desire to pee disappear!!! Thank goodness. Either I went numb and could just no longer feel that I needed to pee or they had already stuck the cathater in me and I really didn't have to go anymore!
So I lie down and they right away put the blue screen up in front of my face and I feel them prop my left side up with something that feels like a wedge almost. Again, I have to ask. They tell me its to keep my weight off of my left side because of the giant vein that runs down your back...when you're pregnant you're not supposed to lay on your back past a certain week because it can hinder your blood flow to the baby. So they were propping one side up almost so that I wasn't lying completly flat on my back. Also right after I laid down my anesthesiologist took a cotton swab and rubs it on my chest to ask what it feels like. He then rubs it on my arm so I can feel the difference. I guess that was to check to make sure I wasn't numb any further up then my chest. So he then sits down beside me and we start having a conversation. He starts talking about his wife just recently having a baby and I asked if he was her Dr. and he explained no because if something were to happen he didn't want to be responsible for it. They have my arms stretched out to the sides and he then puts the nasal canula to my nose, the plastic thing that delivers oxygen with the two prongs that go up your nose, and tells me the oxygen is for the baby not for me. He keeps standing up looking over the screen to see where they are with the c-section. He then tells me I passed the blue crab test. He had said there was a blue crab kept to the side and when they were ready they brought him out to pinch me to make sure I was numb. Then I hear Dr. Pierson say "Incision". So they were cutting into me already. He then says "Your husband better hurry up and get in here, he's going to miss everything." Right then his phone rings and he stands up and walks off and Jim sits down in his place. I didn't realize it at the time but it was probably around 3:35 3:40 at this point. What was supposed to be a 10 minute spinal turned into a 20/25 minute spinal. Cami also at that point stuck a little cotton ball under my nasal canula and tells me its a little rubbing alcohol to help with nausea. Its good that she did that because right then I started to feel sick.
So I'm laying there just staring at the ceiling and I can feel Jim sitting there just staring at me. We dont talk, we don't do anything but lay there, well I laid there, he sat there. Then out of nowhere my body starts rocking back and forth on the table. Like I am being moved from side to side. Jerked is more like it. I feel a heavy pressure on my chest. Almost as if they are up under my ribs doing stuff, and then I hear (I can't remember if Dr. Pierson said that she was out...I want to say she did because I was anticipating hearing her cry) Kenley's weak little cry. Instantly the tears started coming. I think I read somewhere that when preemies are born, you don't always hear their cry. Either they are too small for you to hear it or right away oxygen is put over their face and you can't hear it. So to know she was so tiny and so early, to hear her cry I knew I had a fighter on my hands. I laid there for a bit more and the NICU doctor and nurses wheeled her up beside me so I could see her. She was in her isolet (they used to call them incubators) and I remember it being so surreal seeing her. They stopped only for a split second to let me see her because they told me they wanted to get her to the NICU. They leave and then Jim asks me if I want him to go with her or stay with me. Of course I tell him to go with her and if I knew then what I know now, I would have had him stay with me. So he leaves with her and Cami tells me, about 5 minutes or so after that, that they are still working on closing me up its going to be another 15 minutes or so...I'm thinking...15 minutes!!!???? What in the world is going to take them so long? She asks me since I'm going to by lying there for awhile longer did I want something in my IV that relaxes me? Heck yeah! Well thats what I was thinking but I told her yes. So instantly I start to feel really good!!! Nice and relaxed and I remembering feeling like I was dozing off and all of a sudden Cami says, "Megan, I need you to take three deep breaths for me." So I started to breath nice and deep and kept doing it for awhile longer. I guess they don't want you falling asleep. oopps :)
Then Dr. Pierson pushes down the screen and looks over at me and says "has anyone ever told you you have a bicornuate uterus?" "No" I tell her. And after that I never thought of her saying that to me again until she comes to check on me that next morning. So they finish putting me back together...move me back over to my bed and wheel me to recovery. Jim meets me in there and asks me if I want him to go get my mom and I say yes.
So I'm really drugged up at this point and I remember stuff but its kind of blurry. So hang with me.
I remember laying in bed and feeling drugged but at the same time feeling really awake. It was just us, and a nurse, in recovery and the nurse spent most of her time at the computer by my bed typing stuff in. I'm sure I asked about Kenley but I honestly don't remember what I said. The nurse came over and asked me to wiggle my toes. Or at least try to. So I do it and it feels like I'm doing nothing and she says "They moved. It might not feel like they did but they did a little bit. That's good." I remember mom walking away from the bed to call Stephanie to let her know Kenley was here and everything was good at this point. Now obviously I have a high tolerance for pain. I dilated to 10 cm and had no clue, I was pricked in the spine numerous times for a spinal and never complained about anything. Well what the nurse was about to do to me was the worse pain I have ever felt and know I will ever feel...hopefully. She says to me "Now I will be the only one to do this this hard." and proceeds to push down on my abdomen with both hands with all of her strength. I'm still numb from the waist down but after having your stomach and uterus cut open and your baby pulled from it, having someone push on your abdomen hurts! If I could have moved I think I would have jumped off the table. She apologizes but I have never felt a worse pain in my life. I'm figuring they want to make sure everything feels ok in there and I'm sure to make sure the blood that was coming out was coming out like its supposed to. Apparently they want you to bleed. If you don't then thats a sign of a clot which is not good. I believe I had to stay in recovery for 30 minutes and by the time I got out of there it was around 5. They wheeled me back to my room in Antepartum and my dad came in the room. My nurse was getting things situated and all of a sudden I knew that stuff I drank before the c-section was coming back up. He tells me that Sue and B and Roger and Betty are all coming in to see me and I look at him and say "I'm going to be sick." The nurse hands him a little pink tub and all that nasty stuff I drank a few hours ago comes back up. I feel bad for my dad. Here he is holding this tub for me to puke in...I know he hadn't helped me while I was throwing up since I was a little girl. He then says he's going to tell everyone not to come in cause I wasn't feeling well. I felt bad for them not being able to come in. They had all been there during my surgery and had waited to see me then here I go messing things up by getting sick. I knew they understood though.
So Jim and mom come back in my room and he takes mom and dad down to the NICU to see Kenley and right then my sister and her husband come walking in. They sit down and we talk and after awhile Jim comes back in and is ready to take manda and ryan down to see her. By now mom and dad have my two nieces and are keeping them occupied so manda and ryan can visit with her. My nurse for that night also brought in my pumping equipment and told me that not right now but in the morning I would need to start pumping. Oh what fun that process turned out to be! I'm still really numb. I try moving my legs more and more to get the feeling back but its a slow process. They get me started on my pain meds and tell me that later on that night if I feel up to it I can go down and visit Kenley.
So everyone leaves for the night and Jim and I head down to the NICU. Me in a wheelchair of course and I remember feeling every bump on the way down. After you enter the NICU you have to do a little scrub down procedure. They want you to wash your hands up to your elbows for three minutes to make sure your hands are nice and clean. So he wheels me up to the sink so I can do that. We go into the NICU and into her room. Now I am pretty well drugged so it was really hard for me to cope while I was in the hospital. I don't want to say I was removed from the situation but with the amount of drugs I was on, it almost felt that way. I felt like she was in good hands and if I needed to know anything, the nurses and doctors knew where to find me. Unless you've been in that situation yourself its really hard to explain. I don't want to come off as being a cold hearted person but the feelings I had were very weird. Here I was just having my daughter but someone else was taking care of her. They didn't really need me for anything did they. Again...really hard to explain how I felt. This NICU was GREAT. Every baby had their own room and I couldn't imagine her having been in any other place. We went into the room and they lowered the isolet so I could see her. I remember thinking how small she was but I don't think I actually shed tears over the situation until that next morning. The had the CPAP on her face. Luckily she never had to be venilated. Her lungs were strong enough but she did need the CPAP for a couple days and she was on oxygen (nasal canula) for 13 days.
So here we were. She had arrived early...we had no idea why but we were about to find out. The next chapter will be about finding out why she came early and explaining why to this day, 6 months later, I am still sore from my c-section. (it has something to do with being jerked around on the table during the c-section) And also it will be her journey...57 days worth...of being in the NICU I still have a lot more to share!
amazing. cant wait for more.
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