Raising Resco

The title to this post is the most accurate saying for my last few weeks of pregnancy with our little boy. For some, pregnancy seems to take forever. They can’t wait for their little babe to come into the world, but each day drags on with endless amounts of nausea, headaches, backaches, and cravings only to fall asleep at night and do it all over again the following day. For others, pregnancy goes by so fast. They forget to enjoy the little moments and look back thinking to themselves, “wow I miss my bump” or “whoa I can’t quite remember what it felt like when my baby kicked.” For me, pregnancy went slow and then fast and then slow again.

We found out that Rayden and I were expecting at just four weeks. I was referred to a doctor by a friend, and we quickly scheduled an appointment with the most amazing doctor, Dr. P (we will keep her name to ourselves out of respect to her) in Lincoln Ne.

When eight weeks finally rolled around, I found myself and my mother anxiously waiting in the lobby for my appointment. Unfortunately, Rayden was traveling for work and couldn’t attend (don’t worry, he got an excited phone call after). After a short wait, we got to go back to a room and I had an ultrasound done and gave a family health history report. Everything looked perfect!!!

The rest of my pregnancy went just as normal and our little babe was growing just perfectly! He was actually measuring two weeks ahead most of the time, little chunky boy!

That was the slow part for us…

…the fast continues as follows…

August 11, 2020.. I had been filing in at the school working as a substitute. I utilized the school nurse (a super great lady and awesome nurse!!) for tracking my slowly rising blood pressure and slowly beginning to swell legs/feet. She finally sent me home on August 12, 2020 and told me to call my doctor. When I arrived at my primary care doctors office for a blood pressure check it had risen to 147/103 and my feet no longer fit in my shoes. I was advised to call the (now closed) office of Dr. P the next day to let her know and she would take it from there.

August 13, 2020.. I woke up at two in the morning and realized the bed was wet. Now often times pregnant women will accidentally pee their pants and I will be honest, it had happened before for me. Ha! Well I got out of bed and woke Rayden up (he was home for the weekend recuperating before starting on the project that was just an hour from home the following week) just to realize I couldn’t stop peeing. Well I didn’t think much of it, as I was only 32 weeks along. Rayden fell back asleep and I laid awake in bed for three hours, wondering if I needed to call the on-call doctor or not. Well I called the next best person… MOM. I told her about what had happened and thinking back now, she was totally trying to keep her self calm while talking to me, but she advised me to call the doctor just to be on the safe side.

Five in the morning rolls around and I wake Rayden to tell him that I am going to call the doctor. After speaking with the on-call doctor, he advised us to come in to the the labor and delivery floor to get checked out. So we threw a few things in a bag (I hadn’t even packed my hospital bag yet) and took off towards Lincoln, which was just over an hour drive. This felt like the longest drive of my life…

Upon arriving at the hospital we quickly walked up to the labor and delivery floor, where they were already waiting for our arrival and quickly put us in an exam room. They checked to see if I was dilated (even though I was not having contractions) and took a swab to see if the fluid was amniotic fluid (i.e. and my water breaking). Now we wait….

…and wait…

…and wait, for what seemed like YEARS…

…when all of a sudden, and I kid you not (no pun intended), three nurses burst through the door and say my water broke and that they were rushing me down the hall to a labor and delivery room! Holy Cow!! If my blood pressure wasn’t high before, it definitely was now!! They put in two IVs and smack on a fetal heart rate monitor, only to realize the small contractions I was having, weren’t anything serious and after an ultrasound, realized I still had over 75% of my amniotic fluid left…. They could try to stop the labor!!

Remember when I said “Fast…then slow… then FAST” ? Here comes the slow again…

They quickly called in my doctor to come in and created a plan of care for us. 32 weeks is not an ideal time to deliver a baby, and with my high blood pressure they were worried about putting the baby and myself in distress. They decided that they would try to keep me in the hospital for 8 more weeks to keep this baby in. They would monitor my blood pressure, give me and little man two steroid shots, and do daily checks to make sure there was not an infection in my uterus because of the perforated amniotic sac and leaking fluid. So we buckled down and prepared to sit tight… Oh wait, I mean lay on my head with my feet up for three fourths of the day to keep my baby inside.. Ha!!

Did I mention that August 13th was the night that everyone and their dog decided to go into labor?! Well since they had so many moms in active labor, while trying to stop mine, they moved us up to a room on the post partum floor.

This began our stay in Lincoln.. over an hour from home, with a non-packed hospital bag, no tooth brushes, and planning for an eight week stay…

…or so we thought…