Nate's arrival

You'd think after having 7 days in hospital I'd have this post all thought out but I haven't and I'm tired and I realise that people like me that like to know all the birth details have been waiting so I'm just going to blurt out words as I remember the events, hope they make some sense.

Here's me on Wednesday and Thursday morning last week. Feeling completely fine, a tad heavy but excited my Mum was staying and that baby was due sometime in the next few weeks. I have some hippy friends and I was looking forward to third time around perhaps having a home, or water birth. My first two births had been pretty straight forward and I'd had no complications this pregnancy so I was pretty confident the third birth would follow suit.
(note: that cute little boy in the second picture is my gorgeous nephew Theo who I was babysitting that morning. Talk about your peaches and cream goodness.)

So I went off to my Midwife appointment Thursday afternoon, all very routine to find that I had high blood pressure and traces of protein in my Urine. My Midwife was a bit taken aback as this signals pre eclampsia and from all accounts I was pretty low risk at having this but she phoned the hospital, had me admitted and told me to call Marcus, head on up to the hospital and it was most likely that I would be induced. We were so thankful that my Mum who was staying was still here and that she would be able to cancel her bus home the next day and stay on longer to look after the kids.

This is a photo Mum took just before Marcus took me up to the hospital. Those are red rings around my eyes because I was flustered and crying. I hadn't even packed my hospital bag and I hated the idea of induction- forcing labour and a birth unnaturally. I'd also heard inductions weren't that nice so there was a bit of fear in there too.

At the hospital, the doctors agreed that I had mild pre eclampsia and that as I was only a couple of days out from full term, the best bet was induction. I told them I would prefer to have a good nights sleep and start the induction process in the morning. They were happy with this, I was monitored, Marcus went home and I tried to prepare myself mentally. At this point I still felt completely fine so was hoping my blood pressure would just settle and all would be well in the morning.

Friday morning, 7am, they applied the induction gel and Marcus and I flicked on a movie on his laptop to watch while we waited for labour to kick in. There were tightenings almost straight away and then around 11.30am real contractions had kicked in. I couldn't sit down anymore but had to pace the room and lean on the wall during each contraction. We called my midwife at this point to say things were all happening. She arrived at midday, checked me out to find I was 5 cm dilated so broke my waters and we headed to delivery room. As there was no birth pool in the room I was in and the need for them to monitor the baby  I gave up on my hippy birth plan and just figured I'd do it like I had the others. This baby, been alot smaller than my first two came very quickly and was born after 1 quick push. Yay- not even any tearing. I was grateful for a small baby and thought this pre eclampsia might not be such a bad thing after all.

And he was gorgeous. A little boy who we were yet to name. We wanted to see what he looked like and what would suit him.

We went back to the ward where I showered, had some food and we set about thinking of a name for him. It was I thought pretty much all behind us. The cure for pre eclampsia they say is not been pregnant anymore, which I wasn't so it was just a matter of rest and time.

But I started to feel chest pain like I had all this pressure in there. Marcus and I actually thought it might be gas so he went off to get me a diet coke so I could try and burp it out. Meanwhile the pain got worse, I vomited and my blood pressure was going a bit nuts getting dangerously high. They wheeled me back to the delivery suite where they could hook me up to a drip, a catheter, monitor me much closely and work out what was happening to my liver, kidneys and Platelets. It seems my mild case of pre eclampsia had just turned more serious with me developing HELLP syndrome. (basically a complication of severe pre eclampsia or toxemia as it used to be known with the added danger of my blood not clotting.) That night and all of Saturday my platelet levels kept dropping. They were preparing to transfer me to intensive care for a blood transfusion if my platelet level reached 20. (I think normal is about 150) On Saturday night they got to 22 then as they checked every few hours they started to climb, 25, 28, and finally on Sunday 58. I had dodged a transfusion...just and now we just had to wait. My liver and kidneys were responding well and the medication they were giving me for my blood pressure was working at keeping it low. On Monday my platelets had risen to 76 and on Tuesday were 114.

On Wednesday they were happy that I was on the mend and out of danger so was discharged. Here's some photos from my week.

These things were great by the way. They pumped air  in and out while I slept to prevent blood clots. Was like having a massage while I slept. 

 Mum and baby 3 a ouple of hours old. The face he is pulling here cracks me up every time!

Delievery room 5 and where I spent the next 3 days.

Yum, hospital food, and you know what, it wasn't even that bad. 

Back to the ward. Room 25

Dad drove down on Sunday afternoon for a few days. He was a great support to Mum and me and even helped Marcus clean the garage out. Yay- that was a years worth of work. Thanks Dad.

Marcus was awesome and endured 2 nights on this chair looking after baby as they monitored me hourly.

And check out what the rest of family got up to while I was enjoying the peace and quiet and hospital food. They had a National Party balloon popping party. Yes that's right, while all this was going on our nation had an election. Lucky for us National won. (Marcus is a big National fan if you hadn't noticed this year).

By the way, we ended up calling him Nathan Timothy. He is a dream baby. The Lord knew I wasn't up to much less this time around. Also apologies about all the doctor speak in this. I promise my little stint at playing ER is over. It's good to be home.