Monday, January 07, 2008

Riley Grayson Zimmerman is HERE!

I finally had my little one and we came home from the hospital today.

There are a few pictures that can be seen here:
http://www.our365.com/webnursery/WebNursery/Baby/BabyPage.aspx?birthid=0&babyid=0
that were taken by the hospital. I will have more to share later once I'm a little more able to get up and around.

He arrived via emergency c-section on 1/3/2008 at 5:20pm. He weighed 6lbs 8ozs and was 18 inches long.

Apparently while I was in being induced the first time, my OB doctor went under the knife herself for emergency gall bladder surgery and my case was transfered to an on call doctor and that was why I was sent home. The on call doctor didn't have the last two weeks of my medical history and hadn't seen the sharp decline in my health. When I went to see my regular doctor on on Wednesday 1/2/07, they were appalled that I wasn't in the hospital recovering from having the baby and they propmply sent me back to the hospital to have the baby. I went back into the hospital on 1/2 and they started up the inducement procedure again at around 4pm. After about 24 hours of inducement, I started having sever pain in my upper right abdomen. About 45 minutes after that, my upper abdomen started to swell and distend. This prompted everyone into action. The doctors pushed very hard for me to get the epidural that I had refused in order to do the c-section and they made enough valid medical points in favor of the baby that I finally agreed to it. 4 stabs later, they got the epidural in place and we started in on our way to the main O.R. instead of the c-section O.R. in case my liver had ruptured again so they could perform that surgery as well without moving me. We all piled off the elevator on the second floor and started in on direction only to have someone say that we got off on the wrong floor. We piled back on to the elevator and before the doors closed another person said, no this is the right floor, we just went the wrong way. Everyone came back out of the elevator and started off. Mom and DH were then seperated from me and DH was told they would come get him once I was prepped for the c-section. I was taken to the O.R. where there was an ultrasound waiting. They checked the baby first and he was fine and then they took a look at my liver and upper abdomen and couldn't find any signs of bleeding. My doctor prepped me for c-section and told one of the nurses to go and get DH only to be told by the nurse that he would not be allowed in the main O.R. like he would have been in the c-section O.R. My doctor responded by pinching me to see if I was numb yet only to be told that I hadn't been given anything through the epidural yes. 4 doses through the epidural and 4 pinches later I was not numb at all so they put me under anyway since the epidural wouldn't take. I woke up and was transfered to a room and shown the baby about 9:30pm. I still had the big grin on my face that I had the moment I woke up in recovery and was told the baby was okay. I woke to find my child was healthy and I was alive since I was awake so the best of everything had happened as far as I was concerned. The general concensus is that the repeated contractions from 4 days had stretched and pulled the internal scar tissue around my liver and irritated it causing it to swell and cause severe pain. Once the C-section was done and the contractions stopped the swelling went down and I was okay and only needed the c-section and tubal to prevent further pregnancies.

I'm glad to be home. We have to keep Riley on a Billy light because he became more jaundiced than they wanted to see. He doesn't like laying on the light and I can't say that I blame him. The thing dosen't look all that comfortable. I'll be taking him to the doctor daily until is billirubin levels are down and he can be taken off the light. I have to go my doctor later this week too so that I can get my blood pressure levels checked since they haven't gone back done. I also have to follow up with a gastro speciallist for my liver in 3-4 weeks. I'm on bed rest until they can get my blood pressure stabalized but I'm happy to be home with the litttle guy in tow. You guys are welcome to call my cell and welcome to come by as long as you call first to make sure we are at home and not at the doctor. I welcome visitors since I can't go anywhere for a while.

Talk to everyone soon.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

I tried to get the kid out

The amnio showed that the kid's lungs were fine so I went into the hospital on Thursday and started my inducement at 4pm.

Friday at 4pm I was still 1cm.

Saturday at 4pm I was still 1cm and the doctor that came in was the on call doctor and not my regular doctor. When I started asking about my options and what they were going to do she basically in a round about way that she wouldn't do a c-section cause it was elective and she didn't do elective surgeries and that she didn't understand why I was being induced and risking my premature baby anyway so she couldn't justify a c-section but she would continue the inducement since that's what I wanted.

Sunday at 4pm I was still 1cm and the on call doctor came in and told that they were going to take me off the meds for a while so that I could shower and walk for a bit and then they would start again. I got up and showered and tried walking around but my feet were so swollen that they were starting to pit so walking was more painful than contractions. I got back to the room and waited and waited and waited and finally at 7pm I called the nurse and asked why my medications hadn't been started again. The nurse came in and let me know that they didn't feel I should be put back on medication because the inducement was obviously not working and they felt the best course of action was to admit me overnight for observation and if everything looked fine in the morning I could go home and see my normal doctor on Wednesday.

When they came in to the room yesterday to tell me I could go home, they told me to increase my blood pressure meds to 3 times a day and see me normal doctor on Wednesday and I asked them if MY doctor told me to increase the meds cause I had been told not to previously because it might endanger the baby. They couldn't tell me which doctor had given the order cause they had spoken to them on the phone.

I now sit here at home madder than a wet hen about going through contractions every 3-5 minutes for 3 days and then being sent home without a child and told to increase meds that I was previously told could hurt my child. I'm not increasing the meds. I am going to see my doctor tomorrow at 11am and I am going to vent about what happened and if I don't get answers that make sense I will be trying to find another OBG to finish out this pregnancy. Erin... I may need the name of your doctor.

During all this, my dad had to go to the doctor as well and they sent him to the hospital for testing and have discovered that he's in the early signs of emphazema. He's been put on 2 inhalers and a steroid and he's been told to stop smoking. Maybe he'll actually listen now and stop smoking 3 and 4 packs of cigarettes a day.

That's were I stand. I'm home. Worried about the tumor in my liver splitting my liver before I get back to the doctor. Worried about having to have a c-section when I didn't really want one. Worried about the baby being hurt by my high blood pressure. Worried about all this swelling going down in my hands and feet. Worried about having to find a new doctor in my 8th month of pregnancy. Mad at having gone through all this over the holiday weekend for nothing.

Hope everyone is having a good new year! Hopefully this year will be better for everyone than the last year.