Birth Story

We wanted to share Naomi's birth story with everyone because it is such a testimony to how God provided for us and looked after me during this whole process.

About 2 weeks before the due date I started to get severe back pain that woke me up in the middle of the night. The pain was so bad that it kept me up the rest of the night. After two nights of excruciating pain I went to the doctor and was told that there is nothing they can really do for back pain because I was pregnant. They prescribed some pain medication to take at night. For a couple of nights the medicine helped, but then about 3 days later I woke up again with horrible back pain. I called the doctor again and he referred me to a back specialist because they might have some other options to help with the pain. I got an appointment for Monday (April 7th) which was good because I had another rough night being up for several hours with back pain. I went to work in the morning and looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame because of the back pain. After visiting the back specialist she told me that I needed to be out of work for about 2 weeks and referred me to a physical therapist to help with the pain. After the appointment I went back to work and with the help of my wonderful teammates and awesome sub was able to leave work that day with everything ready for me to be out of work. 

Monday night I was up again with back pain. We called the doctor because the pain was so bad for another night. She told us that we could come in to the hospital to the labor and delivery unit. They would only check on the baby and make sure that she was doing ok, but then they would probably send me to the ER for the back pain. After hearing this I told Jeff that we might as well stay home because it sounded like nothing much could be done. After being in pain for about 2 hours Jeff dragged me to the car and told me we were going to the hospital.

Once arriving at the hospital I was hooked up to fetal monitors. The doctor came in and told us the same thing as before: they were going to monitor the baby. If all was good with her we would go to the ER, if anything seemed to be off we would talk about it when that happened. After being hooked up to the monitor for a while the doctor was concerned about her heart rate and my blood pressure so I was given an IV. My nurse was absolutely fantastic and took great care of me. She kept trying to help me get into positions that didn't hurt my back, but that would still monitor the baby. After about an hour with my IV the doctor decided to induce me because Naomi's heart rate hadn't gotten any better. So I was then given Petocin and a second IV as well as blood being drawn.

Then everything started to go very fast from there. Naomi still didn't look good and my blood pressure started to sky rocket within an hour (at one point is was 200 something/100 something). My blood work came back and my liver levels were extremely high because my liver wasn't working properly. My platelets were off too (mine were 24, they are supposed to be 250). The doctor decided that we needed to do an emergency cesarean. The anesthesiologist came down to walk us through their part of the surgery and discussed that they needed to give me platelets during the surgery. They were also going to have 3 bags of blood on hand just in case they were needed because the risk of bleeding out was so great. 

At this point in the night I really think God was looking after my mental well being because there were several phrases that I didn't even hear. Phrases like: "she might bleed out", "There will be 3 anesthesiologists on hand", "This could be a dangerous pregnancy disease", "I called in another doctor to help because this is so high risk".

After being prepped in the room with leg compressors for circulation, more IV fluids, and signing papers I say goodbye to my family and was wheeled back into the operating room. Once I was in the room everything got even more surreal and I don't remember much. I do remember them rushing around the room and the room being filled with tons of people. At one point I had 3 people trying to give me a second IV point just in case they needed to give me more medicine or blood. The good thing is that all of the doctors and nurses in the room were very kind and kept talking with me to try to help with the scariness of the moment. Jeff said that it took 20 minutes from the time I was wheeled back to when Naomi was born. She was born on 4/08 at 6:57 AM. I was out of surgery not long after that (about 45 minutes).

The doctors told Jeff that I had done really well in surgery, but they had to send me to ICU. Jeff and my mom got to come and give me a kiss as they were wheeling me to the ICU room for monitoring because my liver was so bad and the platelets were so low. I was in ICU for about 2 hours before they let anyone come visit me, but our families could go and see Naomi in the nursery. 

In ICU I was then given 24 hours of Magnesium because my blood pressure was still really high. This is supposed to help prevent seizures. This medicine is supposed to make you feel really sick to your stomach and muscle weakness in the eyes. I absolutely hate throwing up, but thankfully I wasn't sick to my stomach at all. I just had a really difficult time focusing my eyes; they kept darting all over. In ICU they kept drawing my blood about every three hours to keep an eye on all my levels. I got to see Naomi about 2 times during my stay in the ICU. After 24 hours I was released from ICU and brought down to the Maternity ward. 

In the maternity ward they took my blood every 6 hours and my levels kept improving. Once down on this floor I started to feel much better and was able to really see Naomi and spend some time with her. From then on everything kept improving. The doctors kept saying how sick I was and how lucky I was. Us knowing better-luck had nothing to do with it, God was watching over me.

We also found out that I was an abnormality. My doctors consulted with a perinatal specialist from Duke to help determine what exactly was going on with my body. I never had high blood pressure during any portion of my pregnancy (before I came to the hospital), never had swelling, and never had protein in my urine. I had symptoms of preeclampsia, acute Fatty Liver of Pregnancy, and HELLP syndrome. The specialist said that the best way to describe what I had was severe a-typical preeclampsia with HELLP. I also found out from the pediatrician that checked on Naomi that they were discussing air lifting me to Duke. 

The Lord was definitely looking out for me, protected me, and helped to heal my body. After 4 1/2 days of being in the hospital we got to come home because my blood levels were making their way back towards normal. With all this craziness we were totally blessed with 2 miracles: a healthy baby girl and a healthy me. I'll post some hospital pictures later but here are some for now:

Thank you to everyone who was praying for us! God definitely answered all the prayers that were lifted up for us!