I tried to be the Perfect Mother. I Almost Died. Part C

So, my attempts to be all things and all places for my children really just resulted in high blood pressure. Really high blood pressure. In all honesty, there really should be a "has children syndrome" to go hand in hand with the "white coat syndrome." That just seems responsible.

So, I had an appointment for a geriatric ultrasound. You know, the kind they do when you are old and still having babies. To make sure that as your mind fails you still can grow responsibilities. I was tempted to postpone it, I had a good reason. It was the best day to take the kids to the fair, like I had told them I would. My ultrasound was right at noon, which was a highly inconvenient. The father figure said it was absurd to postpone it. This is important for later. 

Mac, X-Man and Cinco were up at their grandparent's house. Because we had destroyed our kitchen. Our home is nice, but small. It was small before D'Garebear showed up. After he showed up, well it became absurdly small. Even without him being present in the home. So, we decided the best thing to do as I entered my third trimester was to redo the kitchen. We redid the bathroom during my first trimester. Looking back, I think it would have been more bizarre if I hadn't developed blood pressure issues. But anyway, in our attempts to prepare the house for sale or rental, we decided to destroy it, while inviting more children in to live. We thought it through. 

So, three kids were away at grandma's. Baba was off to take care of the house she was house sitting. That left Baby. So I invited her to come see her little brother at my AARPsound. And so we set off.

The geezersound went well, I thought. D'Garebear mooned us and refused to show his face, but nothing seemed amiss. Then the doctor came in. She said there were some things that she didn't like about me, well get in line lady, and she wanted me to go hang out at the hospital for a little to make sure that all was well. She admitted that she was the "Princess of Darkness" always seeing the worst possible scenario and that she was probably overreacted. I tried to reassure her and she told me everything I was telling her made her even more concerned. Well, I tried.

So we all headed over, across the street to the hospital. I encouraged the father figure to walk with me in order to lower my blood pressure. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible because I hadn't eaten yet that day. I had visions of the pleasant lunch after all the excitement. By the time I got to triage, I was rocking triple digit blood pressure readings, both systolic and diastolic. After a few of those readings, things got a bit more serious. Blood tests were started, magnesium sulfate was started and they gave me a steroid shot for D'Garebear's lungs.

When I'm uncomfortable, I resort to humor. The father figure was getting more and more anxious, and visibly so. While I was supposed to be relaxing and thinking low blood pressure thoughts. So I reminded him that there was no way I would die. God wouldn't allow it. Not because I was a wonderful person or anything. But because I would enjoy watching the father figure try to wrangle six children and trying to juggle their schedules. There's no way God would drop that much suffering in the father figure's lap while I enjoyed the spectacle. The theology is solid.

Furthermore, I comforted the father figure by telling him is odds of finding everlasting love on a Christian dating site as a widowed father of six. He was basically a walking twenty first century Von Trapp family. He'd been inundated by starry eyed twenty somethings with visions of matching outfits and melodies. Baby understood the hilarity of the situation as well, and joined in. The father figure got so agitated he actually started pacing. Threatening to haunt the father figure and his new and improved bride, if she was more attractive than me, did not help lower my blood pressure.

Instead, they announced I was being admitted.

So the father figure took Baby home and I thought about how I was missing lunch. Those thought morphed into how I was also missing dinner. The father figure returned, with a cell phone charger for me and I expected my blood pressure to immediately lower. It did not. Even with drugs, it did not.

The "Princess of Darkness" Doctor entered the room around 6:30pm. This is important because my ultrasound was at noon. And I was hungry then. Now, I was hangry.

She told us in her blunt and straightforward way that I was very sick. Surprisingly sick, for how I looked and how active I was. My kidneys were quitting, my liver was quitting and my blood pressure was begging for a stroke. So, she said, I had an over 50% chance of having an emergency c-section that night. All depended on how my numbers reacted to the medication. And, if I didn't have the baby that night, I would be remaining in the hospital until I did, which best case scenario was at 34 weeks gestation.

I was at 28 weeks.

The father figure looked rather ill and I promptly thought, this is my kid. He'll respond well to the treatments and I'm going to end up in hospital arrest for the next six weeks. Crawling the walls. Seriously, I wasn't allowed to walk anywhere, I had the option, if my blood pressure lowered to be pushed places in a wheelchair. More importantly because they didn't know if I would have surgery, I couldn't eat. Pretty much everything was horrible.

D'Garebear cooperated and there was no c-section that night. The following morning I tried to negotiate a release, I didn't feel all that sick, what's the worst that could happen? Apparently a stroke and/or placental abruption. I was told I'd only be allowed to leave if I signed a form acknowledging I was leaving against medical advice. And I called an Uber because there was no way the father figure was going to bring me home. Meanwhile, the father figure had decided that by shooting down my plan to skip the ultrasound and taking everyone to the fair, he has saved my life. And he became just a wee bit insufferable because of this.

I stayed for two days, doing better, getting very antsy. But I also managed to get two doses of steroids in me, which caused what they call a "steroid honeymoon." I felt better, my numbers were slightly better and D'Garebear continued on swimmingly. They hoped they could get me twenty four hours past the last steroid dosage. And so, 28 hours after the last round of steroids, things started deteriorating. I got physically very ill, and developed nose bleeds. The OB on duty came in an said if things didn't improve I was most likely going to have a c-section. I was annoyed because it was almost ten pm and I just wanted to go to sleep. I felt like I had every night at home, puking before bed was just  a "normal" pregnancy ritual. And then, something happened.

D'Garebear disappeared from the monitors. They had put them on an hour earlier just to check how he was doing. He had been fine. And now he was gone. Not a slow heart rate, no heart rate. Something was wildly different because three nurses burst into the room joining the OB and nurse who had been hanging out with me. I had just tried to text the father figure, but there were so many people doing things, I couldn't get my hands to work. So I called him. I wasn't sure what was happening but the business indicated something seriously amiss. The father figure answered and I told him "Things are getting interesting, you should come up." And then a nurse put an oxygen mask on me and the conversation was over.

They had me try differing positions, quickly and yet there seemed no sign of D'Garebear. Honestly, I don't know if his heart rate returned and was just slow, or what. But within three minutes, we were running down the hall. Ok, I wasn't running, I was on the bed and they were running me down. Putting a hair net on me and commenting on how calm I was.

I was calm because there was nothing else to do. This was happening. I just hoped the father figure would make it up in time because it sounded like I was going to be knocked out. Approaching the OR, D'Garebear's heart rate returned, strong and healthy. This bought time. I got a spinal instead of general. It also bought me time to think. I'd love to say I had beautiful thoughts about my son, determined to make sure he was brought into the world surrounded by peace and love. But no, that's not really what I was  thinking. I was thinking "It's cold in here. I'm not wearing much in the way of clothing and there are a lot of people here." Also "this is all surreal."

The anesthesiologist  was wearing a scrub cap with stormtroopers on it. I asked him if I should really accept drugs from someone from the dark side. Apparently this had never been asked of him and he found it hilarious. He repeated it for the father figure when he appeared. And then the c-section began.

It was unpleasant, but birth isn't ever particularly fun. At 11:30pm D' Garebear was brought into the world. They pulled down the sheet and I laid eyes on my son for the first time, behind a plastic screen. And I thought my little man looked rather simian. And his squeaks added to the monkey resemblance.

D'Garebear was termed "floppy" when he first arrived, but the nurses said the benefits of the steroids were clear. He was two and a half pounds, micropreemie size, but solid and big for how very young he was. He was fifteen and three quarter inches long. He came ready to fight and he has been. His disapearing heart rate was due to a partial placental abruption, just what the Princess of Darkness had warned us would happen.


D'Garebear has passed the baby monkey phase and now look more like an old man. As he chubs up, his baby features become more obvious.He's not a fan of the cpap and has pulled it off a couple of times. He needs time, but he's remarkably healthy and strong.


And I just love him to pieces.