Steve & Michelle

The Story That Led To My Month Early Delivery

Sorry for the extremely long post!

Saturday April 18th as Steve and I were getting ready to leave his parents I realized I had a sore throat coming on so on our way home we stopped at Walgreens to get me some Zicam to hopefully stop the cold before it started and to get Steve some sudafed because he was already sick and had been sick for a week. Well I ended up getting sick. I had to work that next Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. I also had 2 Baby Showers that week. My ward was throwing me one on Thursday night and my work was throwing one Sunday night after work.

At my Ward Baby shower about a week and a half before I delivered 4/23/09. Starting to feel miserable from my cold!

One week before I delivered 4/26/09. This was at my work baby shower which I felt awful at! The on call doctor that I talked to the night before actually told me not to go to work that Sunday and to stay at home and relax but I couldn't do that we hardly have anybody that works Sundays and I had my baby shower that night so I went to work and my boss was nice enough to let me go home early to go home and relax before my shower. I ended up going to the hospital that night after I had come home from my shower at about 10. They ended up giving me fluids and was checking the baby's heart beat and my contractions which I ended up having some really killer contractions so they checked me to make sure I wasn't going into labor. I was dilated 2 cm so they kept me a little longer to watch me but my contractions stopped and we left the hospital at about 3 that morning. I was suppose to work that next morning to do some training for our new system that our pharmacy was getting and I thankfully got a note from the nurse to excuse me from work.

So that Monday morning 4/27/09 I called my doctors office to see if there was anything I could take for my cold. I felt horrible! I was so weak! I felt like I was going to fall over just getting up to go to the bathroom. I stayed in bed all day.

Tuesday morning 4/28/09 I woke up at about 5 in the morning and was having really bad back and stomach pains. They were coming about every 10 minutes and lasting for about a couple minutes. This lasted for about an hour so I decided to call the on call doctor and they told me to come in. I went in and they hooked me up to the monitor and gave me another IV but this time they gave me some kind of fluid that would sub for food because they said I didn't have any food in my system so this would help keep my body from taking from my muscles. Every thing was looking fine on the monitors so they ran some test to make sure I didn't have a kidney infection or a urinary tract infection. Those came back fine and I was scheduled later that day to have an ultrasound at my doctors office. A week and a half before at one of my check ups my doctor said I was measuring small so she wanted to schedule me for an ultrasound to check the growth of the baby and my amniotic fluid index. Well the on call doctor at the hospital said they were just going to do the ultrasound at the hospital. We had the ultrasound and the ultrasound tech said my fluid looked low but the she scored an 8 out of 8 on another test they do. They ended up releasing me from the hospital around 3 that afternoon.

The Wednesday before I delivered 4/29/09 which was mine and Steve's 3 Year Wedding Anniversary. We went to Chili's for late lunch I still wasn't feeling very good but I didn't want to sit at home on our anniversary because that's what we ended up doing on Valentines Day because I was sick and Steve was working crazy hours so I sucked it up but that was the extent of our Anniversary.

Friday 5/01/09 I had my routine visit with my doctor. She ended up putting me on a z-pack to try and help get rid of my nasty cold and I told her I had been to the hospital a couple of times the past week and that they ended up doing my ultrasound at the hospital instead of the office so she said she was going to call over to the hospital to get them to send over the results of my ultrasound. I left my appointment and about an hour later I got a call from my doctor and she said that my fluid looked low and she wanted me to some in to the hospital that next morning for another ultrasound to check my fluid again. She told me to drink lots of fluid and she wanted me on bed rest till the next morning and to get lots of sleep.

Saturday 5/02/09 I had my ultrasound at 10:30 that morning Steve had to work so I had to go by myself which was the worst! I felt awful and didn't even feel like driving. The nurse came in to do the ultrasound and was like yeah your fluids are really low so she had the on call doctor come in and look at it. He came in and did the ultrasound again and he agreed! He said he had to look really hard to get a 7.5 which isn't good so he wanted to give me fluids and to keep me overnight. and to check it again in the morning! This is when I realized that I could possibly be having her sooner than I expected. The doctor told me if my amniotic fluid level didn't go up that they would induce labor. I called Steve at work crying and in a panic almost to tell him the news so he left work early and came up to the hospital. So they gave me tons of fluids the rest of the day and into that morning.

Sunday 5/03/09 they came and got me about 8 that morning to go down and have my ultrasound. I asked the ultrasound tech what my levels were at and she said she was getting a 5 so I knew they would induce me. They took us back up to the room and my doctor came in shortly after. I was so excited that she was the doctor on call but I told her what they said my levels were at and she went to look at the results from the ultrasound and came back in later and was like yeah we are going to have to induce you. I asked her if I would be able to eat before they started giving me Oxytocin and she said yeah. So Steve ran and grabbed me breakfast. I called my mom and sister to let them know so they booked their flight to get in that night around 11:30 and 11:45. They started the Oxytocin around 2 p.m. around 7 p.m. I would say my contractions started getting really strong. I can't really remember when they started or what time I got my epidural but I do remember after my epidural and after I was feeling good and not in pain anymore it was 9:50 and I realized I had just missed Desperate Housewives so I got Steve to turn it on so I could catch the last 10 minutes of it. Before they gave me the epidural they had given me some Fentanyl to numb the pain so I could hopefully hold out a little longer but that lasted for a good 5 minutes. After the epidural Steve an I decided to take a nap because we knew we had a long night ahead of us. When the nurse came in about an hour later to turn me to the other side she realized my water had broke so she cleaned me up. I think at this point i was dilated to a 7. Both my sister and my mom's flight ended up being delayed and I was praying they would make it. they ended up getting to the hospital about 1 a.m. and I started pushing around 1:25 a.m and had our baby girl at 2:31 a.m. The labor went really well it was very calm and relaxed and nothing like I thought it would be or like I had seen on a Baby Story. I was just so excited to meet our baby girl and couldn't believe she was ours!