A Slightly Early Father's Day Gift

So yesterday turned out to be an unusual day....I got up and got ready for my 39-week appointment. It's been a rough few weeks and I was definitely feeling sluggish, but I knew I'd get through it and go on with my workday afterwards. When I got to the doctor's office, I remember looking at the staircase (it's really not that tall) and thinking....geez, SO many stairs...it's going to take me forever to get up there. I just wasn't feeling like myself but figured it was the heat. I was already sweating like a pig!

I got into the doctor's office and they had already signed me in, pulled my folder and told me to come back into the lab. Well, that was easy! I can't remember the last time I didn't have to sit around in the waiting room forever. I did my usual routine...go to the bathroom, pee in the cup, etc, etc. When I went into the lab to get weighed, the nurse sort of raised an eyebrow when she looked at the scale and said 'Wow, you must be retaining a lot of fluid!'

Apparently I'd put on a good 6 to 8 pounds in a week. Weird...but I was definitely swollen from head to toe, so that seemed about right.

She took me into another room and strapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm. She looked at the number and said 'You don't feel very good, do you?'

And I told her I didn't. How did she know this? Well, apparently my blood pressure decided to skyrocket sometime between last week's appointment and this week's. She asked me if I was still working and I said yes. And she shook her head and said 'probably not after today.'

Hmm...alright, guess I'm on bedrest for the next week...that's what I was thinking.

Then Dr. Donnelly came in. 'Looks like you're starting to get Toxemia,' he told me.

He continued to explain that while I shouldn't be too alarmed, it's a form of high blood pressure that sometimes happens during first pregnancies. He did his usual pelvic exam on me and as I was lying on the table, I told him I hadn't been feeling good lately and had been joking to my husband that I didn't think I could make it through next week.

And then he looked straight at me and said 'I don't think you're going to make it through tomorrow.' And I'm pretty sure my blood pressure shot up even more.

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" I started to scream.

He shrugged and said "It means you're going to have a baby tomorrow."

And then there came the waterfall. I just started to cry. He helped me off the table and told me to get dressed and then come into his office so we could talk about it some more. Wow...what the HELL was happening? This was Wednesday. Just another day. I was supposed to go to work and come home and have leftover chicken stir-fry for dinner with with Eric and clean the basement before my parents came for the weekend. I started to get dressed and tried to suck it up but just kept blubbering. Sure, I was ready to have a baby...but tomorrow???

I managed to pull myself together, go into his office and there we sat and had a nice talk. He explained that with my condition, it would only get worse if I didn't deliver. And it was unhealthy and risky for both the baby and me, but the condition would be cured once I gave birth. And since the baby appeared to be close to 8 pounds and I have a particularly small pelvis, he said a C-section was the only sensible solution. He also told me that even though Thursday wasn't his day at the hospital, he wanted to be the one to do the procedure so he would make arrangements. Oh, and by the way, I was going to be checking into the hospital later this afternoon. More shocking information!

Then next 15 minutes are sort of a fog. I went to the office manager and had my appointment set, asked a few questions and then I was out the door. I got in the car and put on the air conditioning and just sat there for a few minutes before I called Eric. He stayed surprisingly calm and said he would go ahead and leave the office and meet me at the house. Then I called my boss and he wished me luck and told me he would handle everything for me. Then I called my mom....and so on, and so forth. At least I had a clear enough head to drive after that.

We didn't have an appointment time and were just asked to show up whenever, so that's what we did. We took care of a few things around the house, tried to clean up a little more, did a load of laundry, finished packing our bags, made arrangements for the dog and by about 6pm, we were out the door, just like that .

Last night we got checked in and went straight to our room. They drew some blood, hooked me up to some monitors and that was that. It was a very low-key night. We made lots of phone calls to catch people up, watched some TV and then went to bed. Eric slept more than I did. I pretty much tossed and turned, and pretended to sleep through the night. I couldn't get my brain to turn off completely. I guess I fell asleep at some point though, because the next thing I knew the sun was out. And here it was...Thursday, June 11th....the day of my son's birth!!

Today has been less fun. They got to work pretty quickly on my monitors, took some blood, gave me an IV (not cool) and now I will be waiting till around 1:15pm to get my epidural. And then at 2:15pm I'll be rolled into the operating room and I'll have the c-section. Wow....so many emotions and thoughts are running through my head....Eric will be getting his Father's Day gift a week early and....in less than four hours I can hold my brand new, baby boy and...I'm going to be a MOM!!!!