Once I arrived at St. Vincent's High Risk OB floor, I was flooded with interns, residents, medical students, and staff doctors. Grant was in the car right behind the ambulance. It was a beautiful thing that one of Elise's uncles lives in Indianapolis and the other uncle, who lives in Arkansas, happened to be visiting Indianapolis for the Super Bowl. Both uncles and Daddy G were with me within seconds after I arrived.
I was starting to have severe guilt issues. I felt like I did this to myself and most importantly, I put Elise in this horrible position of arriving into this world way too early. Was it the 30 pounds (not going to lie) that I put on after my mother passed? Was it the junk food/high sodium foods I ate during 1st trimester? Was it the nights I laid on the couch instead of getting up and going on a walk outside? I felt like I was a horrible mother already.
Luckily, Dr. Simon, a staff neonatologist, connected with me and snapped me out of it. He sat at the edge of my bed, grabbed my hand firmly, and said "You did NOTHING wrong. You did not cause this. You could not have prevented this. And most importantly, you WILL be ok." Something about hearing this from a professional preemie doctor totally helped me get over the guilt hump.
The first night at St. Vincent's I continued to spike my BP's. So much that Dr. Sumners, a staff high risk OB doc, started to think I would be giving birth my first night. I was on 3 blood pressure meds and my numbers were not declining.
However, by the next day, I started to produce good BP numbers. I became a "watch and wait" patient with Dr. Sumners saying, "You may be here for a while, but that's a good thing. The longer your baby girl can cook inside the better." I got a round of steroids for little lady and had 3 days of docs saying "keep cooking." We became confident that I might truly be sitting for awhile, so G headed home to Schneck to get some work done. Surprisingly, the pull out sofa in my room along with beeping monitors and nurses coming in at all hours to check my BP were not giving G good nights. I was relieved that he could go home and get back into our own bed. However, when he left Monday, I cried like a little girl. I look back at this and think maybe it was foreshadowing for what was coming.
2 days later, Dr. Sumners went to Texas to a presentation and Dr. Deaton took over. Every 4 hours the little lady went on the monitor so they could see how she was handling everything in the womb. Tuesday night into Wednesday her monitoring did not look good. Dr. Deaton was worried that there was blood going back into the umbilical cord...a sign of distress and a sign of emergency delivery.
Wednesday morning, February 8th by 11:00 am, Dr. Deaton told me that I would need to get my husband up here as soon as possible. He unfortunately was going to have to deliver our baby at 1:00 pm. I was alone and scared to death as I picked up my cell phone and made the call to my husband who was an hour and a half away. Again, luckily, Uncle Jordan was 20 minutes away and came quickly. G made it around 12:15. Uncle Matt and Aunt Becky started their 9 hour drive from Arkansas. Ami and Grande started their 4 hour drive from Milwaukee. Aunt Suzi and Aunt Jennie came from Seymour along with Grandma and Grandpa Raynor and Aunt Lulu started her 4 hour drive from Chicago. I was going to be surrounded by love...but most importantly, Elise was going to be as well.
They started the magnesium, got me prepped and I was off for my first delivery...an emergency C-section.
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