And so it began...
When I left off, I had just found out about mr peanuts. It was quite an interesting ride, let me tell you! He is absolutely amazing, but I'll get to that part later. I got a referral to see an ob/gyn and made my appt. I went to the appt expecting to have a normal intake type thing and get my schedule. I knew I'd be high risk, but I guess I had no idea how high risk I'd be. When I gave them my past medical, the nurse was rather stunned looking and at the end of the appt tells me she'll run my case by the dr to see if he accepts me. Well guess what? He didn't.
Turns out no one in my hobunk hillbilly hell town in bumblefuck california would take me. Not a damn one. I should mention I'm only about 80 miles away from LA at this point I guess. I got to 16 weeks before my insurance could find a dr willing to take my case. She is in LA...and wouldn't deliver me here. I honestly don't remember if I mentioned the speed with which my middle son was born but it was fast. So we made plans to go down there and we were on an entirely unexpected journey to reach a goal.
The first appt was routine, this was a clinic used to high risk patients. Not used to white patients at all, but that's a whole other story, lol. I'm not racist or anything btw, just that plays into my treatment. I was a novelty. Here I was at this point almost halfway through an impossible pregnancy with a one in a million chance of not dying carrying this kid to term. Not the kind of patient they get to see every day. And to top it off, I am as white as they come and not from the area.
That first visit we discussed my options. I guess they felt it was necessary to tell me that I should terminate for my health. That just was not an option. By this time, I could feel him move, I had a doppler I'd gotten off ebay and I had heard his little heart beating. Hell I'd seen him on the ultrasound at the ER when I was dehydrated.
Moving on...the first visit was with an intern, but that was ok with me as long as we were able to get things on the right track. They ended up coordinating my care and I landed a fantastic cardiologist out of the deal. She's an assistant professor at UCLA so I'm very confident in her ability. My first visit with her was strange though. Her first question to me was "Is termination an option?" and again I said no. She looked me square in the eye and told me she'd get me through it then. Then came a whirlwind of drives to LA, ultrasounds, echos, lab tests, genetic counseling.
The pregnancy itself was pretty easy considering. I had pretty severe morning sickness, not quite hg, but bad. In march of last year I went to the bathroom to pee and when I stood up I got dizzy. I knew what was going on, I was having a rapid enough heart rate to set off my device and I got shocked. My hubby came home from work, and I had to visit the ER. In the ER I got 2 more shocks and that landed me a 5 day stay in the cardiac care unit. They ended up turning off part of the device so it would stop shocking me, it was bad for the baby. But as it turns out, that's how I found out he was a boy and not a girl like we'd first thought. After that stay, they upped my visits to every 2 weeks, and decided that any more admissions would have to be at the hospital I'd be delivering at in Los Angeles. Fortunately, I didn't have any more incidents with that though. Through all of my echos I was holding steady. In heart failure for sure, acute, but holding steady. Now the challenge was delivering.
They'd decided to do a c section so as to avoid me going completely to term and also to avoid the stress of pushing and pain. Remember I've got a pretty interesting cardiac response to pain. The last few weeks, like maybe 9 or so I was on oxygen. I also had a home nurse coming twice a week to do NST for the baby. The only time there was an issue there was when I was contracting. I went to the dr the next day though and it was all ok. My littlest and last was born by c section on July 6 at 36 weeks 1 day. He was a tiny little peanut, only 5 pounds 8 oz and 18 inches long. And adorable of course, and BALD!!
I'd never had a bald baby before, lol, it was unexpected. Even my angel baby had hair. Not mr peanuts though. LOL He still has barely any hair. He's not quite 9 months old now and the love of my life :) I'm actually going to leave off on this one for now, and perhaps post my birth story with him later today if I can stay on the laptop. Until next time...
J
Turns out no one in my hobunk hillbilly hell town in bumblefuck california would take me. Not a damn one. I should mention I'm only about 80 miles away from LA at this point I guess. I got to 16 weeks before my insurance could find a dr willing to take my case. She is in LA...and wouldn't deliver me here. I honestly don't remember if I mentioned the speed with which my middle son was born but it was fast. So we made plans to go down there and we were on an entirely unexpected journey to reach a goal.
The first appt was routine, this was a clinic used to high risk patients. Not used to white patients at all, but that's a whole other story, lol. I'm not racist or anything btw, just that plays into my treatment. I was a novelty. Here I was at this point almost halfway through an impossible pregnancy with a one in a million chance of not dying carrying this kid to term. Not the kind of patient they get to see every day. And to top it off, I am as white as they come and not from the area.
That first visit we discussed my options. I guess they felt it was necessary to tell me that I should terminate for my health. That just was not an option. By this time, I could feel him move, I had a doppler I'd gotten off ebay and I had heard his little heart beating. Hell I'd seen him on the ultrasound at the ER when I was dehydrated.
Moving on...the first visit was with an intern, but that was ok with me as long as we were able to get things on the right track. They ended up coordinating my care and I landed a fantastic cardiologist out of the deal. She's an assistant professor at UCLA so I'm very confident in her ability. My first visit with her was strange though. Her first question to me was "Is termination an option?" and again I said no. She looked me square in the eye and told me she'd get me through it then. Then came a whirlwind of drives to LA, ultrasounds, echos, lab tests, genetic counseling.
The pregnancy itself was pretty easy considering. I had pretty severe morning sickness, not quite hg, but bad. In march of last year I went to the bathroom to pee and when I stood up I got dizzy. I knew what was going on, I was having a rapid enough heart rate to set off my device and I got shocked. My hubby came home from work, and I had to visit the ER. In the ER I got 2 more shocks and that landed me a 5 day stay in the cardiac care unit. They ended up turning off part of the device so it would stop shocking me, it was bad for the baby. But as it turns out, that's how I found out he was a boy and not a girl like we'd first thought. After that stay, they upped my visits to every 2 weeks, and decided that any more admissions would have to be at the hospital I'd be delivering at in Los Angeles. Fortunately, I didn't have any more incidents with that though. Through all of my echos I was holding steady. In heart failure for sure, acute, but holding steady. Now the challenge was delivering.
They'd decided to do a c section so as to avoid me going completely to term and also to avoid the stress of pushing and pain. Remember I've got a pretty interesting cardiac response to pain. The last few weeks, like maybe 9 or so I was on oxygen. I also had a home nurse coming twice a week to do NST for the baby. The only time there was an issue there was when I was contracting. I went to the dr the next day though and it was all ok. My littlest and last was born by c section on July 6 at 36 weeks 1 day. He was a tiny little peanut, only 5 pounds 8 oz and 18 inches long. And adorable of course, and BALD!!
I'd never had a bald baby before, lol, it was unexpected. Even my angel baby had hair. Not mr peanuts though. LOL He still has barely any hair. He's not quite 9 months old now and the love of my life :) I'm actually going to leave off on this one for now, and perhaps post my birth story with him later today if I can stay on the laptop. Until next time...
J
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