The Main Event

My pregnancy was pretty uneventful, for the most part. I gained weight slowly and exercised through my second trimester. I ate fairly well, despite my indulgences in cheeseburgers, chili, and tacos and I was feeling healthy. At 29 weeks, I went in for my regular prenatal appointment and my blood pressure was high. It was somewhere around 140/100. My OB sent me to the hospital to be monitored. It was scary, but my blood pressure came down within a few hours and I was released. By the following week I was starting to feel pretty ill. My blood pressure would spike and I would see spots and feel light headed and then it would quickly drop down and I would be nauseous and tired. My doctors rarely caught my blood pressure at its peak and sometimes made me feel like I was over-reacting or trying to get attention. I fought and finally ended up with bi-weekly non stress tests.

At 34 weeks, an ultrasound during an NST showed that I had sever preeclampsia. Even though my protein levels always came back borderline. I was immediately induced. They estimated my daughter's size to be 4lb 10oz. Small but not dangerously so. Still, I was feeling so scared and guilty. I had failed my daughter and now she was being evicted before she was ready. It all happened really quickly but what I remember from that night, is lying in the hospital bed feeling her kick and singing to her, trying to fall asleep. It was hard to get y head around the idea that I would be holding her the next day. I wasn't ready to let her go. I wasn't ready to make her face the cold world. But she wasn't safe inside either. And neither was I.

Less than 24 hours after my ultrasound, and with only 4 pushes, I delivered my beautiful little Layla.She was 4lb 1oz and 18 in long. It was the first time I ever saw my husband cry. She had lots of  long dark hair and long skinny fingers. She looked just like my husband. She was perfect. The cord was around her throat twice, but no one told me until days later. She needed a little air but started screaming almost right away. I was so relieved. They let me hold her for about a minute before whisking her away. I wasn't allowed to see or hold her for the next 24 hours. Being seperated from her, so soon after finally meeting her, was a pain I will never forget. I felt like I was dying from the magnesium they had me on for my blood pressure and I couldn't get out of bed. My little girl was down the hall in the NICU and I couldn't go see her. I thought she would forget me.

I was counting down the minutes until I could go to her and slept with a picture of her the NICU nurses sent down to me. When I was finally wheeled into her room, and I saw her lying there with the IV and all hooked up to the machines I felt like something in me broke. I just sat there and cried and talked to her and held her tiny little hand. I was so grateful to have her safely here in the world with me, but at the same time I was so afraid of all the uncertainty ahead.