Hey y’all!

I know I have been MIA for a while but that is because a LOT in my life has changed. on February 9th 2021 (my due date was February 26th) at 1:13pm I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy, King Matthew Bard. He weighed in at 5lbs 8oz and measured 18.5in! That week was a whirlwind and totally out of left field, here is what happened:

Monday February 8th around lunch time I was sitting in my backyard and talking on the phone with my nanny (grandmother on my moms side) I was sitting in the sun and listening to her talk and all of a sudden I got dizzy. I brushed it off because I often get optic migraines and vertigo, both of which, cause dizziness. Eventually I made my way inside and as I stand in my living room, my dizziness tripled. Around the beginning of my third trimester I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (blog post to come on how I handled that) so I thought I should test my blood sugar to see if I was going into hypoglycemia. I walked into my kitchen and pricked my finger and…. my blood sugar was perfect! That actually scared me more because going into hypoglycemia is easily fixed and something to be expected with diabetes. At this point my anxiety is at an all time high. I tell my nan that I have to go and I yell for Kor (my husband). If I weren’t pregnant I probably wouldn’t have been as scared but it wasn’t just my life I was worried about, my son was at risk now and I was not okay with that. Luckily we had a blood pressure monitor at home so I decided to do a reading to make sure I wasn’t suffering from preeclampsia. My blood pressure was SKY HIGH. A classic sign of preeclampsia. If my anxiety wasn’t at an all time high before, it was now. I quickly text my best friend who happens to be a postpartum (mother and baby) nurse. (THANK GOODNESS FOR ISABELLA) She advised me to check again in an hour and if it was still high to contact my OBGYN. I followed her orders and waited an hour… sure enough, it was high and this time even HIGHER. With tears in my eyes and a knot in my throat, I frantically dial the number to my OBGYN office. My doc eased my worries and told me to check again in an hour and if its still high go to the triage at the hospital so they can check officially but she did not seem worried at all. I decided to take a nap. when I woke up I thought to myself “I have a strong feeling my blood pressure will still be high so I better prepare to go to the hospital” so I packed my hospital bag, ate something, and took a shower. After my shower I checked my blood pressure again… this time higher than all my other readings. Yep, it was time to head to the hospital.

On our way there, Kor and I were talking about how it’ll probably be an in and out trip and they will think I was silly for freaking out… boy were we wrong. As soon as I mentioned high blood pressure they rushed me into a private room and told me to undress and give a pee sample. I did as they asked and laid down on the very uncomfortable hospital bed. A nurse came in and asked me a series of questions, did a blood pressure reading, took a blood sample. Eventually the ER doc came in and told me that my blood pressure was so high that they don’t even need to run the other tests (pee and blood samples) because even if they were negative for preeclampsia they knew I still had it. At that point they told me they were going to induce me and that my OBGYN was not in office and it would be her sister delivering my baby. I wasn’t happy about it but I knew her sister was in the same practice and I trusted her as well.

They moved me from triage to L&D and I was assigned a wonderful nurse named Nicole. (Nicole, if you ever somehow see this post I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE AN AMAZING NURSE) She started an IV line and hooked me up to a machine that distributes medication periodically via the IV. The meds I was on were called Magnesium Sulfate and Pitocin. The Magnesium Sulfate was a precautionary measure due to the fact that when you have preeclampsia, you’re prone to seizures and you can’t push out a baby when you’re seizing… at least I don’t think you can… The thing about mag is, it makes you feel really drunk. It supresses your nervous system so you won’t seize but in doing so you lose control of some bodily functions. The mag made me sick and I threw up and peed myself. I couldn’t see straight which really sucked because the room we were in had the most beautiful view of the ocean and marina. I tried enjoying the view but I had double vision. Then there is pitocin. this medication induces labor. The max level you can get is 10. They started me at 1 then 2 then 4 then 6… nothing, the monitor said I was having contractions but I wasn’t feeling them and they were irregular. Now it is the morning of the 9th and still nothing. They MAXED me out on pitocin and again, still nothing.

Luckily since it took all night, my doc was now in office and she visited me. “LETS HAVE A BABY!” she exclaimed. I would have shared her excitement if it weren’t for that damn magnesium sulfate. She pulled out a long chopstick looking tool and popped my bag. This is like when your water breaks only she was the one to do it and not my body. She tells me “you should start feeling contractions in about an hour, when you have a decent amount of pain ask for an epidural so your blood pressure doesn’t sky rocket. Ill be right across the street.” Well Dr. Christina was wrong. It did not take an hour it took MINUTES! As soon as she left I went from 0 to 100 on the pain scale and asked for the anesthesiologist. Problem was, he had FIVE other patients ahead of me… yay. As I lay there trying to breathe through the pain I was kicking myself for not taking those lamaze classes like everyone told me to do. Finally the anesthesiologist came in to do my epidural. I was so excited for sweet relief. But of course that is not what happened. Due to my pain level and how fast I arrived there, my body was metabolizing the medicine too fast, therefore, it didn’t work. I had a slight tingling numbness on my lower back but not where I needed it. My nurse called for the anesthesiologist again to pump me with more meds but just my luck, he was doing a c-section… again, yay. He eventually comes back and is surprised at the fact that I was not completely numb. He pumps more meds into me but again it barley did anything.

Now it was time to push. I was so scared of the pain of pushing because the epidural was not doing what I wanted it to do. Let me tell you something… NOTHING compares to the pain of contractions not even pushing a baby out. In fact, the pushing actually helped me take my mind off of the contractions. “take a deep breath, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, now breathe out” the nurse said. I had the nurse holding my right leg and Kory holding my left. We repeated this cycle for about an hour and a half. Finally, Kings little head was starting to make its way to the surface. The L&D nurse called my OBGYN and she made her way over. When Dr. Christina arrived she pulled out a mirror for me to see which pushing technique worked best. Seeing everything in the mirror was both equal parts beautiful and terrifying. Eventually after a couple hours, my precious baby boy made his way into the world. He was placed on my chest immediately and let out the most darling cry. I have never felt the emotions I felt in that moment in my life. We stayed in that room for another hour or so and had something to eat. When we were finished they moved us into our other room.

Because I had preeclampsia, I had to stay on the magnesium sulfate for another 24 hours and was only allowed 50mL of water an hour… that really sucked. Later that night, our PP nurse was checking his temperature and noticed he was a little too cold. She placed him on my bare chest for skin to skin, however, he did not warm up. She then took him to the nursery and laid him under the heater and his temp went to a normal temp. When she brought him back he began to get cold again… uh oh this was not good. She took him back to the nursery and I fell asleep. 4:00am, I was awoken by two NICU doctors. They told me that King had to be admitted into the NICU due to his temperature not being regulated. I was so out of it from the meds and exhaustion that I didn’t even have the energy to ask questions or follow them there.

When we woke up the next morning, Kory went to check on King. I was not allowed to see him because the meds I was on made it unsafe for me to walk or handle my son. Later that day, my nurse took me off the terrible magnesium and I started to feel a little more normal. I didn’t care about how I felt just as long as I was able to hold my son. I made my way down to the 6th floor where the NICU resided. There he was, so sweet and small, sleeping soundly in his incubator. They assured me that he was in good health and doing much better. Although, his prognosis was good, I still couldn’t shake this hollow feeling in my heart. Maybe because he was just so small and fragile or maybe because every angle I looked, there lay a sick baby. I could not help but feel so so so sorry for all the parents in the NICU. We were so blessed that King was only a little cold and that made me feel so guilty. Here I was, crying because my baby was cold but getting better and there were dying babies right next to me. I never want to be in that place again. The nurses and doctors that work there are a special breed and deserve so much praise for all that they do.

The next day I was discharged but my sweet boy was not. This meant I had to leave him at the hospital and go home without him. I was not okay. I have never felt that kind of sadness in my life. It was only one day, and it sounds dramatic, but that is how I felt. Low. Lower than low. Home didn’t feel like home. I cried all day and night and I’m pretty sure I thoroughly freaked Kory out LOL.

The next day was brighter. It was the day King was being discharged! We packed up our carseat and headed to the hospital. Since King was so small he had to do the “carseat challenge”. When they do this, they hook him up to an oxygen monitor and sit him in the seat for an hour and a half and make sure his levels did not dip under 90. While he did this we went to have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Mi Casa. After stuffing our bellies with yummy food we rushed back to the hospital to get our little man. He passed his challenge with flying colors and they began the discharge process. At last we could take our son home. The drive back to the house was terrifying and eye opening. I now understood why my grammie was always worried about me. The world suddenly became a very frightening place. So many things that could hurt my child. So sorry to my parents and grandparents that I gave grief to for being “over protective” when in reality, they just cared so much for my health and safety. Now we have had him home for a little over a month and it has been the best month of our lives. Thanks you to my friends and family for the love, prayers, and support. More updates to come.

until then, Xx, Shelby