One year ago...

Wow, so I can't believe it's been a year since we welcomed our little angel into our family. Thinking back on the experiences we had this past year brings up so many emotions. I realize that I haven't really shared mine and Halle's story of when she was born, so here it goes: I knew something just wasn't right when I began to have TERRIBLE swelling problems. And I mean terrible. For those of you who remember go ahead and laugh because I find it quite comical myself thinking back on it. My legs literally looked like sausages, my feet were HUGE and I couldn't even find a pair of shoes that would fit, my face was so swollen that there was no way to even put make up on, and my hands looked like latex gloves that had been blown up. I knew that swelling during pregnancy was normal, but this was so not normal. By the end of the day my feet would be black and blue from the swelling so Kim would try to push all the fluid up out of them each night. Because of all the swelling I had gained 20 pounds in 2 weeks. I was sick to my stomach all the time and could hardly eat anything at all. I had been having terrible headaches and had been seeing white spots in my vision. So quite obviously, something was wrong, and I just knew it. The problem was we had just moved to Oklahoma and didn't have a Dr. yet, so I didn't know what to do. I studied my pregnancy books trying desperately to find an answer. I kept coming upon preeclampsia and decided the only way to know for sure was to check my blood pressure. So I waddled myself into walmart to check my blood pressure at the pharmacy there. Yep, sure enough it was high. It read 164 over something. So then we decided we had better head over to the hospital, so I walked into the ER and told them that something was terribly wrong with me and that I thought I had preeclampsia. So they hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor that was scheduled to take my blood pressure every few minutes (it was up to 174 over something by then) and they took some blood and said they would be back with my lab results. About an hour later a whole swarm of nurses and Dr.s came running into my room with a stretcher and began poking me everywhere with IVs and steroid shots (to help the baby develop quickly) and a catheter because I would be on complete bed rest. In the midst of all this they were trying to explain to me that I had severe preeclampsia and that they were sending me to Oklahoma City (we were in Lawton at the time) by ambulance so that I could have the baby in OU Medical Center, one of the best in the country for their NICU care. The next few days were a rollercoaster. They were trying to keep me pregnant as long as possible so I was not allowed out of bed at all. This caused a lot of the swelling fluid in me to go to my lower back and thighs which caused terrible pain. I thought my skin might burst! I couldn't roll over because of all the monitors and IVs that I was hooked to, so I just had to endure. I had these funny machines on my legs that would squeeze really hard and then let go so that I wouldn't get blood clots from bed rest. Every few hours the nurses would poke me to take blood for more lab test because my liver and kidneys were failing. They would have to poke me several times to get enough blood because of my constricted veins and all the scar tissue from being poked so much. They started in my arms and wrists and hands but eventually had to start taking blood from the tops of my feet because they just couldn't get enough from my arms. They mentioned they might have to start taking blood from my neck soon, luckily it never had to get to that point. I was on magnesium through my IV (a muscle relaxer) to help me not have seziers. This was the weirdest stuff. It made it so I couldn't breathe very well so I had to receive respiratory treatments. It also made me terribly nauseated and delusional. On the fourth day that I had been in the hospital, I began having the worst headaches I have ever had. When none of the hospital's pain medication helped, they decided that they would need to perform an emergency c-section. As Halle was being delivered, I heard her tiny whimper, and then I don't remember anything else after that. That was Thursday night, and I don't remember anything until waking up Saturday morning. I don't remember anything about Friday. I woke up Saturday with a oxygen mask on thinking how good it felt to finally be able to breath. There were pillows strapped to my bed all around me and somehow I knew I had had a sezier, though I don't remember anything about it. Because of my condition I was not allowed to leave my bed yet to go see Halle. It was hard to wait, but after a few days, I was finally able to go up to the NICU to see her. It was a good thing I was in a wheel chair when I first saw her because I'm afraid I might have fallen down. It was such a shock to see how tiny she was. It scared me. It broke my heart to see all of the tubes and monitors hooked up to her tiny body. As I regained my strength over the next few days I would make the trip up to floor 7 to see my baby and then back down to floor 4 to my room very regularly. I was in the hospital for about 2 weeks and when it was time for me to go back home, leaving Halle in the NICU was so hard to do. We stayed at my sister's house for a few weeks in Norman which is about 30 minutes from Oklahoma City, and then we went back to our apartment in Lawton that is an hour and a half away from Oklahoma City. It was so hard to go back home without her and to see her empty crib and to not feel her moving inside me anymore. We would go to visit her every other day. It was such a bitter-sweet experience when we would go to see her. It was so wonderful to walk into her room to see how well she was doing and to know how many ounces she had gained, but it was so hard to just leave without her again and again. After 2 months we were finally allowed to take her home! And she has blessed every day since then with her sweet spirit. I consider myself the luckiest mom in the world and love Halle more than I ever thought was possible. She is so precious to me!