Here’s the long version of what happened…
Around the beginning of my sixth month, my blood pressure started skyrocketing. I went to the doctor for my regular prenatal appointment, learned my blood pressure was 140/95, and was told to go to the hospital. I stayed in Antepartum for four days, and Dr. Schorlemer released me the day before my birthday with orders of strict bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy.
For those who don’t know, strict bed rest means you can really only get up to go to the bathroom, take a shower, and eat. You cannot walk, stand, or drive. You cannot sit up for more than 20 to 30 minutes at a time, and when you’re lying down, you cannot lie on your back. You may go upstairs only if you’re going to stay there for an extended period of time, and you are barred from doing anything that can elevate your heart rate. This includes merely kissing your husband, let alone doing anything else.
Oh, and you have to go to the doctor twice a week. Except you can’t drive there. Which means that someone (e.g., your husband) has to leave work, drive all the way home to pick you up, bring you to the doctor, sit through your appointment with you, take you all the way back home, and drive all the way back to work. Practically every other day. So fun!
So, yeah, bed rest was pretty much miserable. For me, the hardest part wasn’t being bored—although that, too, was awful—it was having to let someone wait on me hand and foot and watch them do all of my jobs for me. Poor Jeff had to cook, do laundry, feed Bitterman, change the sheets, do the dishes, clean up the kitchen, go grocery shopping, and everything in between—all after working all day! I felt so horribly helpless watching him struggle to do all of the things I normally do for both of us.
At the same time, though, as crummy as the situation was, what we took from it was invaluable. It was the first time in our marriage that Jeff really had to rise to the occasion all by himself, and he did so with flying colors. Not only did the whole experience leave him a little bit more appreciative of me (e.g., “I have no idea how you EVER worked and did all of this at the same time!”), but it left me a little more appreciative of him. After seeing what he would put himself through to care for me, I remember thinking, “Wow. Jeff loves me. I mean, REALLY loves me.” And although I always knew he did, I was unaware of how much. It was kind’of like seeing your wedding vows put to the test. Needless to say, he passed.
Anyway, on Tuesday, March 24, Jeff & I left the house early to go to the first of my twice-weekly doctor’s appointments. I usually loved going to my prenatal appointments (they afforded me an opportunity to listen to my little girl’s heartbeat, after all!), and yet I felt oddly apprehensive about going that morning. I actually told Jeff—and I swear I am not making this up—that I didn’t want to go to my appointment, and when he asked why, I said, “I don’t know. I’m just afraid he’s going to say something like, ‘Let’s walk over to Methodist and have the baby today.’” Perhaps I should start looking into a career at the Psychic Friends Network.
I was Dr. Schorlemer’s first appointment that day, and while he was still at the hospital making his morning rounds, Kathy, his nurse, took my vitals. Blood pressure? 151/101. Kathy led us into an exam room and said the doctor would be with us soon; I lay on the examining table, turned on my left side.
Ten minutes later, in popped Dr. Schorlemer, although his trademark grin had disappeared. “OK Ashley,” he said (because he always calls me by my first name), “you guys need to start heading over to the hospital, because we’re looking at an early delivery.”
Um, WHAT?
My husband piped up, “OK, so, will Taylor just go back to Antepartum for hospital bed rest? Or should we go to Labor & Delivery?”
Dr. Schorlemer smiled a little. “Labor & Delivery.”
“OK, so she will be delivering…”
“Either today or tomorrow.”
I remember trying my hardest to put on a brave face. It faded by the time I got into the hallway. Dr. Schorlemer saw the tears start to flow and put his arm around me. “Don’t worry. It will be all right. Everything is going to be fine, OK?” I shook my head yes and put my game face back on. Time to call the parents…
Jeff called his folks; Mom was teaching, so I called Dad. When I told him the news, he sounded like he was going to have a heart attack. I told him to get in touch with Mom and come up to the hospital, that we would call when we knew the room number. Meanwhile, my in-laws started the ten-hour drive from Alva, Oklahoma to San Antonio.
The actual diagnosis was the same as it was a few weeks earlier: preeclampsia, a fancy word for when your blood pressure skyrockets in response to pregnancy. There are four additional symptoms in addition to the high blood pressure: (1) protein in the urine, which indicates that your kidneys aren’t functioning as they should; (2) major weight gain throughout your pregnancy unrelated to excessive eating or diet; (3) severe swelling, particularly of the hands, face, and feet; and (4) hypersensitive reflexes. (That last one took me by surprise. A nurse took out her little hammer and bopped me on the knee to check my knee-jerk reflex, and I practically drop-kicked her in the jaw.) And, as every nurse assured me, there is no cure for preeclampsia other than delivery. Awesome!
I don’t remember walking in to the hospital, nor do I remember checking into Labor & Delivery. I do remember that my veins had all collapsed as a result of my being so swollen, and that the nurse had to dig around in my arm for about 10 minutes to start an IV. I remember the steroid shots, the nurse complimenting me on my pain threshold, being so hungry I was beside myself, and being really annoyed that I wasn’t allowed to eat anything. By the time I was actually allowed to eat (around 4:00 P.M.), I sent Jeff to the food court to get me a cheeseburger AND a giant piece of pepperoni pizza. I devoured my hospital food tray two hours later.
I vaguely remember Dr. Schorlemer coming in at the end of the day and saying that I should prepare to have my cesarean the following afternoon. And I remember crying to my mom and Jeff. I was petrified—of having a seizure, having the epidural, having the C-section, something being wrong with Harper, etc.—and mad at my own body for bailing on me in the middle of this pregnancy. Of course everyone assured me that it wasn’t my fault, but how can you NOT feel guilty, when you are responsible for forcing your child to enter this world before she’s really ready?
Those were my thoughts when I went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I was different. I was ready. Bring on the epidural! Bring on the C-section! Bring on Harper! I was actually excited. Still scared, of course, but excited to become a mother and to finally see my baby girl.
My in-laws arrived, and I visited with them for as long as I could stay awake. I eventually had to tell my husband to relocate everyone so I could rest. The maternal/fetal specialist, Dr. Gordon—the same guy who had performed my triple-screen test, my Level II sonogram, and thus, my amniocentesis—came to confirm Schorlemer’s diagnosis and run some tests. He performed an ultrasound, and we learned that Harper was only 3.5 lbs.—smaller than we’d suspected, since I’d been measuring a few weeks ahead of schedule for the past two months.
After we returned to my room, Dr. Gordon explained that there are really only two grades of preeclampsia: severe and mild. My case, however, was somewhere in the middle. That’s when he dropped a bombshell—that because it would be in Harper’s best interest to stay inside my womb as long as possible, he was going to recommend that I remain on hospital bed rest for at least a few more days. As in, “No c-section for you today!”
Logically, I knew this was better for both Harper and me. Better that I didn’t have to go through major surgery later on that afternoon. Better for Harper that she didn’t have to come out at 31 ½ weeks. After all, every day that she stayed put, I was told, equaled two fewer days that she’d have to stay in the NICU.
But emotionally, this was tough news to accept. It had taken a lot for me to get myself, psychologically, to where I was when I woke up that morning: Ready. And now he was saying that I had to mentally readjust AGAIN and just wait?! You’ve got to be kidding me!
The rest of the week is kind’of a blur. I moved out of Labor & Delivery and went back to Antepartum. Not knowing what else to do or how long we were going to have to wait, my in-laws drove back to Oklahoma on Friday morning. Jody & Martha came to see me later on that day. Meanwhile, I continued to get puffier and pack on the pounds with each day that passed. My blood pressure was still high enough for me to be in the hospital but low enough—particularly when I lay on my left side—to not deliver immediately. Can we say frustrating?
On Saturday afternoon, March 28th, Dr. Gordon came back to check on me. I’d gained five pounds since the last time he’d seen me just days earlier, and I looked like a blowfish I was so puffed up. My blood pressure was consistently in a dangerous range, and I guess that, coupled with the weight gain and the ridiculous swelling, was enough for him.
“All right, Mrs. Henderson, we’re going to go ahead and get you delivered today,” he said. “When did you last eat?”
“I just had lunch right before you walked in.”
“OK, then, we’ll deliver in six hours.”
So, back to Labor & Delivery we went. The next six hours were very strange. I alternated between excitement and anxiety and all-out fear. I was especially nervous because, with it being Saturday, my doctor—Dr. Schorlemer, who delivered me and my brother and who has been my OB/GYN since I was 16—was not there and thus would not be the one to perform the cesarean. The whole situation seemed like something out of the movies.
My parents, Jeff, and I sat in my hospital room and stared at the school-style clock on the wall like it was a time bomb. Six hours have never passed by so fast AND slow at the same time.
At about 6:45 P.M., my Labor & Delivery nurse, Ashley, came and got Jeff & me. Jeff was given his scrubs and told to stay outside the doors until someone came and got him while I was wheeled into the operating room. This was my first surgery, so I’d never been in an operating room before, and it looked different than I expected it would. It was smaller than I thought it would be, with tons of fluorescent overhead lights and a built-in, glass bookshelf on the back wall that looked like something in a college science class. I was also surprised by the amount of people that were present. I counted eight nurses/students in addition to the anesthesiologist who greeted me as I walked in.
I don’t remember his name, but he was wonderful. After hearing that I was petrified of having an epidural (mainly because my mom was forced to endure three botched epidurals during her own cesarean), he struck up a conversation just to get me to relax. I learned he had gone to UT and that he had two daughters—22 and 26—who had gone to Texas Tech. He said he would take good care of me because I was a fellow Longhorn, and as stupid as it sounds, that actually made me feel better.
Pretty soon after that it was time to administer the epidural. Ashley had me sit up on the operating table with my gown open at the back. She instructed me to arch my back and stay still. She then took the top of my head, pressed it down, and held my head in place against her chest. I have to say, it surprised me that no one had ever mentioned this to me in all of the stories of epidurals and childbirths that I’d heard.
Forgive me for being so literal here, but basically you are forced to sit there with your head smashed against a random woman’s cleavage. It’s a little awkward, especially since you must stay like that for about 20 minutes. I’m not sure why most women consider that irrelevant, but I don’t, so for all of you who have yet to go through this, prepare to feel a little strange about being in position to motorboat your L&D nurse.
I’m happy to report that the epidural itself hurt for maybe five seconds, and it was no worse than a bee sting. I was shocked by how fast it started working. It was fast enough that Ashley lay me down and inserted my catheter about five minutes later, and I couldn’t even feel it. After about 10 minutes, I had to ask her to move my leg. The nurses covered my lower body with some blue liquid that dyed my skin like a Smurf and then hoisted a drape above my abdomen so that I couldn’t see anything on the other side. I remember thinking that it was a little odd to be lying there with my top half completely covered and my bottom half completely exposed on the other side of the curtain.
At some point, a nurse called in Jeff, who came in and sat down beside me, looking darling in his scrubs. I could tell he was nervous. His eyes were as big as saucers, and they darted all around the room. He eventually grabbed my hand, and five minutes later, the surgeon arrived.
The only reason it actually wasn’t that upsetting to have some random doctor perform my cesarean instead of Dr. Schorlemer is that, during a C-section, you pretty much have no contact with the OB/GYN. I didn’t know that prior to my surgery. Even after I knew I was more than likely going to have to have a cesarean, I always pictured Dr. Schorlemer talking me through the procedure step by step, in the same way he would a vaginal delivery. That’s sooo not how it works. During a cesarean, the anesthesiologist is the one who communicates with you and talks you through everything, not the doctor who’s actually operating on you. So while that’s probably disappointing for those of you who ultimately have to go undergo cesareans and expect your own doctor to get you through your procedure, it was a big relief to me; I didn’t “miss” my own doctor because I don’t think I would’ve known the difference had he actually been the one doing the cutting.
I didn’t feel the first incision. The only reason I knew it had happened is that someone wrote “19:40” next to “time of incision” on the dry erase board that hung on the wall. I remember seeing that and thinking: This is it! Oh, my gosh! We’re having a baby! And I remember grinning from ear to ear, even though I was scared to death.
The second cut—the one into my uterus—I did feel. It didn’t hurt at all, but I could feel that someone was doing something to my body. Honestly, this is the most accurate way I can think of to describe the sensation: It’s like someone has dumped four or five water balloons on top of your abdomen and suddenly starts jiggling all of them simultaneously. Odd.
An eternity went by, or so it seemed, waiting to hear that first faint cry. But in truth, only six minutes passed before someone called out, “Time of birth…19:46!” I squeezed Jeff’s hand and strained to hear the coos and cries from the other side of the curtain. A few seconds later, a nurse appeared from behind the left side of the drape and held up a crying newborn baby.
There she was...
Our child. Our daughter. Our Harper.
She was purplish-bluish-grayish-pink, the same color all babies are when they’re born, and covered in goop. Yet she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And I would call it love at first sight, but I’d fallen in love with her months before she actually arrived. All I knew was that I was witnessing the greatest miracle of my entire life.
Avery Harper Henderson was born weighing three pounds, ten ounces and measuring 17 ½ inches long. Because she was eight weeks early, she had to be rushed to the NICU immediately after birth. Her daddy followed. I remember lying there in the operating room after the two loves of my life had left and praying—thanking God for my beautiful daughter and allowing me the chance to see her and pleading with Him to please, please, please take care of her now that she was here. It was probably the most helpless moment of my entire life.
And it was also the start of not just a new chapter but a new book all together. As a dear friend so eloquently put it in an e-mail to me earlier this week: Our lives now revolved around this new tiny creature, with Harper in the center, like the sun, and Jeff & me as the planets and stars surrounding her.
I just hope we can do a decent job of teaching her how to rise and set...
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