The Story

I was admitted to the hospital at 3:30 on Monday, March 1st. They checked my platelets and they were 72k. They started an IV and gave me a dose of steroids. After that, Phil and I sat around watching TV and looking at bath fixtures for the new house online. I started having contractions on my own that night. They just weren't regular or very strong. The next morning, they checked my platelets again and moved me over to L&D. The nurse hooked me up to the monitor and started running fluids and pitocin at a low rate. My OB came to see me and said he had good news and bad news. The good news was that my platelets went up, the bad news was they only went up to 83k. I had been told over and over that 100k was the number anesthesiologists usually want your platelets to be in order to receive an epidural. Dr. Lipscomb, my delivering OB, told me that he had already talked to the anesthesiologists and they were going to look at my case on an individual basis. The anesthesiologist came in soon after I talked to my OB. And apparently there is some literature that states 80k as an acceptable cut-off for receiving an epidural. So I got my epidural!! I was thrilled! I'm not sure I would have gotten an epidural had my OB not contacted anesthesiology ahead of time. They knew about me before I was admitted and I'm sure that helped me a lot. I feel like I should be writing thank you cards to my OB and the anesthesiologist. So I got my epidural before my contractions were even painful. They broke my water around lunch time and we sat around and waited. We watched Couples Retreat and looked at more bath fixtures while we waited. My OB checked me a little after 4:00 pm and I was about 5 cm dilated. Not too long after he checked me I could tell something was different. At first my nurse thought I may just need to go to the bathroom. And that was a possibility considering the IV fluids and all of the clear liquids I had been consuming. But after checking me she quickly determined that the "something different" was my baby's head looking for the exit. She paged my OB who was delivering another baby. He asked if I could wait 10 minutes. My response was, "I'll try." Once the doctor arrived, I pushed (and coughed) through about 3 contractions and at 5:01 pm, Everett was here. (I coughed a couple of times during delivery and Phil claims I coughed the baby out.) The recovery has been a lot faster this time and that's been really helpful. We had our first showing this past Saturday and had to get everyone out of the house. So we took Everett out to eat breakfast. He also went to eat barbecue for lunch one day. Given, both of these outings were with Phil and other family members so I had lots of hands to help me out. We're all doing fairly well at home and I'm just trying to get used to the nighttime feedings again.