Introducing Katt Mar-Li Neill born 6/1/2012 at Magee Women's Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA.
Weighing in at 7 pounds 1 ounce at 39 weeks. This has beaten the record of Asia Bria Neill who was born at 38 weeks at 6 pounds 3 ounces and Zachary Taflin Neill who was born at 35 weeks and 5 pounds 7 ounces.
Now to the nitty gritty details:
Overall the pregnancy wasn't bad. I had the usual morning sickness that was so bad I needed to pump myself up with Reglan to get through the work-day. Gestatational diabetes set in as usual so I had to do the usual prick all my fingers to draw blood in the morning and after each meal. New to this pregnancy was having to take medication for the high sugar levels - glyburide. No problem popping a pill to keep the sugars in control. I just couldn't resist eating carbs at meals - rice mainly. And drinking juice or eating fruit. Even these health sugars would put me over the limit. At the end, I was taking 4 pills a day but at least no insulin shots.
Due to the gestational diabetes and my history, the last trimester was full of weekly ultrasounds to check amniotic fluid and baby size and heartbeat. Then weekly doctor appointments that included non-stress tests (NST) - hooking me up to a fetal monitor to check for contractions and the baby's activity. The NST passed if the baby's heartbeat accelerated at least 3 times during the monitoring period to show activity. I was reprimanded once for not eating breakfast before coming in to the doctor's appointment because the NST took longer since the baby was sluggish that morning. At least there wasn't any reoccurrance of what happened with Zach and Asia - both of them had me admitted to the hospital early because of heartrate drops during the NST. The funny thing is I had to keep telling my OB docs about my history -that I wanted my amniotic fluid checked and ultrasounds done due to my history. It wasn't until my appointment with the OB doc who was a DO instead of MD (Dr. Baer) who got me signed up for all the checks. There's 6 or some OB docs in this practice that I go to. - good if there's an emergency, bad if you want a better doctor to patient relationship. The doctor who did the C-section was one I didn't know too well.
Also due to babies tending to be large for those with gestational diabetes, my c-section was scheduled for the 39th week - thus June 1st. I didn't think I'd even make it to the 39th week, fully expecting the baby's heartbeat to drop just like before. But Katt did good. She hung in there.
This baby was also a lot different in that I don't remember Zach and Asia being so active during the last trimester. There were quite a few times when I would put one of the kid's hands or John's hand on my tummy and you'd feel active kicking or elbowing. I could distinctively feel a foot jutting out, often at night. Both kids would talk to my tummy and ask Katt how she was doing inside. Katt was also serenaded by Asia on the trumpet and Zach on the violin.
Now to the birth. What a fiasco. We had our babysitter Ricki come to the house at around 7 AM since my c-section was scheduled for 9 AM. No problem getting to the hospital and checking in. The IV being put in my hand stung like crazy as well as all the blood they took out for tests. Then they had John change and scrub in while they walked me over to the operating room. Getting the epidural or whatever was interesting. The anethesiologist was really nice. She had a resident or someone with her so she was explaining to him what she was doing. That got me nervous as I didn't want the resident to put in the epidural or do anything incorrectly. They did seem to have a little difficulty getting that epidural started. Once it was in, then they started poking me to see how far the anesthesia was and it didn't seem to be working as fast as they wanted. I could hear a little concern in their voices but I told them that I thought it was fine. Where they were poking me in the end to test the feeling didn't hurt, just more like pressure. So on with the operation!
Now the last thing you want to hear from your surgeon is something like "Oops" or "Oh No!" or "#*$(#*$@!!" but that's basically what I heard in more polite terms. The anesthesiologist was the spokesperson and she calmly told me that they had nicked my small bowel (small intestine) while cutting open the uterus. Then they explained more that probably from my last c-section, the small bowel had adhered to my uterus. My doctor didn't see that and had cut through the intestine. Nice eh? So now they were desperately contacting the general surgeon on call. I heard one person say a few times whether they should just go up to that floor and get someone. It was kinda funny hearing the exasperation in their voices in trying to get hold of someone in general surgery. Then I was told that we'd have to wait maybe 10 more minutes for the surgeon. Here I was probably split wide open and nothing anyone could do while waiting for this other surgeon. They hadn't even taken out the baby yet! John was sitting next to me for most of this. Then they had him leave for a bit when the general surgeon came in. Not sure why. I also overheard that I was in luck because the Chief of Surgery actually came down to help and he was excited at being able to help with a c-section since that wasn't something he did often. I could hear him asking them some questions out of curiousity. Glad I could make his day more enjoyable. The general surgeon basically confirmed what happened and told them to finish the c-section and then his group would repair my intestine. Then I heard someone say they were going to get John but by the time he came back in, they had already pulled out the baby! I think he got to hold her and I did hear her cry out and get a glimpse of her. Then the anesthesiologist said they were debating on whether to put me under general anesthesia. That got me concerned since I didn't want a breathing tube put in. But I tried to remain calm. They said that since I was so calm, they were just going to give me a stronger anesthestic that would make me sleepy. After that, I don't remember much. I think I must have fallen asleep?
I must have been wheeled into my room at some point and John was holding the baby. All I know is that I was so nauseous. They gave me something like Zofran in the IV for the nausea and it wasn't doing anything. I remember getting Zofran during my first trimester for the nausea and it didn't do anything then. I told them that Zofran didn't work with me and Reglan did. I think later they did give me a different drug and either that worked or the Zofran finally kicked in but it took awhile. In the meantime, school was out and Vern Yoder brought the kids to the hospital for us. It just happened that Zach had interviewed Vern for a school project and that day was the presentation, so we had asked Vern to bring the kids from school straight to the hospital. I felt bad for him and the kids because I was so out of it. John said I looked pretty bad too from the blood loss and the nausea. I don't think the kids knew what to do or how to handle their mom looking so bad. John said they were a little more wild than usual for being in a hospital.
So what should have been a 3 day max stay in the hospital turned out to be 5 days. The main thing I think was the problem was that I was taking Morphine for the pain. That was slowing down my digestive system. To be able to get to a liquid diet, you have to pass gas. And since I couldn't, I was getting more and more bloated and all I was allowed to have was ice chips. So I'm hooked up to an IV, got a foley catheter so I don't have to get up to go to the restroom, and I'm being waken every so many hours for my vitals (blood pressure and temperature) to be checked. Finally they take the catheter out but not the IV, so that makes me have to get up to go the restroom every so many hours which isn't fun when your abdomen has been cut open. It's like a hilarious circle. Gotta pass gas, to do that need to get active which means walk around, which needs energy, but no food to provide energy besides the IV, yet painful to move so need more morphie, which keeps me from passing gas. I thought I was getting better and even took a long walk down the corridors with my sister and Esther Yoder - yes the two Esther's! Everyone thought I was getting better and then bam! That night, I was vomiting and in more pain from contractions of my uterus from the breastfeeding. More Zofran for the nausea that took way too long to kick in. Trying retching or vomiting when you have an incision in your abodmen. Yes, fun stuff. I think the nurses thought I took a turn for the worse so they paged my doctor who sent me off to xrays to make sure there wasn't a blockage from the surgery. Xrays came out fine and I was taken off the morphine and switched to IV Tylenol. That was the game-changer. After that, my digestive system started to kick in. You gotta love it when everyone is excited that you passed gas. I'm calling the nurse to let her know I let off another one! There's no discretion once you're a patient in a hospital. You're wearing a gown that opens in the back! You barely close the bathroom door since you've got an IV pole you have to bring along with you. The doctor comes to check in on your incision while you have guests visiting. You haven't eaten in days, showered, brushed teeth.
So on from ice chips to a clear liquid diet. And what is that? If you haven't stayed in a hospital, this meant stuff like chicken/beef/vegetable broth, jello, italian ice, tea, apple juice. Then you move on to the regular liquid diet - in that you get to add pudding! ice cream! Cream of Wheat and tomato soup, orange juice, prune juice. It was funny that it's all this sweet stuff. I don't even drink juice straight - I always water it down. Of course, I had to try the pudding though. Probably not the best for my lactose-intolerance.
Oh and a note on the nurses. Every 12 hours a new nurse. It was interesting because each nurse had to walk around with a computer system on wheels. The room could barely fit the nurse with their PC station. Some of the nurses just didn't seem comfortable with the technology. They would scan my ID bracelet, scan the baby's bracelet, scan my medication barcodes. For a techie like me, I loved watching it, watching them bring up my chart, comparing the software with my company's. What was funny was the nurses also had their own notes on paper that they kept in their pocket. The software must not have had a great place for notes. Actually the doctors all did the same - wrote down notes on a piece of paper they would pull from their pocket and later transfer to my electronic chart. The general surgeons that visited me did the same. I was also visited by a respiratory therapist since I was immobile for so long. They would ask me to breathe in this lung exerciser thing. I could tell that they knew most of the patients didn't do their exercises. I felt bad for them.
I almost had to stay another night in the hospital too. The new OB that was on call didn't know that I wanted out of the hospital so badly. The previous OB docs that were with me over the surgery and most of the weekend knew that as soon as I was eating, I wanted out of there. Especially since Katt was being discharged that night! My sister and I kept bugging the nurse to ask my doctor when I was going to be discharged now that I was eating solid food. The problem was that I had diarrhea and they wanted to make sure it wasn't an infection. Yes, to top it all off, I got coded for some kind of infection. Anyone who came into my room now had to put on this bright yellow plastic coat and hat, like I was contagious or something. The previous nurse didn't even put the outfit on though. She said she knew I didn't have the infection. My sister didn't think so either. We wouldn't get the results for a few days anyway. So back to getting discharged that night, I had the nurse page the OB doc to come talk to me. I made sure I was up and walking around and in my robe to show that I was ready to go. I had already eaten some meat loaf and rice to show I was keeping down solid food. When the doctor came in, I told her I was ready to go and she agreed! Hooray! The nurse then asked when I wanted to leave and I said now. Esther and I started packing up all my stuff and we were out of there.
Anyway I wanted to get this whole experience down before it's forgotten. The main thing is - no more babies for me! The terrible experience confirmed this. Yes, I have a beautiful child as a result, but three's good! :)
