Tender Mercies and Silver Linings

Tisha, Mark and Mc came into town on my due date and it was so good to see them.


Nakey time!

This was after surgery. I was pretty swollen and I wanted Ty to take this picture so I would remember what I looked like.
Daddy got to feed Brynlee right after I left for surgery and it was the first time! He is such a good Dad!
Posing for the camera!
This was the last picture that will ever be taken of me being pregnant! We were at the ward luau and I had been in labor for over 6 hours. Miserable to say the least. There are lots more pictures but we're waiting for a USB cord to come so I can post them!

So here we are, first week without Ty and we have survived. I guess I can survive a lot more than I ever thought possible. It's taken awhile for this post but I wanted to make sure I was ready to write it with the least amount of tears as possible.

Brynlee was a month old yesterday and we have been at home for 3 weeks tomorrow. I have been off of all medications for two weeks on Tuesday! Oh to be free from pills, shots, IV's, blood pressure cuffs and that wretched hospital bed! Seriously, there are so many things in this life that I have taken for granted! Truly we live in a magnificent time of knowledge and technology and it is to that knowledge and technology that, for worldly purposes, I owe my life. Most of all, for spiritual purposes, I will forever owe my Heavenly Father, Savior Jesus Christ, the power of the priesthood and my amazing family for the life I now live.

Here's the story....

Friday August 21st.
Dr.'s Apt. Dilated to 1 cm and 60% effaced.

Saturday August 22nd.
The first contraction I had was on my way to my Mom's house at noonish to go to my Aunt Becca's shower. They were few and pretty far from one another until that night. We went to the ward Luau and I was miserable with contractions. I didn't sleep at all that night because they were about 10 minutes apart the entire night. Side note: This is the effective date for a Supplemental Insurance (Aflac) we had been paying for since October. We couldn't have the baby before 12:01 that morning or we wouldn't have been able to use the insurance.

Sunday August 23rd.
Still no sleeping. We missed the Oquirrh Mountain dedication because I hadn't slept and was still having contractions. We went into the hospital that morning and they sent me home, I was dilated to a 1 and 90% effaced. We went in Sunday night and I was dilated to 2 cm and still 90% effaced. My contractions were serious now and I couldn't believe I wasn't dilating. Mostly I hadn't slept for so long (since Friday night) that I was tired and I hadn't eaten a whole lot either so I didn't have much strength. I was in tears at this point because I had been in labor for over 24 hours and they were sending me home, again!!

Monday August 24th. The most important, special, memorable (kind of) day of mine and Ty's lives!
Still having pretty bad contractions we went in at 3:30am because I couldn't take it anymore and I was finally dilated to 5 cm's and they decided to give me the epidural. Now I had wanted to have a Hypnobirth, throughout my entire pregnancy I never wanted an epidural. Since I was going to school during the summer semester and it ended a week into August, we hadn't had a whole lot of time to get through our Hyno program. We didn't even get half way through the program before I went into labor (I thought I still had atleast 2 weeks left). The funny thing is that when we went into the hospital there was never a question for either of us about getting the epidural. It was just something that we did without question. I was finally able to sleep for a little bit which helped me because I was so tired from not sleeping for two days. They broke my water at about 8:30. For some reason the epidural started wearing off so the Dr. came in and did something that made the anesthesia move up my body instead of down and I started panicking because I couldn't feel myself breathing. The epidural also made my blood pressure drop and my Dr. said when that happens you have about 9 minutes to get the baby out so Dr. Yamashiro, my wonderful Dr., had to use the forceps to get Brynlee out which he did in less than 5 minutes. My attempts at pushing didn't help a whole lot. I only pushed 3 or 4 times and she was out. Everything seemed to be pretty normal at that point. However, this is where things started to actually go down hill. My nurse couldn't get me to stop bleeding and they couldn't get a hold of my Dr. so one of the midwives came in and I remember her getting up on the table/bed with me and kneading my stomach as hard as she could to try to stop the bleeding. At this point I was very grateful I had the epidural because I was still in pain even with the medication. She eventually got a hold of the Dr. and when he got there he tried several different things to stop me from hemorrhaging. At this point he said, " There is a possibility an hysterectomy will need to be done, " I thought, " He just has to tell me the risks, that won't happen." I was so wrong. After two bags of mostly my blood, the placenta, and all that yucky stuff they decided I needed to be taken to the OR for an emergency surgery to try to get my uterus to clamp down and stop bleeding. When I went in to the hospital my hematocrit (WBC - White Blood Cell count) was a 41 which is very good for a pregnant lady because most women are anemic and have a WBC in the low 30's. When I went into surgery my count was 15 and was lower than that once I got into the OR. Tyler said this was when I looked the worst. I had almost stopped bleeding when I went into the OR because I didn't have a lot of blood left but when I got in there they gave me two units of blood and I started bleeding profusely and they knew they needed to take out my uterus. I remember the anesthesiologist yelling at the nurse who was holding my oxygen mask because she wouldn't keep it against my face and I wasn't breathing all that well. I remember thinking after the second time she did it that she was going to be in trouble cause she wasn't holding it right again! Ty says that Dr. Yamashiro came out and talked to him and our parents after he was done with the surgery and said that, " I had one foot over the waterfall and about to go...". I almost bled to death and had I lived however many years ago that would have, without a doubt, been the case. After a few hours in recovery (long hours for my families) they put me in post partum but my Dr. moved me to the ICU to get some rest because I had a lot of people that wanted to see me and I needed one on one care and someone constantly watching me. I remember feeling like I was in a full body cast because I was so swollen. Making a fist was impossible. Because of all the fluid retention we think I weighed closer to 200 pounds. Looking at my legs the first time I was able to get out of bed and stand, which was a few days later, my legs looked like sumo wrestler legs! (That was my first thought). I stayed in the ICU for two days and after 12 units total of blood, 2 units of frozen plasma and 1 unit of platelets, a lot of drugs and sleep, I was finally able to move back to post partum to be with the outside world, sort of.

The days following....
There were several setbacks these next couple of days. The first day I was in post partum I still couldn't move because of the anesthesia and so therefore couldn't go to the bathroom, yes I was wearing diapers. Being a mom I have no reservations anymore so I feel completely comfortable saying that I have officially pooped in front of my family. I was lying in the hospital bed and they had given me a suppository so I had no chance of making it to the bathroom. Humiliating at the time but being me I had to make a joke out of it so I said, " I am totally crapping myself right now!" Kind of crude but funny at the same time! Sorry if I have offended anyone! Anyways, my blood pressure wasn't completely stable and my oxygen level was low so I was put back on oxygen (oh how bittersweet that tube in my nose was! It gave me bloody noses!). I started spiking a fever at nights and they thought I had an incisional infection and my Dr. thought he was going to have to go back into my incision on my tummy, drain and clean it out. They had to take my blood several times to see if I was getting any other kinds of infection. The baby was discharged to us on Wednesday night so my poor husband was taking care of both of us, only going home once a day to shower, sleeping in the hospital every night, hardly leaving my side, and not mentioning spending his birthday in the hospital with me! How awesome is he? It was amazing to me how quickly he fell into the role of daddy and did it by himself for a few days. He was a pro before I even had a chance to change one diaper! So the setbacks continued. I got thrush, a yeast infection in my throat, and couldn't eat anything and they still couldn't figure out why I was spiking a fever so they made a decision that it was most likely septic pelvic thrombophlebitis, clotting in the pelvis from surgery. I was put on Lovenox, blood thinners, and had a very powerful triplet antibiotic (which I was told was a lot for my body to handle) to go in and clean out the clotting. Lovenox is a blood thinner shot that has to be given in a fatty tissue twice a day. So for almost two weeks (Ty had to give them to me when we got home because I couldn't do it myself) I had to get a shot twice a day. Here is an interesting fact, I swelled so badly and they came me pills that caused me to pee it out; every 2 hours I was peeing about 32 oz. of fluid for more than 3 days. Do the math, that's a lot of fluid. I got quite the stretch marks on my sides and down onto my legs because I swelled so quickly and so much! We had been in the hospital for a week and a half and I had had it! I rebelled! The Wednesday before we came home I was so sick of nurses telling me I had to take my potassium horse pills and get up and walk at least 4 times a day and I had family (bless their souls) telling me to eat and do this and do that I just wanted to sleep and do what I wanted to do so I slept almost all day long. I was so burned out and discouraged from sitting in that hospital that I remember asking Ty if I was meant to die then it could still happen because nothing seemed to be going right and I felt awful still. I was supposed to be home and taking care of my new baby girl and I couldn't even hold her without the IV's getting in the way or having to lug the stupid IV pole with me to pick her up! The hospital food started smelling sterile and I don't think I could have eaten it even if I didn't have thrush. I was allowed that one day to myself and I don't think I have felt that awful since.

Saturday September 5th. 12 days in the hospital and HOME!
Honestly, I was about ready to run out of that hospital! The day before I had gone outside for the first time and it made me miss home and the grass and just the outside that I was seriously contemplating telling them I was leaving and they could deal with it. My Dr. was out of town and so was his partner so there was another Dr. and it was a woman! Me and Ty went for a walk that morning in the halls and (all the nurses knew us on a first name basis by this point) the nurses all started talking to us and this Dr. Susan Horvath all of the sudden says, "I don't see any reason you need to be here." Me and Ty were shocked. It was like, are you really saying what I think you are saying? She said she would come see us later and since the deal was that I needed to be afebrile (without a fever) for 2 days we were praying I wouldn't spike a fever within the next half hour so we would get to go home! They took my vitals one last time and I had a temperature of 98 some odd degrees and my heart rate was through the roof at 131 because I was SO excited! When she came in and said I could go home I screamed so loud I scared my little one! I started crying and I still couldn't believe it.

So that's the story! There is a lot missing because I'm sure you want this post to end but I have learned a lot from this experience. Mostly that there are things in this life you should never take for granted no matter how small they are. I thought I would be able to have children and we were planning on it until this happened. Sleeping in the same bed as my husband, being able to walk around without being tubed to a metal pole (how about just being able to walk), being able to shower by myself and go to the bathroom without having to check how much I'm peeing or wearing a diaper, ice chips in the ICU to soothe an intubated throat, graham crackers, my family and how much I love them and they love me, the power of prayer, a full night's sleep, and my health.

There was a girl who gave birth the day after I did and she had the same problem, however, they were able to stop her hemorrhaging and they saved her uterus. Sad to say, there was a girl who had the same thing happen the next week and she didn't make it.

My mom gave me a necklace while I was in the hospital that has a shooting star on it and it says believe. I believe, the lord provided our family with so many tender mercies in those 12 days (and even now) and even though me and Tyler can't have anymore children, I am here alive and well, our baby girl Brynlee Jade is beautiful and completely healthy and aside from everything else that has been good and helpful, those two things are the best things we could have asked for, the silver linings in a dark storm of trials.