Surgery 8/7/12

So much has happened but I guess we'll start at the beginning: Monday evening, after some slightly too-eventful car problems on the way, Isaiah and I finally checked into the hospital in San Francisco. Thanks to Isaiah's parents for driving us into town so late! We wasted no time in getting into a room, changing into my awesome hospital gown and getting an IV in place. Yes, it hurt. And it bled a lot. Then we watched some olympics and the nurse actually let us sleep for a while that night. Around 6 am all the real excitement began. I got a medical history and vitals taken. Two big guys wheeled my little bed down to the operating prep room to get the epidural. The room had a beach scene mural with seagulls painted on the ceiling. I guess that helps you relax or something. Yes, the epidural hurt too, but not that much. Immediately after the epidural catheter went into my back I started feeling really dizzy and nauseous and told the doctors so. They said, "We'll be done in about 2 minutes and then you can lie down." The thing is--when I feel like I'm going to throw up, I'm going to throw up. Thankfully, or unthankfully, Isaiah knows this first hand and rushed the nurses to get me a bucket STAT. Go figure, the instant the bucket was in front of me I threw up. Great start to surgery. Another slight complication came when everybody kept asking about my blood type. Apparently the blood bank was having a hard time matching O- blood with RhoGAM shot antibodies. We waited to enter the operating room until they could verify I had a blood match. They must have found one because after about half an hour of waiting I kissed Isaiah goodbye and entered the OR. This room had constellations painted on the ceiling. Another attempt to relax me, I suppose. There were several doctors including the neurosurgeon, the fetal surgeon and the anesthesiologists setting up in the room. We waited a while for the ultrasound doctor to come set up her equipment. The ultrasound stays on the entire time to monitor baby and make sure he's okay during surgery. One doctor put oxygen over me and told me to take deep breaths. I took a few and thought, "This must not be the oxygen that puts you to sleep because I'm still awake." I don't remember anything else.

When I woke up I saw Isaiah and recognized our original hospital room but I was so tired I fell right back asleep. I heard things periodically through the day as doctors came in to check on me and ask how I was doing. The most important thing I heard was, "Everything went really well." I gave thumbs-ups to indicate I was okay, and I slept as much as I could. I couldn't say a thing--my voice was shot from the breathing tube. I could barely force out a whisper.

I must have been awake around 4:30 when I turned to Isaiah and said, "I think my catheter is dripping. I feel like I just wet the bed." The doctors and nurses, who knew more about catheters than I do, probably knew catheters don't just "drip." My water broke.

Did you know your water can break but it doesn't mean you're going into labor? Me neither.

Most of the time...around 39-40 weeks...when women go into labor...their water breaks...and nobody really knows why it happens. Well we know why my water broke. It's because I had fetal surgery. We also know that now I will stay in San Francisco until I deliver baby. That's a bummer. It's a big bummer. What we don't know is when the baby will come now. Obviously we're concerned about him coming very early. However, we know that my water breaking doesn't necessarily mean I'll be having him today or tomorrow or even next week. In fact, strange as it seems, the doctors said the earlier your water breaks, the longer you tend to stay pregnant. The fact that my water broke at 25 weeks 2 days doesn't guarantee Baby Hudson will be born super early. We have high hopes Baby Hudson will stay put for many more weeks so he can keep growing and developing in the best place possible--in my tummy. We hope we're in the best place for him to get quality care whenever he's born. As much as it stinks to be in a hospital for the rest of my pregnancy, as much as I hate to think about being away from Isaiah and my family, and as much as I want Isaiah to be here when I deliver my baby, the MOST important thing to me now is keeping Baby Hudson healthy. We'll keep you posted on our efforts!