I know it has been some time since my last update... But as many of you already know, I have a REALLY good excuse...
Tuesday, May 1st, I had this horrible heartburn... Or so I thought... I went to bed relatively early, as I wasn't really feeling well, and I had this pain in my chest that just wouldn't quit. Ok, that sounds really bad, let me rephrase... I had "intense heartburn" at the base of my ribcage, right smack in the center of my chest, kinda in that boney spot right between my awesome cans. (I feel weird typing out to my blogging readers a serious reference to my breasts... But maybe I should be most accurate and serious with this post, as it could be read by another pregnant woman and potentially save her life and/ or the life of her child...)
SO. I ate some Rennie (the Portuguese equivalent of Tums), and tossed and turned and whimpered and cried a little, until about 4 AM, when I finally fell asleep. My alarm goes off at 7:15 AM, I get up to get Bianca ready for school, life continues, business as usual.
Wednesday, a normal day...
Thursday, May 3rd, around 9 pm... I don't remember why it was so ate, but I was trying to make a late dinner, I knew I was hungry, felt starving in fact... I was cutting up some melon slices and inhaling it as I was cutting it up, I was so hungry... My hands were trembling and I had a flash from my baby emails, maybe I was having a low blood sugar attack of some sort, mental note: must-reread those emails! I was in bed by 9:30, crawling around in pain, the "heartburn" in my chest had returned with a vengeance... (By the way, I never had any stomach acid in my throat, so I did realize this wasn't the typical "heartburn" I was normally complaining about...) My stomach hurt a little, so I sat on the toilet thinking maybe I needed a BM (though throughout my pregnancy, I never had the common pregnancy problem of constipation... lucky girl... :/ ) It wasn't a "normal, healthy" poop, but before I was even ready to contemplate if and how "heartburn,"upset stomach and pooping were related to pregnancy issues, I threw up right in the garbage can in front of me. Several times. Half naked, sitting on the toilet, chest pain and puking, I got dressed and told Vic I had to go to the hospital. I was in so much pain in my chest, I didn't even care if I was about ti cost us one night in the ER, plus expenses, and the most-likely result was an ER doctor telling me I am an idiot and probably giving me a dose of hospital grade Pepto Bismol. Vic called our insurance company to find the nearest hospital that would treat me at 27 weeks pregnant. (Portuguese public vs. private hospitals are in this weird transitional phase... it's horrendous, a rant for another day...) The nurse on the phone via insurance company hotline (???!!! what???!!!) asked me (via Vic's translation) a list of symptoms and it was determined to put me to bed with some crackers, sipping plain tea with sugar. Vic hung up the phone and off we went to Hospital da Luz, in Lisbon. I threw up out the door several times at the bridge toll booth line of traffic (at 11 pm??!) and cried the whole way there...
Once I finally was in a doctor's exam room, maybe 11:30, midnight? I was given an exam, and put into a bed with an IV of something, fluids, etc., I have no idea... Victor dove BACK home, to pick up my forgotten medical records (my entire pregnancy is recorded in my Green Book... this is a Portuguese thing...) and dropped Bianca off at Grandma Alda's house for the night. I don't really remember this part too well (the first of several in this whole ordeal.....) but the two doctors treating me came into my room to tell me that I had pre-eclampsia and probably HELLP syndrome and that my baby would have to be delivered via emergency c-section within the next few days, MAX. Naturally, I start crying, and I am prepped to be transported to another hospital, better equipped for my situation. Once Victor arrives, not only to the doctors explain that they cannot handle the delivery of such a tiny preemie baby, but because my insurance doesn't cover my pregnancy (it would only cover me after 12 months of being insured, and I would have to wait until November for pregnancy- related insurance coverage...). Oh, and by the way, it my situation would cost an additional 85,000 euros, by the time our baby would be out of the hospital, IF baby survives... (And if I survive, for that matter.) They tell my husband that he wife is dying. Actually used the words, "your wife is dying" with Baby's placenta still inside of me. O. M. G.
So I took a trip in an ambulance to another hospital, Hospital da Santa Maria... 5 minutes away. Several HUNDRED euros Vic had to pay for a 5 minute transport. He asked why he couldn't take me himself, as it was literally right down the road, and maybe this is when they said that I was dying... Like I said before, this was all news to me later on, maybe they didn't even tell me that I could die if the baby wasn't delivered ASAP, who knows... Victor maybe, but he doesn't really want to talk about it too much right now... nor do I blame him. I think he was in a worse state of shock than I was the first few days.
Hospital da Santa Maria is a massive, massive university hospital. While it is by no means fancy in the least, it does provide excellent medical care, with some of the best doctors in the country working there. It is a public hospital which is now my home away from home for the next several months (with luck, I say only several months... *sigh*)
So I was admitted to the 6th floor, the emergency pregnancy-related floor... I don't remember anything else of Thursday night. Friday, I had doctors and nurses in my room all day, I was put on all kinds of gnarly steroids, and from what Victor tells me, I may have been stabilized, keeping Baby inside of me (the longer the better, right down to the minutes that baby stays inside...) but I began my transformation into The Hulk. I blew up. And it's a good thing I couldn't get out of bed and see myself in a mirror, as pictures from these days in the hospital, I don't even recognize myself.
Friday, May 4th. I kept waiting until they would take me away to take my baby out of me. When I wasn't knocked out, I was torturing myself with the "What Ifs" of everything I could have done wrong in this pregnancy to develop pre-eclampsia, the What Ifs of what could go wrong, the overwhelming guilt of what could happen to my baby, long-term, and of course the soul searching, soul-suck of What Did I Do to deserve this mental plague... I had an ultrasound Friday, mid-morning, when I was stable, pain-free and convinced this whole thing was a HUGE mistake. They kept asking me if my due date was wrong. My baby was measuring only about 24 weeks, and I was supposedly near the end of my 27th week. Naturally, this sends me reeling... At this point during the sonogram, I finally asked the sex of the baby. I was devastated that Victor wasn't with me, (poor man was catching a few hours of sleep at home after the First Worst Night of His Life. Vic and I had said time and again, we don't care if it's a boy or a girl, we just want a healthy baby. Realizing my life was in jeopardy, my baby was even worse off, and not only could I die in the next few days? Hours? But I could lose my baby too? I asked... It's a girl. My tiny, tiny baby is a girl. The doctors said this was best, because for some reason, girls are more resilient preemies than boys. I could care less what anyone was saying to me... I just wanted my baby to stay safe, inside of me. Even if I was at such risk.....
I had a happy, healthy, easy, breezy pregnancy, or so I thought. The first 24 weeks, apparently. After that, literally 2 weeks after my healthy perfect sonogram at 21 weeks, things started to go bad. When I went for my early April update (actually I think it was April 16th) my blood pressure was up, (but not alarmingly up...) and I gained 5 kilos in a month. Which was weird, unexpected but hey, I'm pregnant. You have to gain weight, at some point, right? I didn't SEEM that much bigger, though I was exhausted. The recommendation was to cut salt out of my diet for a week and come back for another BP reading. And blood exams, to make sure everything was ok. Which I had an appointment for, ironically, May 4th. FML.
So I developed pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome (still too upset to really read too much about this stuff) and nearly died. I was in the pregnancy ICU care until Monday, May 7th, when I was deemed stable enough to move to the pre-baby maternity floor. Victor pretty much lived at the hospital with me during this time, spending some 16-20 hours a day with me. Because it was the ICU, there were no set visiting hours, and he held my hand, calmed me down, told me I was beautiful (even though from pictures I now know he was just remembering how beautiful I am when I am not pumped full of baby-saving, baby-maturing hormones and steroids..............) Victor snuck me bites of food, and even convinced the nurses and doctors a strawberry ice pop would be ok. It was THE MOST AMAZING ice pop in the history of ice pops. Four days with nothing but sips of water and IV fluids, that ice pop was incredible. That was maybe Sunday though... we are up to Monday evening... So Monday night, Victor finds me in another ward, the pre-baby maternity ward. (You like how they call and tell the Next Of Kin?) I wasn't allowed my cell phone, so I couldn't even keep him updated, not like I was in much of a condition to text.... )
Monday night... I was fed (!!) dinner, and off Victor went home, to finally have a semi-decent night's sleep... His wife was for all intensive purposes, out of the woods, so to speak, I was stable, baby was stable. He went food shopping for me, as it was clear I'd be in the hospital for awhile longer, as the only goal at this point was to keep baby inside of me. The only "cure" for eclampsia is to deliver the placenta. There is no known cause, and this is the only "cure." The placenta that gives my baby life, was literally sucking the life out of me.
The "heartburn" came back Monday night. I whimpered, cried, tried to pee, tried to poop, I walked, I tried to sleep. The night nurses called the doctor in eventually. She said I had a "stomach ache."
The pain, it turns out, was not heartburn at all. It was my liver and kidneys being compromised, going into failure. Thus the whole "dying" bit. This is why you die from eclampsia. The body is working so hard to keep baby healthy and growing, it takes more than the mother's body can handle.
I was given some more IV fluids, I don't remember what... I was given a liquid heartburn reliever type medicine. It wasn't until around 4 AM when I was throwing up bile and the nurses were looking at me commenting in Portuguese that I was white as a ghost (my language skills have improved significantly after this experience) did they decide I was headed back to the ICU.
Tuesday, May 8th.
I was prepped for an emergency c-section. Dr. Nuno said it couldn't wait any longer. I was crying, begging them to stop, telling them I felt better, please don't take my baby. For the first time in at least 15 years, I was praying, crying, begging the heavens to make it all stop, make my baby safe. Keep her safely inside me. All I could think about was how tiny she is, it's too early. All the things I did wrong in my LIFE and still not deserve this suffering. I kept asking to call Victor. Where's Victor. Where is Victor. Vic. Vic. Don't take my baby out. My baby is better, my chest doesn't hurt anymore.
I woke up later that afternoon in the most comfortable bed in my life. Victor sat there. (Was he there when I woke up?) He was livid. He had a huge bag of food, as the night before, I was eating real food again, I was stable, I was staying in the hospital for awhile, just fine. I remember kept telling him not to be mad, that everything was fine.
Valentina Lee Castro was born Tuesday, May 8th, 2012, at 8:16 AM in Lisbon, Portugal. She weighed in at 726 grams (1.6 lbs). Her gestational age was 27 weeks 6 days.
Victor didn't find out that his wife had emergency surgery and his child was born 13 weeks premature (plus the 3 week tax due to the eclampsia) until 1:30 in the afternoon. No one called him. The OR staff had the ICU send a FAX to the pre-maternity ward where I was the night before. No one bothered. My medical care was excellent, all things considered. The DETAILS of this hospital SUCK a big one sometimes... MORE on this later...
Baby Vivi is tiny. So, so so tiny. But she is my baby. And she is fighting for her life, one day at a time. I don't have the energy to relive this ordeal again right now, I am crying all over again thinking about these scary horrible days...
I am now a Preemie Mama. I am at the NICU every day. I wasn't allowed to see my baby until Friday, as I had all these wires and tubes still attached to ME, including a central line thingy in my neck, as all the blood that was taken in the first few days literally blew all the veins in arms and hands and wrists. Once I was finally released from the hospital, I looked like the worst junky ever. It is now May 26th, and my left arm is STILL all shades of purple, brown and tan, the result of a nurse poking my vein in an attempt to draw blood, poking the artery and not pressing it hard enough/ long enough for the vein to clot and the artery leaked. It still hurts like hell. And I sent my dad pictures... he has assured me that there is no long term damage, its just painful and ugly.
My parents couldn't handle this whole ordeal from the other side of the ocean... They flew out two weeks ago now and it has been such a stress-reliever, just having the comfort of my mama and papa here with Vic and me... Now that I'm out of the hospital, Victor and I see baby Vivi every day. We spend as much time as we can with her, but it never feels long enough. My first days in the hospital after she was born (but before I could get out of my hospital bed and see her) I would lay there and just sob... For all of the reasons previously stated, but mostly because I had this ache in my heart: all I want, even now, still, nearly three weeks later, is to hold my child, feel her sleep on my chest.
Victor Castro has been my anchor through all of this horrific experience. I never thought I would think of the birth of my first child as horrific, but it was, and it was even worse for Vic, as I was unconscious or drugged for some of the worst parts. He has been with me every moment of every day in the hospital, sparing me just how much this has hurt him. He has let my overwhelming range of emotions wash over him, letting me be angry hen I needed it, comforting me when I cry, helping me out of bed when I literally can't get up, waiting endless hours while I pump breast milk for our tiny heart... Thank you Vic... How can I ever explain just how much I love you?
my recovery has been... slow. Physically, I am better. My c-section incision still hurts, but it's getting better day by day. But my head... I feel robbed... cheated out of so many pregnancy experiences. I never felt Valentina kick me the way women describe. I felt her swimming and moving, but I never got kicked. Now I know why... she was still too small, due to the eclampsia... I never got the huge belly. My bellybutton never popped. I was strangely looking forward to that, too, oddly enough. I never really "felt" super pregnant, I never filled out my new maternity clothes. The craving were minimal, mere excuses to drink orange soda. Speaking of which, the guilt, overwhelming guilt I still feel, like I did something to cause the eclampsia, or what I did to deserve this... No one can convince me otherwise, and my head knows this is true, there is no reason, scientifically speaking, to explain why... but my heart aches for Valentina to grow, to be strong in her incubator, to be HEALTHY, to please, dear God, help her grow into a healthy perfect baby... please don't let her suffer any long-term damage or have any health problems... my innocent baby doesn't deserve that... My heart aches that I did something to cause my eclampsia. That feeling may never go away. I feel like there is nothing more important in this world, than how many grams our tiny baby weighs today, if her breathing monitor is working correctly, how many milligrams of milk she is consuming today, how did she sleep last night...
I will write more about this, I'm sure, but for now, here are my Facebook updates about our tiny, precious heart's miraculous progress, day by day...
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| our tiny heart growing stronger day by day |
Ps. the new name of this blog... Valentina Lee: Grow Baby Grow.
