Week 23 - Complications

Thursday was my big day for the next ultrasound and verdict from Dr. Newton Cheh whether or not I could go to China in a few weeks.  I figured everything would go quite normally and she would give me a yes, and then it would really end up being my choice whether I really wanted to sit on an airplane to travel across the world.  But the day did not go anything like planned.  I got the ultrasound, the technician gave me the picture (which, I think is one of the best pictures we've gotten so far):

But then she came back in after I got dressed, and said she wanted me to see a doctor.  Dr. Newton-Cheh wasn't in that day, and as it turned out, I don't think anyone was in the clinic, so after a little wait, they sent me over to the ante-natal area of the hospital for Dr. DeVries, who was there on call.  As soon as I got there, they hooked me up to a device to measure contractions, which was very wierd.  At this point, I was feeling totally normal, and no one had told me anything.  Dr. DeVries was doing a C-section, so after about an hour of monitoring (with no contractions), she came in and explained the situation to me.

I was at risk of going into pre-term labor apparently.  Dr. DeVries had consulted with Dr. Robinson (from the Maternal Fetal Medicine - the same doctor that had done the early prediction) and they were recommending that I get a procedure done right away to address the complications.  I got scheduled to go into the surgical center for the next day (Friday).

So Friday was an exciting day.  We were in the hospital from about 11:30am to 5:30pm.  Because I couldn't eat anything from midnight Thursday night, I was starving, and I think the little one was hungry too, because he was definitely kicking up a storm. Before the surgery, I had Jim put his hand on my belly to feel the kicks.  It was the first time that he was able to actually feel them.



I had spinal anesthesia, so I was awake for the whole procedure.  The surgeon only worked on me for about 10 minutes.  And then the majority of the time was spent in post-op, waiting for the spinal to wear off.

Needless to say, this has all been a pretty scary ordeal.  I'm a little surprised at how attached I feel to a baby I've only begun to even feel.  And I can't help but think about Mom and how hard loosing Kameron had to have been - she was only about one month further along.