For journaling
purposes, I like to record a little history of each child's birth. Although we
were pretty radio silent about Keagan's pregnancy, that desire to record his
story is no different. So here it is, to the best of my recollection:
After Brogan's stressful
birth in the beginning of 2022, I was a bit on the fence on if we were going to
have another. I didn't quite feel done, but I also didn't really feel very
convinced on another yet, if at all. My mindset about it had been very much
"we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." My health hadn't been
the best with Brogan, so a lot of people took that to mean we wouldn't have
more. I liked to leave it as we were undecided. I went through a bit of a hard
time mentally throughout 2023 and at one point while I was praying for comfort,
I felt the distinct impression that we had another child waiting to come to our
family. I laughed it off a bit and thought, "well, if that's the case,
you'll have to convince Caleb to convince me, because I am NOT dealing with
comments about how I must force him to have more kids." (As a side note,
Caleb doesn't think that. It's comments from others and my internal anxiety
that says it!) I then told myself that if another kid was really meant for us,
we'd know it when it was time. As the months passed, I started to feel very
content with life as it was, and in the fall we even got rid of some baby
stuff, thinking we'd probably never need it again. I started to have issues
with my menstrual cycle and it caused a little panic, because I've always been
very regular. After three months, I went in to do some testing. Everything
turned out fine and it was suspected to be stress that was causing it, and I
was relieved there wasn't an issue. I think the timing of it got my
subconscious thinking, because I wasn't intending to think about another baby,
but the universe was definitely starting to send signs.
On one random day in
November, I was getting stuff done around the house when all of the sudden I
was filled with panic that I hadn't checked on one of my kids. And then I was
filled with horror when I realized I couldn't figure out WHO I hadn't checked on!
I immediately got up, circled the house, and checked on all five kids, counted
on my fingers, and then with relief and embarrassment, tried to laugh it off
when I realized all my kids were present and fine. I wrote it off as I must be
really dang worn out to forget something as simple as that. But then the next
day, the exact same thing happened. I knew the entire time that hey, they're
all going to be fine, but my panic would not subside until I'd made my rounds
and tried to remind myself that I only had 5 kids, and they were all accounted
for and fine. And then I wondered to myself if maybe my IIH was flaring up for
my memory and mind to be freaking out like that. And then the next day, yet
again, PANIC. At that point, I had the blaring thought that I think someone,
somewhere, was trying to tell me something. I considered telling Caleb how
crazy I felt and what happened, but decided not to since I didn't want it to
come across like I was putting pressure on him (again, he probably wouldn't
have felt that way about it, but it’s a bit of a sensitive thing for me and I
was worried). To my complete shock, when Caleb got into bed that night, he let
out a big sigh and said, "So, I know we have one more kid." I was so
stunned that I just slowly turned my head towards him and said,
"...Oh?????" And then he proceeded to tell me how lately, every day
he kept feeling like someone was missing, but when he looked around and counted
the kids, they were all there. I then told him all about my crazy experiences
and together we decided maybe it was a sign from God, or the kid, or just the
universe.
The next night at dinner it
was rushed and the kids were being wild and we told everyone to come sit down,
and then in frustration, Caleb hollered "Whoever is missing from this
table, get down here NOW!" and I simultaneously said, "Hey, who isn't
at this table?!?!?!?" Connor, our oldest, looked at us like we were insane
and said, "WE ARE ALL HERE!!!!!!!!" Caleb and I just looked at each
other and knew, it was definitely a sign.
I wanted to make sure that my cycle was normal in Dec, so we waited until Jan to decide to try. I was tracking ovulation and thought I knew when I would ovulate, but on the day I was expecting to see an LH surge, my LH dropped. I was discouraged and thought it meant I wouldn't ovulate, but in actuality, the LH dropped because I ovulated early and was already pregnant. I started to feel a little off about 10 days later and although I wasn't optimistic, I decided to test. I was so surprised to see the faintest positive and woke Caleb up to show him!
I had used a clear blue test and I often like to test every few days through the first couple weeks, so a few days later I went to test again and I ended up grabbing a first response test. My heart froze when there was nothing! I immediately did another clear blue and it was very dark and a very clear positive. I was quite confused by this because from what I'd heard and previously experienced, first response tests are typically MORE sensitive, and if one was going to show a delayed positive, odds are it would be the clear blue, not the first response doing it. I found myself feeling really anxious about it. I continued to check both brands periodically. It wasn't until 8 days later that the first response test showed a positive, although suuuuper faint.
The following day on Feb 2nd, I started to experience
horrible lower back pain and lower abdominal pain in my left side that radiated
to my hip. Because of how weird the positive tests were and having never
experienced the pain before, I started to worry and called my doctor's office.
They decided to have me come in for an HCG blood draw to see if we could rule
out an ectopic pregnancy. The total was 536 which was a good number for being 6
weeks along. They had me come in again on Feb 5th (my birthday!) and the total
was 1713, and the pain had started to lessen, so it was decided that everything
looked good.
Caleb & I were really
excited about expecting another baby, but I really wanted to just keep the news
to ourselves for a bit. I felt pretty confident that it was a girl because we
had a house full of boys already, so why would we need more boy? I had strong
feelings against having 5 sons for whatever reason, and I was confident that
Heavenly Father knew my feelings on it and cared about what I wanted. So, we
kept our excitement to ourselves and decided that we would announce after NIPT
results were done. I went on a girl’s trip with my mom and sisters and managed
to not spill the news despite catching a horrible cold and feeling sick and
miserable the whole time! I know they all suspected something, though. They
were just polite enough not to pry.
I hadn’t been sleeping well,
and fighting the cold that I had acquired left me incredibly anxious about
everything, so on Feb 23rd I went to a local ultrasound place for a "peace
of mind" ultrasound just to make sure everything looked good and relieve
my stress a bit. I felt a lot better after being able to see baby! Heart rate
was 164 and everything looked good.
A few days later on the 25th,
my doctor's office ended up getting me in for a nurse intake appointment and my
dating ultrasound. For both ultrasounds, baby was measuring a day ahead of LMP,
but we just kept the due date as Oct 7th. Baby's heart rate was 171 that day
and baby was measuring 8 w + 1 d.
We had our nurse intake appointment on March
11th and we did our NIPT draw and were anxious to see results. It
was a pretty basic appointment, but I was told that my doctor wanted me to
start taking baby aspirin every day, considering my blood pressure issues I had
with Brogan. We were glad to be proactive about it this time around! A few days
after my appointment, I got a call that my A1C had showed high in my initial lab
work, so they wanted me to get in for a 1-hour glucose test earlier than normal.
I went in on the 15th to get that done. In the end, my results came
back ok so I didn’t have to do another glucose test until the usual time.
The results came back from our NIPT on Sat
the 16th. I was so nervous and excited and every fiber of my being
just knew I would see FEMALE listed for gender. It was really early in the
morning when I saw the email and I could hardly wait, despite the fact that
Caleb was sleeping. I opened up the portal and tried to scroll to where I
wouldn’t see the results until I woke Caleb, but I messed up. My scroll
immediately revealed MALE. My heart sunk and I was so confused. I remember
feeling completely numb and waking Caleb up and handing over the phone. He was
really hurt and upset that I didn’t wait to look until he could look with me.
It was an accident, but emotions were high and I admit I really struggled to
come to terms with it. I had a lot tied up in the idea that it would be the
girl that my heart wanted to finish our family with a bow, and I couldn’t
understand why I would have felt so strongly about it and felt so prompted,
when God knew how I felt about the idea of having five sons. For a while it
really had my heart broken to bits, but I tried to push forward.
My first appointment with the doctor was
March 19th. We briefly discussed at that appointment that my blood
pressure was already going up higher than she’d like to see at that point, and
she made sure I was taking baby aspirin and told me she’d like to prescribe
blood pressure meds and see how that helps at the next appointment. I was
reluctant, but decided that listening to her advice was for the best. The
doctor that I was seeing was the same one that had delivered Brogan and I
really liked her. Unfortunately, she was part of Saltzer, which would be
closing at the end of March. I was really nervous to find out if she would be
taking my insurance at her new clinic she was opening and was thrilled to find
out that she was! I made the switch to her new clinic and scheduled all other
appointments there with her.
The next few weeks passed in a blur.
Easter was coming up and we had a trip planned to go down to UT, so we decided
it was time to share the news with close family, and especially the kids. I had
bought some big golden plastic eggs and on March 21st we put the
ultrasound pictures in one and had the kids all gather together and open it. We
didn’t share the gender at that time because I was still hoping there was some
crazy explanation and it was wrong results, but we did want to share the
pregnancy news. The kids were stunned but very excited!
We took cute pictures on Easter, but decided not to share them on social media for the sake of my stress levels and blood pressure.
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I didn’t see my doctor again until my 16-week
appointment at her clinic on April 22nd. I had started feeling baby
move already, but was very emotional about Caleb’s upcoming WOCS school and the
extended absence it required. I broke into tears at the appointment because my
doctor said to not schedule the ultrasound until after 20 weeks, and that would
mean he would miss it. She’s a very wonderful doctor, and after asking what was
going on and me explaining, she said if the hospital (I had to be referred out because
she didn’t have a stenographer who could get me in for quite a while) could fit
me in after 18 weeks and before he would leave, that was acceptable to her.
We decided to schedule a private gender reveal at the local ultrasound place so that we could be 100% sure Caleb would be there and we’d be able to confirm gender and wrap our heads around it before he left. The day was May 7th, and we were able to go in the afternoon and my parents watched our little boys while the other kids were at school. Once again, I was very nervous but holding out some hope that I would hear GIRL proclaimed. But she looked, showed us, and said, “Well mom, what do you think?” It was clearly a boy. I didn’t feel like talking much after that and was really struggling. I let Caleb tell the kids that evening but just wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to deal with people asking, or having to tell anyone, or deal with their judgmental comments or even the looks on their faces. It really felt like God played a trick on me to get me to have another kid, and it was a faith-shattering experience for me (Please don't judge! If you feel the need to, I highly suggest you unfriend me on all social media platforms, because I have zero desires to interact with people who can't understand compassion and that we all experience different things in life that are hard for that specific person and not for other people).
In the next couple of weeks, I started to be able to think about it without tears. Evelynn had a dance recital and some family came into town. I really wasn’t thrilled about it because we hadn’t shared our news with many, strictly because of how judgmental people can be about big families. It just wasn’t something I wanted to deal with so I put it off. They didn’t say anything to us in person that weekend, but a few days later Caleb got a phone call asking “When were you going to tell us?” Caleb tried to play it off, but they insisted they could tell straight away. We kept the details vague but Caleb did eventually tell them we were due in October and keeping things quiet to keeps stress levels down for the sake of my health, which was the truth!
By some miracle, we were able to get in for our 20-week ultrasound before Caleb left, on May 16th. I was glad we had already been able to process the gender disappointment because it allowed us to discuss names and have an enjoyable ultrasound. We had always said we would do an S name if we had a 6th baby, but I ended up realizing that I wasn’t really a fan of very many boy S names, especially not ones that matched our older boy’s names. I had compiled a bit of a list, but was leaning towards Walker, which was after my West side of the family. My great-grandfather was named Ray Walker West, after his mother’s maiden name of Walker. Caleb looked over the list with me but didn’t really love that it sounded like a last name. On that list I had also had the name Keagan. It was the boy name that I had had in the back of my mind before we found out that Evelynn was a girl. I decided to add it to the list, thinking Caleb probably wouldn’t like it, but I was wrong. He immediately pointed to it and said, “I do like Keagan, though.” We had a bit more discussion about the middle name, because we like to use family names for middle names. Ultimately, we both liked Keagan Walker and decided that we would keep that in mind and think about it while we were apart.
Caleb left on May 19th. It was a very emotional experience to drop him off at the airport. I took some cute "half-baked" photos.
I had my 21-week
appointment the following week on the 28th. For some reason, I found
myself really stressed when I went to schedule out the rest of my appointments
and they had a 7-week gap between my next appointment and that one. Something
so simple seemed to trip my anxiety and I began to not be able to sleep. I was
having panic attacks and crippling insomnia like I’ve never experienced before.
I could feel baby’s kicks consistently and even feel with my hand, but all my
attempts to refocus on baby and the kids at home didn’t help. I was struggling
in a very big way. I reached out to my doctor via online portal to see if we
could try something for anxiety. I don’t know if it was those specific meds, or
just my being pregnant, or just how chronically sleep deprived and stressed I
already was, but my body didn’t respond well to the meds. I was having trouble
getting more than a combined 3 hours of sleep each night and was very, very
miserable. My blood pressure was dropping very low when I took my anxiety meds
and the blood pressure meds, but without the blood pressure meds, it would
skyrocket. I didn’t feel well and it added to my stress and issues sleeping.
On June 11th I started to hit
a breaking point. I had spent several days calling friends and just crying and
crying and trying to walk and meditate and do basically anything I could come
up with to help me feel calm and be able to sleep, but it had been a long day,
and my friend Megan txt me and asked how I was doing. In my despair, I answered
honestly and told her I was at a breaking point, and she shocked me by saying
she’d come right over. She sat with me while I cried and was planning to go
home after making us dinner, but then I started having very strange thing
happen. My leg started spasming uncontrollably and very dramatically. I was
hoping I was imagining it, but after a few minutes, I showed Megan and she
convinced me to call my parents. My mom was unavailable, but my dad came and
Megan took me to the ER and stayed with me while we waited in the lobby for
hours.
My blood pressure was really high upon
checking in. Shortly after arriving, my other leg started spasming, too, and
then it moved to my arms. I looked like a crazy person with my arms and legs
flailing around. I tried sitting on my hands to see if it would help, but
nothing did. I even accidentally hit Megan at one point. When they finally got
me to a room, the doctor ended up sending me for a brain scan. I was
apologizing for my arms flailing around and as soon as he heard that I couldn’t
control it, he wanted to rule out issues like that, which I was ok with, I just
felt so bad because they had to strap me down and I was still spasming all over
the place. Because I was just under 24 weeks, they kept me in the ER and said
they could only give me Benadryl. I was a little worried about that because in
the past Benadryl has actually been the opposite of calming and has made me
feel really agitated and panicked, but if that was all they could offer, that’s
what I would do. I was able to fall asleep and they woke me 2 hours later. They
said the brain scan came back clear, so they suspected it was a reaction to the
anxiety med I had started and probably not to take it again, as well as a
combination of extreme sleep deprivation and stress. And then they sent me home.
My mom was with my kids when Megan
dropped me off and was kind enough to stay with me that night. I was only about
to sleep 2 hours on a dose of Benadryl and then would wake up and have a panic
attack for an hour until I reached the point I could take another dose. It was
exhausting, but I was hopeful it would improve. I got in to see a holistic
doctor the next morning to get ideas, and I was able to schedule a prenatal
massage for the day following that. I still wasn’t doing the best, but was
trying. I learned that my mom had accidentally set off the house alarm that
night but I had slept through it, and woke up to a txt from poor Caleb asking
what was going on and if I was ok. He called me that evening to get filled in.
While I was initially quite confident all
of these ideas that I got from the holistic doctor were going to bring me
relief and that I would improve, days turned into a full week, and then I was
still sleepless and began to be borderline hysterical when I would wake up at
night. I started to cry hysterically whenever I was awake and left to my own thoughts
or felt the slightest bit tired. I got foot massages, sat in salt rooms, did
meditations, scripture study, prayed for hours, but nothing brought the relief
that I needed. My mother was so kind and stayed at the house each night to help out.
During the next week or so, I was
convinced that I must be experiencing hyperthyroidism and had been trying to
get in to get labs to check. I was overwhelmed that it was taking days and days
to get responses, and ultimately had to go down to the hospital the evening of
the 19th, cry hysterically at the admissions desk, and then wait for a long
time while they reached out and twisted arms to get it done. I was waiting on
the results, but my stress levels were getting worse and I didn’t know how to
keep going like that. On the 20th I reached a breaking point. I was
hit with the realization that if I was hysterical in my own home, unable to
find any help, how was I possibly going to be able to manage traveling across
the country and being in a hotel room for Caleb’s upcoming WOC’s graduation???
In desperation, I went in to my doctor’s office hoping to be able to talk to
someone, anyone, and when I tried explaining to the desk lady, I practically
curled into a sobbing ball on the lobby floor. She was going to try to get me
in with a midwife, but about an hour later she said they had called and gotten
ahold of Dr Kasper and she was doing her rotation at L & D and she wanted
me to come down. My family was understanding and supportive, and I was able to
drive myself down. Once again, I cried hysterically at the first hello from the
lady at the desk. And then cried even more uncontrollably to the nurse. Dr
Kasper came in at that point and wrapped me in a big hug and said we would
figure it out and I wasn’t alone. It was such a blessing and their kindness I
will never forget.
I was settled in one of the postpartum
recovery rooms in a quiet corner of the hospital and did the full admission
process. I periodically laid there and cried from sheer exhaustion, but I
wasn’t able to nap at all. I called my sister and told her what was going on,
and touched base with my parents. I had to talk with the in-house social worker
because of my answer to the question, “Have you ever wanted to fall asleep and
not wake up again”. Let me be clear – I was NOT suicidal. I just was utterly
exhausted and having a legitimate nervous breakdown from sleep deprivation.
ANYTHING sounded good, as long as it meant that I would sleep. We had a good
little chat, and then I was left alone again.
Eventually Dr Kasper came in. She had
been able to chat with a psychiatrist to consult about medications and wanted
to start me on a very low dose of Lexapro, which I had previously been on
before during pregnancy and after, so I was comfortable with the idea. She also
had a few things that she wanted to try to help me relax and be able to fall
asleep. We tried Ativan and something else, but hours later I was still
sleepless. I ended up calling the nurse and asking if there was anything else
we could try, and she said she would come in soon with the dr’s orders. I was
hoping to squeeze in a call with Caleb. I had been txting him to let him know
that I was at the hospital and was trying really hard to hang in there long
enough for him to call, but they came and gave me Seroquel to try, and it
completely knocked me out. I slept through the phone call and was really bummed
when I woke up later to find out I’d missed it.
I woke up really early the next morning,
but after weeks of barely getting a few hours of sleep, I felt so refreshed
with the full 7 hours I managed. Dr Kasper came in and it was decided that we
would send me home with a prescription for Seroquel to use as a sleep aid since
I’d responded so well to it, and that I would continue the Lexapro and slowly
increase the dosage, and I would continue the labetalol blood pressure meds. I was so optimistic that this was going to
make the rest of the pregnancy manageable, and hurried home.
My mom had stayed with the kids again,
but was eager to get to her house to prepare for family to come into town for a
bridal shower. Thankfully, that night I was able to hold things down ok and
spent the day getting things taken care of and prepping for my trip to Caleb’s
graduation.
On Sept 24th I went in for my
regular 38-week appointment. I was a few days into a nasty cold, and I was
miserable, exhausted, and starting to not sleep well again. Dr Kasper was
unavailable that day because she was doing her rounds at the hospital, so I saw
her new midwife. When we got to the appointment, my blood pressure was up
again. We decided to try to strip membranes, but my cervix was high and tilted,
so it was a very rough process and the nurse couldn’t quite complete the
process.
The nurse had a little chat with me after I got my clothes back on. I was scheduled to be induced the next week, but she was concerned with my blood pressure and my history of issues, and said that usually once a woman goes on blood pressure meds during pregnancy, it’s a 38-week induction rather than 39. We hadn’t moved mine up after my blood pressure began acting up again, and she wanted to know my thoughts on just sending me over to the hospital to have Dr Kasper check me out in triage. She said she’d call Dr Kasper and fill her in, but then came back and said that Dr Kasper said that we might as well just induce if the nurse was nervous and I was miserable and would be going over there anyway. I was completely stunned, to say the least! They said I could go home and gather up whatever I needed, but that I should plan to head to the hospital and not go home again until we have a baby. I immediately called Caleb and filled him in. She said that he would leave as soon as the fieldtrip finished up, bring Liam home, and then go pick up Evelynn from school early. I then called my parents who were quite pleased with the situation and said they’d “had a feeling” it might be the case. Since they were already at our house watching the boys while I was at my appointment, it didn’t cause too much issue and I was able to hurry home and finish packing up the hospital bag. It didn’t feel real at all, and I was so relieved and nervous!
When we got to the hospital, it was a
pretty quick process to get to our room. I had been having consistent
contractions ever since my appointment, so I was a bit uncomfortable, but
mostly nervous/excited. I was surprised that they had a bed all ready for us
and that it was such a smooth process. I had been so worried it would be super
busy and we wouldn’t be able to get induced. The nurse helped do all my
questions. It was a process to get an IV in, like usual. My veins are stubborn,
so it took about three pokes and they called in their expert to help me out.
When the doctor came in, she said that we were there because her midwife didn’t
think it was a good idea for me to be pregnant anymore, and that she agrees
with what her midwife’s judgment tells her, so baby boy would be getting
evicted as planned. When she checked me, she considered just breaking my water,
but decided that baby’s head was higher than she would like and that she’d
prefer to wait and that I would do an oral cervical ripening agent first and
she’d check in after a few hours had passed.
It was a bit after 5 PM, and while we waited, my blood pressure skyrocketed. They gave me a dose of nifedipine to help manage it and took labs. At that point I was also told that because it was my sixth birth, it made me high risk for hemorrhaging, so I would need a second IV put in. We decided to get that process started, and they called in the expert right away so they didn’t have to mess with a bunch of pokes again. I was able to have some dinner and do some relaxing while we waited. Around 11:30 pm, the doctor came in again and did another check. I was a 3, 50% effaced. She was going to strip membranes but my water ended up breaking, so it was go time. For a while, there was so much gushing. I had no idea a person could have that much fluid! My doctor had me sit up in what she called a princess throne position. I had no idea hospital beds could adjust the way they had it adjust, but it did, and it definitely helped allow gravity to do its job. I was still having contractions, and with the big ones there was a lot of fluid gushing. I was pretty uncomfortable for a while, so we decided to send for the anesthesiologist to get my epidural. We got my epidural in around 1:15 am on the 25th. Like my last labor, it was not an easy process to get the epidural in. There was a lot of hitting bone and we had to restart more than five times. We eventually decided to just deal with how it was, and it was patchy on the left, but great on the right side. It allowed me to relax a bit more, but unfortunately, it also slowed my contractions. My doctor decided that it would be best to start Pitocin and do a foley catheter. After that, things got uncomfortable. We were trying to rotate me and tried the peanut ball to see if it helped. Baby kept moving away from the monitor so they ended up having to put an internal monitor on him because they’d lost his heartbeat for several minutes and they needed to keep him monitored better. I tried resting, but my left hip was in so much pain. I was pushing the bolus button as often as possible to just take the edge off, but eventually I was asking Caleb to get the anesthesiologist back to see if we could retry placing the epidural again. It took a while for him to get in there, and I was really miserable. Eventually the nurse was asking what I was feeling and we were trying to see if we could rotate to help, when she suddenly said she wasn’t sure it was my hip and was thinking maybe it was time. She did a check and to my surprise, I was almost a complete 10. She stepped out to call for the doctor, and the anesthesiologist stepped in. I was so miserable that I just had Caleb explain that I didn’t need it anymore because it was time. He had barely finished explaining when I suddenly felt the urge to push. I remember I said out loud, “Oh no!!!!”. I said it because the doctor wasn’t in the room yet. The nurse heard me and Caleb told her, “She’s pushing.” The nurse hurried over and was trying to get ready and thankfully, the doctor came in right then. We only had to do a few pushes before baby arrived.
Keagan Walker was born at 5:19 am on 9/25/2024.
My first thought was that he looked very gray and very still, and I said out loud, "hi baby, I would feel so much better if you would cry”. I gave him a little kiss and rubbed his back for a split second before the nurse snatched him and said,” we’ve gotta take him, I need him NOW.” I immediately looked at Caleb in a panic, and together we turned our eyes across the room where the team had assembled. Most of the details are a blur, but I do remember hearing someone say, “we’re going to intubate…. Wait, hold on, THERE! He’s ok, he’s ok.” They ended up doing the little CPAP for him and then filled us in quickly on what was going on. They said that he wasn’t handling room oxygen and needed the CPAP and that some babies just struggle to adjust to the practice of breathing on their own. They said that they needed to take him to NICU for further monitoring, and I requested that Caleb go with him. I was so glad that he could! He hadn’t been gone long before he was sending me pictures and updates.
When I was left to myself for a few minutes, I suddenly started feeling like I couldn’t get a breath and the nurse popped in and asked if I was ok. I explained what was going on, and they called for EKG and imaging. Thankfully all was well – apparently, I just had a panic attack and was so exhausted I didn’t even realize I was having one. That sounds very me, doesn’t it? They were so kind and made sure to go tell Caleb what was going on so he knew. I really appreciated their kindness. Caleb and Keagan were in NICU for a couple of hours but then were allowed to come back to the room with an all clear around 8 am. I was soooo eager to hold him! He had bruising on his face from his rough entrance and we were told that it makes him higher risk for jaundice, so they would be checking him every 4 hours. We were finally able to get his size info as well!
8 lbs 0.2 ozs
20 1/4 inches long
13.1/2 inches head circumference
We got to go home late afternoon on the 26th. We had some precious newborn pictures taken while at the hospital.
Keagan’s bilirubin levels were borderline concerning, but they said if we got him into the pediatrician the next day, they would still let us go home. We made sure it got scheduled and were eager to get home to the older kids! It was also really important to Caleb and I that we make sure my blood pressure looked good at discharge and that we were being proactive in making sure it wouldn’t get scary again like it did after Brogan. My doctor had us bump the dose of my labetalol to 200 twice a day, and we hoped that would be enough to keep my blood pressure looking happy. My dad picked the kids up from school so that we could adjust. The kids were so excited to have us home!
I think the stress of everything was getting to me because I had noticed increased swelling and was dealing with a horrible headache and blurry vision, so on the 29th I decided to just put in a call to my OB to see if we could adjust my meds again and manage things without having to go in for an office visit. After a chat, it was decided that I would add in an additional dosage of labetalol and take it 3 times a day to see if that would do that trick. I was optimistic! Unfortunately, my stress didn’t go away because on the 30th Keagan’s levels were 20.7. We got a call to talk through the numbers, and were told to take him in again the next morning for another draw, continue the feeds every two hours, and we would hopefully be seeing his numbers come down soon based on his age. If not, we would need to discuss something else. October 1st we were nervous but soooo relieved when we found out his bilirubin was finally coming back down and his number was 19.4!
Stress didn’t magically disappear after Keagan’s
bilirubin levels started coming down though, because for the next few days
after this, the focus had to transfer from worry about baby to worrying about
me.
On 10/1 after Keagan’s appointment, I was very swollen, my headache was horrible, and my vision was blurry. I started checking my blood pressure and just knew I needed to go in. Despite how diligently I was taking my prescribed blood pressure meds, my blood pressure was going up. Caleb and I agreed that it was time to go in, and I put in a call to my parents to come watch the older kids. Right before they got to the house, my number was 182/102. We got to the ER around dinner time and after getting settled there, my numbers were around 170/97. By 9 PM, despite attempts to treat and a lot of back and forth with my OB, my numbers were showing 199/108 and 191/104. The decision was made to admit me with postpartum preeclampsia. I was so disappointed that my efforts to avoid this happening again didn’t work, but we also really appreciated how kind they were about wanting to treat it safely and get me feeling better.
After the round of magnesium was finished around 10 AM on the 2nd of Oct, my headache hadn’t gone away, and I mentioned to my OB about my history with IIH. She decided to call in neurology to see if that was the cause of my headache. The doctor came in for a consult and quick exam and said that there was bilateral papilledema in both eyes, but worse on the left, which is right on track with my IIH flares. We ended up doing a MRV to get a better look and rule out a clot of any kind. Thankfully all was clear and everything looked like it was consistent with my IIH complicating and confusing my body postpartum. The working theory was that my IIH flares up during the postpartum period and the pressure on my brain confuses my body and my blood pressure freaks out as a response. My OB kept us for one more night to make sure I was doing ok and that my numbers were stable, and we got to go home 10/3. I was switched to nifedipine and prescribed Diamox for my IIH. I’m familiar with both of those and have used them in the past. I was very happy to go home and my swelling went down sooooo much after my hospital stay!
On Oct 4th. Keagan’s bilirubin level had come down to 16.7 and we got the OK to discontinue to biliblanket, We were very excited! It still took a while for the yellow to fully leave Keagan’s skin, but it was soooo nice not to have him attached to a light 24/7.
We had some beautiful family pictures taken on the 8th!
I
was referred to ophthalmology and neurology upon discharge from the hospital. I
went in for the ophthalmologist appointment on the 9th and had the neurologist
appointment on the 11th. The ophthalmologist thought everything
looked pretty good considering and told me to continue the Diamox and would see
me in 6 months. The neurologist had the strong opinion that I have a pattern of
gestational hypertension AND postpartum preeclampsia and that the postpartum
preeclampsia is more likely the cause of my blood pressure and headache issues
in the postpartum period rather than the IIH. She talked to me for a while
about how important it is to recognize that woman can have preeclampsia WITHOUT
protein in the urine, so I should make sure to note it in my history, probably
for the last 3 pregnancies, despite the lack of “official” diagnosis. It was
educational and validating to talk with her. My blood pressure was still higher
than healthy at that point, but it typically comes down the further we get from
delivery, so no concerns there.
Little man is the sweetest baby and we’re
so grateful to have him in our family, despite the long, rough process of getting
him here healthy!
