December 15th-December 16th

"We each understand that difficulties are part of life, but when they come to us personally, they can take our breath away. Without being alarmed, we need to be ready. The Apostle Peter said, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you." Along with the bright colors of happiness and joy, the darker-colored threads of trial and tragedy are woven deeply into the fabric of our Father's plan. These struggles, although difficult, often become our greatest teachers." -Elder Neil L. Andersen October 2018 General Conference

From the very beginning of the pregnancy, I kept receiving strong promptings that something was going to be different about Paige. Was it because I was carrying a girl this time? Was it because this would be my last pregnancy? Was it my anxiety about something going wrong? I wasn’t completely sure what they meant, but the more the pregnancy progressed, the stronger they got.

In October, as I sat and watched General Conference, it seemed that the main theme, or at least the talks that were speaking to me were about the trials we will face in this life and how to get through them. I thought to myself how lucky and blessed I was that I had never had to go through a significant trial in my life.

A few months later, and just days before I was hospitalized, I was driving home from my parents house, my boys were giggling in the back seat and I remember just feeling truly happy and thankful. Thankful that I had a wonderful husband, two beautiful boys and a precious baby girl on the way. As those thoughts came to me, so did the thought of those conference talks from two months prior. It wasn’t any specific talk, or quote, but it was just the thought of trials. I couldn’t figure out why that randomly came to my mind again at such an unexpected time, a time when I was feeling so happy. But right in that moment I felt as if something was going to be different. I had the strongest feeling that I was going to be facing a trial very soon, and it scared me to death. Looking back, I think it was Heavenly Father trying to prepare me for what was about to happen. I know that he knew what Paige’s journey on earth was going to be.

The next few days, and the month to follow, were filled with the most painful, terrifying, difficult, and heart wrenching experiences and decisions that we’ve ever had to make. At the same time though, they were filled with the most tender, precious and spiritual days I’ve ever had. Days that I will be forever grateful for.

When I saw that my blood pressures were so high at my parent's house that night, I decided to call my doctor's office. As I sat in the chair with my feet up, trying to relax, the blood pressure cuff hanging on my left arm and the phone in my right hand, I proceeded to make the call. I was frustrated that this was happening again, everything had been going so well. I was shaking and in tears as I told the on-call service what was going on and I told them that I needed to talk to a nurse or doctor right away. We hung up and the on-call nurse called me back immediately. She asked me what was going on and I explained all of my symptoms to her. She told me that with blood pressures that high and with the chest and stomach pressure I was having, that I needed to call 911 right away. I honestly did not think it was that serious and told them that I had just driven myself over to my parents and felt fine, other than being a little anxious. The thought of calling 911 seemed a little over dramatic so I told them that I would just have my mom drive me to the hospital to get checked out. They weren't thrilled with the idea, and the nurse was actually getting a little upset with how non-compliant I was being. She kept warning me that I needed to call 911, but I kept telling her no. She finally gave up on trying to convince me to call and told me that it was ultimately my choice, but before she would hang up with me she wanted to make sure I was going to come in right away. I told her I would, and they called the hospital to let them know I was on the way. 

Throughout all of this, I had been keeping in contact with Mike while he was at work. He works as a tech at the St. Lukes Emergency Room in Meridian. I told him that the nurse wanted me to call 911 and that I didn't think it was necessary. I figured the ER would probably just transfer a 23 week pregnant woman right up to triage anyways, so I thought it would be faster if I just had my mom take me, that way we could just go directly to labor and delivery instead of having to go through the ER. He told me he was going to ask one of the ER doctors his medical opinion about my situation. The doctor told him that with those pressures and symptoms, if it were his wife, he would be calling 911 right away. I again told Mike that I would just have my mom drive me, at this point we were already heading out to the car and I felt like calling 911 would cause me even more anxiety than I was already experiencing. My mom and I got into the car and started driving to the hospital. As we pulled out of the neighbor hood, I started having a panic attack. I was scared. I wanted my baby to be okay and I wanted to be okay. They let Mike leave work right away so that he could meet me downtown. Everyone knew how serious it was, we just didn't realize it yet.

When we got to the hospital at 9:30 pm on December 15th at just 23 weeks and 6 days pregnant, we weren’t expecting what happened to happen.  In fact we were laughing and joking and holding hands as we walked up to labor and delivery. Like I said, my pregnancy with Paige had actually been my least complicated pregnancy to that point. We were expecting them to be able to fix my medications and then we would be on our way home to enjoy Christmas with our boys.

We found out pretty quickly though, that not only were my kidneys shutting down, but my blood pressures were so out of control the doctors were afraid for my life and we soon realized, we were too.

My first blood pressure when I arrived in triage was 230/135 and they could not get it to come down. They also had me give a urine sample when I first arrived and they found that the protein in my urine was extremely high. Out of all three pregnancies, I've never seen them move so quickly. They had me transferred out of triage and into a labor and delivery bed before I could even blink. 

When I got over to labor and delivery they immediately started an IV and got me hooked up to several monitors, monitors to watch me and several to watch Paige. There were 4-5 nurses working quickly to get everything going. They pushed several IV blood pressure medications into my IV and started a magnesium drip. They also gave me a steroid shot for Paige's lungs, just in case they had to deliver me emergently. My blood pressures were slowly coming down, but they were still way higher than what normal should be. I don't know if it was denial or what, but I was still oblivious that anything super serious was happening. I knew my pressures were scary high, but they were like that with my boys too. It took a couple of days, but they were ALWAYS able to get everything under control. I wasn't worried! I asked them if I'd be out of the hospital in time to go to work the next night because I had worked so hard to save up a good maternity leave and I wanted to get back, they just looked at me like I was crazy. Looking back, I was crazy.

They finally got me settled in at around 2 a.m. That night was so uncomfortable. Anyone who has been in Labor and Delivery for a long period of time, knows that those beds aren't designed for long stays, they are for laboring and laboring ONLY. I swear there's a board right where your back goes. Also- anyone who's been on magnesium also knows how awful that medication makes you feel. They gave me two loading doses and then had a steady rate running after that. Because it's a high risk medication, the nurses were in at least every hour, if not more than that checking my reflexes and blood pressures, and they had to have sweet Paige on the monitor all night because of everything they were giving me. They had a hard time finding her and keeping her on the monitors because she was so small and she liked to hide right in my hip, so we fought with that all night as well. Needless to say, I didn't get any sleep.

I had them keep the sound of Paige's heart beat up pretty loud because it was so comforting to listen to. I was so excited and happy to hear her sweet little heart beating away. At around 3 a.m. I heard her heart rate suddenly drop dangerously low (into the 40's) and stay low. I started panicking because I didn't know what to do. I was all tied down to the monitors and IV's and couldn't move. I knew the nurse was watching, but I hit the call button anyways. She ran in, thinking that the monitor was possibly picking up some of my heart rate instead of Paige's. She quickly determined that it wasn't my heart rate, it was, in fact, Paige's. She said in a panicked voice, "That is your babies heart rate, I need you to roll to the other side right now!" With her help, I rolled over to my other side. Her heart rate slowly came up, but after that, I was scared to death. I asked the nurse what was going on and she said that it could mean several things. 1. Bad positioning, 2. That it could simply be the side effects of the medication I was receiving. or 3. That something was wrong in there and that she was under distress. I was desperately praying for the reason to be the first 2 options of the three. Her heart rate continued to dip several times throughout the night, so the nurse called the doctor and they scheduled an ultrasound for first thing the next morning.

So exhausted. A picture I accidentally took that night.

All the equipment.

That next morning, Dr. West, my incredible OB, came in to talk to me. By that time, my blood pressures were a little better. He told me that it really scared him to see the blood pressures I was throwing the night before. The plan for that day was to stay on the magnesium drip until later that evening and that he was going to increase my oral medication that I had been taking at home. He also told me that because it was Sunday, they didn't have Maternal Fetal Medicine in the building to do the detailed ultrasound that he wanted done on Paige, and that he didn't want the regular on-call ultrasound tech's doing it, so we were going to wait until Monday morning to take a peek at her. He wanted to make sure he had the best of the best looking at her. He told us that if she looked fine and if we could get everything under control, that we could be out of the hospital by Tuesday. However, he did warn us that he felt this pregnancy was going to be delivered sooner than my boys were at 35 and 36 weeks. I told him to PLEASE just get me out of the 20's. He said he was going to try his best. I honestly could see the fear in his eyes though. He walked out of the room, and we spent the rest of the day resting, updating family and watching T.V. My doctor felt that I was a little more stable and gave them permission to move me over to antepartum so that I could have a more comfortable bed. They gave me a second steroid shot for her lungs and we went to bed. Our ward had had a fast for us that day, we felt sustained by prayers and we were excited to see our baby girl the next day!