A few short seconds after he was born! Weighing in at 6 lbs 14 ounces was my beautiful, healthy baby boy! David Rich Curd
Within a few hours I had several visitors meeting David for the first time! My former boss/children's pastor at FBCJ...Brother Michael!
Grandma Sherry holding baby David.
Uncle Perry and Aunt Becca meet David for the first time!
This was shortly after I had him. Within the hour or so. I couldn't FATHOM that this was my little boy and I was finally, after 9 very long months, holding him!
Charlie holding and meeting baby David.
Same day he was born, you can tell his fingers are still purple. Yes, he has all five fingers. The other two are around there somewhere. I LOVE this picture.
Beautiful Hannah came to see Baby David! So did Tommy, Shelly, and Matt! Lots of people came the same night he was born!
Our pastor, Brother David Royalty holding baby.
Grandma Paula meet Baby.
Papa Keith
I am amazed by the perspective of this picture! You can see how TINY he is compared to my hand!
Friends for life!
If you've never had Stacia's cookies, the BEST time to try them is right after you've delivered a baby. Best thing I could've put in my mouth ever. I will always have a special affinity for those cookies!
So where do I begin? I finally delivered David! SO excited! I thought all my blood pressure troubles were over and my baby was safely here and life was good! I just had to learn to breastfeed and never sleep. By the way, side note, there were lots more precious people who came to visit David the first night and while we were in the hospital but I can't find all the pictures. I just had a baby, so it wasn't MY job to take the pics.. haha! My grandparents came, Jospeh Taylor came, Dana and Sarah were my very first visitors, etc, etc.
After you have your baby they move you from the delivery room to the postpartum floor. Usually you stay two to three nights depending on what time you had your baby and then you get to go home and enjoy your task of parenting for the next 18 some odd years. That night we had SO many visitors. Also, I wasn't sure about feeding baby. I was trying to breastfeed and every time I tried someone would come! We were having a hard time latching on. Lactation nurses kept telling me it wouldn't hurt. Boy, were they wrong! I was starting to feel VERY stressed out. But it was all under the surface. I was overwhelmed that every three hours I had to feed my baby. We let him sleep in the nursery most of the night, but they would bring him to me and it was take an hour to try and breastfeed, then pump, then call the nursery to come get him. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the night before having baby NOR did I sleep the night after...I didn't sleep for the next week. I'm not even joking with you. After I had the baby they did several post partum checks throughout the night. Several times my blood pressure was still 130's/80's or 140's/80's. I cracked it up to the fact that my BP had been high for months so it wasn't going to all of the sudden come down immediately AND I get so nervous every time they take it. I started feeling very woozy, even lightheaded, and wracked it up to having NO sleep in two days after delivering a child.
Tuesday would've been the day we were sent home. We'd taken the little newborn class they make you take. David was healthy, other than not pooping enough. He'd been circumcised and was healing fine. They came in to take my blood pressure and decided that I needed to stay another day so they might monitor it.Being at the hospital was the most stressful thing I can think of. Between visitors, ordering breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the cafeteria, feeding David every three hours, PLUS pumping after each feeding because usually he didn't latch on... there was no time for sleep. I would finish one thing and it would literally be time to do something else. Tuesday I got up mid morning and took a shower and even tried to do my hair and make up. I wasn't feeling like myself (I just thought it was because I'd had a baby the day before), so I didn't finish getting ready. I remember one time during the day on Tuesday my mom tried to walk me around the corridor of the hospital. Just around the wing we were in, and I got really lightheaded and the room was spinning for a minute. I wondered about my BP but I also thought I might just be weak. I knew something was off a little bit, but I didn't have any of the normal indicators. Headache, seeing spots, blurred vision, stomach ache, nausea, or vomiting or diarrhea. Those things happen if your blood pressure is too high. It can cause stroke or seizure and the latter symptoms are related to liver and kidney function when BP is too high. Anyway, that night around midnight a Nurse Tech came in to get my stats. I was sleeping so I was pretty calm and she read my BP aloud which was 168/110. She said, "Oh my God! You are just sleeping!!" She kept saying that. Let me tell you, that did NOT, did NOT, did NOT help my anxiety level. By Wednesday morning, I had a doctor come in and explain to me that sometimes blood pressures rise AFTER you have a baby when your body is trying to rid itself of all the fluid and can't properly do so quick enough. They said it usually peeks two to three days postpartum and then recedes to normal. They started my on a medicine called Lebatalol (I have no idea how to spell that) hoping my BP would come down. The next time a nurse came in the take my BP was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. My blood pressure rose to 197/110ish and I was immediately rushed back up to labor and delivery (as immediate as hospital goes, by that I mean, within an hour or so). They hooked me up to an IV called Magnesium Sulfate which is an all over body muscle relaxer. It literally HEATS your body up from the inside out. This is an anti-seizure medication. OH and did I mention that Wednesday morning they decided that Baby David's jaundice levels were too high and he needed to be put under the lights? Yeah, my Wednesday hospital experience sucked. No other way to put it. Not only was the hospital the LAST place I wanted to be, but I was TERRIFIED for my life. I KNOW from the outside looking in that this does not sound that scary. But keep in mind the hormonal fluctuation of a woman who just had a baby and the anxiety that can occur from that alone! I was on anti-seizure medication for crying out loud and my baby was facing possible liver failure. I know a ton of babies get jaundiced. But he just wasn't pooping. It was scary! So I guess I should mention the amazing thing about all this. They kept running labs on me because as high as my BP got, I never had all the symptoms of preeclampsia. But they were officially diagnosing me with POSTPARTUM PREECLAMPSIA. Two very scary words for me. My liver and kidney function were perfect. The numbers veered off just a tad, but nothing crazy. Never any protein in my urine. Thank God, I never had a seizure or a stroke. Once you have a seizure you are diagnosed with ECLAMPSIA and then it gets really serious when your red blood cells stop doing their job and that's called HELP disease. That was the biggest fear. Anyway, I spent the next 36 hours on Mag. It was absolutely miserable. Like I said, HOT from the inside out. I did get some rest, but still no sleep. Here's the hard part. I cannot tell you how dark and lonely a hospital room is at night. Calvin was always there, sleeping on the couch. But if you know my husband then you know he doesn't wake up for ANYTHING! I had to get up every three hours while on this crazy medication and pump. I pumped and pumped and pumped. Sent the milk up to the nursery. I hadn't seen my baby in over a day. They started me on another medication called procardia. So now I was on anti-seizure meds and TWO blood pressure meds. On Thursday morning the doctor came in and explained that postpartum preeclampsia is caused by the dad! Haha... my body's reaction to the protein in Calvin's sperm. My body was exposed to the conception matter through delivery and yada yada yada you get the picture. She did say that there is a much lower percentage of that happening again to a woman who gives birth to a child with the SAME MAN! Luckily, I plan on having lots of more kids with Calvin. If I can get over my fear of Blood Pressure Cuffs. Anyway, every couple of hours a nurse would come in and check my BP! FINALLY, the doctor ordered (my doctor that new my anxiety tendencies) that the nurses take it manually (instead of with that stupid computer one that goes off by itself every few minutes). I would tell all the nurses that if you just took it twice it would go down! They would take it and it would be 150's to 160's to 170's over 80's and 90's. Mostly 90's. Several times I had to get my meds upgraded. They would increase the dosage.
I thought that as I blogged I would want to go into all the details. But I don't. It's really not all that interesting. You must know this: The scariest times of my life were at night in the hospital. My baby was under lights and I couldn't see him. He went under lights on Wednesday for 24 hours, brought him back to us on Thursday, back under lights on Friday, Saturday with us and on Sunday we went home. I also should mention that the very FIRST TIME I saw MY doctor (there were about 5 in the practice I went to) was on Saturday and Sunday of our week long hospital stay. So it wasn't until Saturday that I was FINALLY a little more stabilized and moved back up to the postpartum floor. Here's the deal: they told me I was out of the woods for seizures and stroke and my kidney and liver were working perfectly pretty much. But my BP was still running high. Sunday morning my BP was 150/110 or something like that. Dr. Cassidy came in to see me on Sunday morning and by this time I was begging to go home. I knew the medicines were NOT working in the hospital because I was NEVER going to get over my anxiousness and nervousness. I just knew I HAD to get home. I hadn't slept in a week! Dr. Cassidy came in on Sunday morning and took my BP herself! She told me to calm down and we got a reading of 148/88 or something like that. I think she realized that if I could just go home and calm down it would be better. She told me, "Look, I have a very hard time sending someone home with BP that's 150/110, but I know you and what you did at the office every time. I'm going to send you home against my better judgment." It was the LONGEST Sunday of my life. The nurse took ALL day to get the paperwork together so I could go home. The pediatrician, I will NEVER forget this and how wonderful she is, timed it perfectly to where David could go home the same time as me. He stayed admitted to the hospital the entire week, too!
They read me (a hypochondriac to the nth degree) off a list of all the symptoms that if they should occur I should come straight to the ER! They read me off a list of symptoms to look for in David too should he need to come to the ER! What a wonderful note to leave on. I'm not going to say that once I got home life got better. It didn't. I had a day where my BP shot back up to 180/120 or so. Had to up my meds and call the dr. SO thankful I recognized the feeling, told my dad who happened to be visiting that day, and had medication on hand. That was the only time that happened. After 8 weeks I was completely off of BP meds and THEN I started to feel peace again. Live normally again.
My biggest fear was that God wasn't there. It felt like He wasn't even if my faith knew He was. Alone in the hospital at night, completely terrified and afraid, I would try to pray. I knew that claiming the promises of God was the only way out of the darkness. I did that, even though I didn't FEEL God nor did I FEEL His peace or promises taking over. I look back on that horrible experience and know now that if I had delivered David perfectly, went home without a problem in the world, I probably would've given myself all the credit. I always wanted to be supermom. Well, she doesn't exist. God sent me people to comfort me. Calvin was the biggest help I can imagine. The most wonderful father to our son. My dad and grandparents came and stayed with me during the day every now and then. I had visitors and friends. My mom came over almost every day. If it weren't for her I would literally NOT have made it. God gave me a wonderful mother who, at the perfect time, was there and is there when I need her the most. She represents HIS comfort and protection!
My hearts desire is and has always been to have a big family. I always say when asked how many kids I want: 3 or 4 or 5. I don't know! More than two, though! It's really up to God. Honestly, I can't handle the emotional/anxiety of being pregnant again. I can ONLY do pregnancy with God's help! I'm terrified otherwise. Also, I should mention that I LOVED being pregnant and that other than the BP issues it was the most wonderful experience in the world and I long to do it again one day!
And lastly, I'm really gonna' finish now, I want you to know that God is THERE! Even when the night is black, and dark, and no one else is...even when you can't see past the anxiety, fear, trouble, hurt, or pain...God is there! He's right beside you, walking you through your darkest night!
This song pretty much sums up all my feelings looking back on that situation! KNOW that God is with you. He loves you. Adores you.
No comments:
Post a Comment