And then my face started to tingle. I had read that some women had experienced a flushed face from the steroid shot (though my doctor said he had never heard of that), so I figured this was it. My face was a little red, but the tingling just got worse. It felt like I had constant electrical currents going through my face. It was the most aggravating feeling but I tried not to stress about it. I figured it would go away. After an hour, we pulled out the doppler to hear baby's heartbeat to reassure me. But after two hours, I started to get concerned. The doctor hadn't warned me about this side effect at all and I really couldn't find anything about it online either. So I figured that I was having a reaction to the shot. It didn't seem too harmful, but I was already a worried mess. So this didn't help at all. I kept thinking, "What if this is something and I am just sitting here waiting for it to go away?" So Travis and I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. So we headed back into town for the second time that day to head to labor and delivery after dropping off the kids at Travis' parents. Luckily I could feel this baby moving around the whole time.
Once at the hospital, it was decided that I was having some sort of reaction to the steroid shot. So they observed me for a while and gave me Benadryl, which did help the tingling to finally go away. Baby looked good and I wasn't having any contractions, so I was cleared to leave. We got home around midnight and we all got to bed. I felt kicking, which lulled me to sleep. I woke up around 2:00 to feel baby move. She wasn't waking up, so I walked around and drank cold water. Still nothing. I poked, prodded, pushed, jumped around, and still nothing. Not even a little movement. After almost an hour, I woke Travis up at this point in a panic. We tried to get her to move but couldn't feel anything. Travis wanted to use the doppler but I refused to use it without feeling any movement. I didn't want to find out there was no heartbeat at our home and still have to drive to the hospital. The girls woke up because they could hear me crying and panicking. They tried talking to her which often gets her moving, still nothing.
At this point, my PTSD had kicked in full force. The fear and panic brought back all of the traumatic emotions of the loss of our Macee. It all felt so similar. We would push at this baby and feel her body, but she wouldn't move or push back. I just remember crying. And I kept apologizing to my sweet children who didn't deserve to go through this again. They didn't deserve to see their mom falling apart. But this is a fear of any baby loss family- that the baby would die again. We all said a tearful prayer together and loaded in the car, pajamas and all. I tried so hard to be strong and have hope, but truly I feared she was gone. My kids were so strong and seemed so at peace through it all. It's a humbling experience to have to lean on your children's courage and faith. Later they told me that they just felt like it would be okay. Why couldn't I be so pure and faithful like them so that I could hear God's hush reassurances?
The car ride in the dark was so quiet. I still couldn't feel any movement but that wasn't very uncommon in the car with an anterior placenta that made it hard to feel anything with any other movement around me. We got to the hospital and I pushed myself to be strong for my kids and take those heavy steps up to the labor and delivery, once again. By this point it was 5 in the morning and I hadn't felt any movement for over three long hours. The nurse ushered us into a room and as soon as she started to put the sensors on me, I broke down and cried. I was so afraid of hearing there was no heartbeat again. My blood pressure was so high. It only took the nurse probably three minutes to get everything ready, but it felt like an eternity. Travis sat next to me holding my hand and looking in my eyes, reassuring me that I wasn't alone in this. I recognized the fear in his eyes. My kids calmly sat huddled together in the chair across the room, holding their breaths.
And then the nurse turned on the monitor and said, "Well, there's your baby's heartbeat." And Travis an I fell into each other and sobbed. With our foreheads pressed together, the tears fell. We couldn't believe it. We really had thought the worst. But our baby was okay! Her beautiful heart was still beating! Our kids hugged each other. Our pleas to God had been heard.
After sobbing, we just sat there and watched her perfect heart on the screen. But she still wasn't moving around. Once I told the nurses that I took Benadryl, they told me that it can make the baby really sleepy. What?!?! I was a little angry that the nurses that administered it didn't warn me about that, even knowing of our previous loss?!?! It made me feel a little better about why she still wasn't moving. It wasn't until two big cups of orange juice that this baby FINALLY started waking up and moving. Our poor kids were so tired after two trips to the hospital during the night and sleepily just sat in the chair together.
My OB doctor came in around 6:30 and talked to us. I told him that we didn't feel any movement for over 3 hours. He seemed worried and told us that he thought maybe we should deliver this baby today. He explained that two trips to the L&D in one night at exactly our point of loss with Macee wasn't a good thing. And that the Benadryl could have caused the lack of movement, but there was no way to guarantee that was the cause. What if it was due to something else? He told me that he would keep checking in every hour to see what we had decided. He ordered an ultrasound to compare the biophysical profile with the one done the day before and we continued to watch her heart beat.
The next 4 hours were spent updating people and talking to doctors and nurses to help educate ourselves to make the best decision for our baby. I had a hard time with the idea of delivering her today. I wasn't prepared for that. I had just gone through the scariest night and was emotionally spent. I had wanted to reach that 37 week point to decrease the chance of lung immaturity. But at the same time I really just wanted her here safely. I really preferred to wait until the scheduled delivery in six days or at least until tomorrow so that the second steroid would have time. I just wanted for this baby to arrive calmly and I wanted to feel prepared. I felt like I had somehow failed her if she didn't reach the 37 week mark. I worried about having a baby in the NICU instead of in my room with me- I worried that being in that hospital room without a baby again would be so hard. I worried about not having anything ready for the hospital or how my mom and sister would make it here on time. I didn't want for her to be born early out of fear. I wanted a peaceful and healing delivery. I had a million things running through my head. But more than anything, I wanted this girl to get here safely and to be born full of life. In the end, this would trump every other concern.
The the BPP was done in my room. They score different things in the test to assess how baby is doing. Our baby had always scored perfect even if if took the full 30 minutes. One of the things the baby has to do is open and close her hand at some point- it has something to do with reflexes and movement. But she still was not moving a lot and would not open her hands no matter how much we pushed on her. So for the first time, she got 4/5, which is still okay but was a little bit of a warning light because she had always scored a 5 before.
Travis and Richard gave me a priesthood blessing of comfort and healing (after the surgery). It was such a powerful blessing. Our emotions were still so high, so the tears fell for all of us. I just remember the overwhelming feeling of peace during it and gratitude that our baby's heart was still beating. And I felt this strong, reassuring feeling that everything would be okay and that we needed to trust our doctors and listen to them. This was such an important reminder that Heavenly Father needed us to hear. We had prayed every day of this pregnancy that our doctors would be inspired to know what we needed to do to get this baby here safely and that we would heed their advice. So when Dr. C came in for that fourth (and last) time, and said that between the decreased BPP score, one deceleration of her heart rate, and the decrease of movement, "his doctor instincts were telling him this baby needed to come out." That was all I needed to hear. I knew this was the moment we had been praying for the entire pregnancy- that our doctor felt in his gut that something bad might happen if we waited. This was God working and answering our prayers. Dr. C said that maybe some of the push to deliver her early was out of fear, but he wanted us to have a different and happy outcome this time. He wanted this baby here almost as much as we did. And this is what he strongly felt needed to be done to get her here. It was only 6 days earlier than we had planned and that 6 days wouldn't make that much of a difference. Six days definitely wasn't worth taking the risk. Plus we had both decided that we didn't feel comfortable with me going home. So it was decided- our baby girl would be born today!
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