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Week by Week

Joseph Andrew

As a teen, all I ever wanted to do was to have children. My OB/GYN told me, at 17, not to expect to have children. I had endometriosis and at such a young age I would probably have to have a hysterectomy in my mid to late twenties. So for 18 months I did not use any protection. To my delight, Alexander Jacob was delivered healthy and beautiful. Though I had had bad morning sickness, and Toxemia during the last 6 weeks I was so thankful to have this little blessing.

When Jacob was a little over 14 months old, my husband had to have hernia surgery. I had to go to the Pharmacy to pick up his medicine, I was a few days late so I grabbed a pregnancy test and took it home. I thought that I was just under so much stress from his illness and really did not expect the test to turn blue, but it did! I ran out of the bathroom to tell my husband and couldn't even hug him because he was so sore! My ordeal with this pregnancy was more severe than Jacob's because the sickness drained my strength. Then I got Toxemia again and was sent for a induction, but my blood pressure was to high to do it. That did not matter to Victoria Lee, my labor began on it's own the next morning. My Doctor told my family that he was going home because I was going to be the next day before I delivered. Thirty minutes later a nurse was delivering my blue, lifeless and meconium covered baby girl. The cord was wrapped tightly around her neck. She "pinked" right up and soon began to nurse and thrive. Such a joy. My Doctor felt that it was best for my health at that point to call it quits, because of all the vomiting and weight loss.

When Jacob was 2 and Victoria was 3 months, I had a terrlble Gallbladder attack. My Doctor told me I needed to have it out soon. Well, I refused to quit nursing just to have the surgery so, I decided to see how long I could go. One year later, 2 weeks after Victoria had weaned herself, I had emergency surgery to remove my Gallbladder. After the surgery my Doctors told me that the reason I had had so much vomiting was because of my sick Gallbladder, they said that I should go ahead and have the third baby that I always wanted.

Four months after the surgery, with my Doctors' consent, I got pregnant again. I knew that night that my husband and I had made another beautiful baby. I felt so beautiful, I was glowing, excited to have this third baby I really wanted. I was 23.

The first 5 weeks went well. I traveled to my mothers to go shopping for a new maternity wardrobe. I was determind to do it in total style, I had fun buying things that made me feel pretty at such a bloated time! I was going to drive the 7 hours back home on Thursday, but on Tuesday I awoke to the familiar raw feeling in my stomach. I left within two hours knowing that I didn't have much time left before I was too sick to travel.

I made it home just in time. My vomiting was in full swing within a week. At the worst, I was vomiting as many as 23 times a day. I was in the hospital several times for I.V. therapy. I had a nurse in my home to put the I.V.'s in when my veins would blow. Around my 15th week I was in the office for another ultrasound, my 4th, when the Doctor asked me to step across the hall to the ultrasound room. My husband looked at him and said, " You don't understand, she cannot walk. You have got to do something." When he asked me to just stand up that he wanted to see what was going on my husband replied," Well you better be able to catch her because she WILL fall." The Doctor immediatly put me back in the hospital for fluids. I was there ten days before I could walk to the bathroom an back, I had lost so much muscle. My body was taking from my muscle to form muscle on that tiny little baby that was fighting so hard to get here.

Towards the end of my fourth month, my veins in my arms were shut down. It was taking the Anesthesiologists' 6and 7 times to get an I.V. in. The rare times that they would succeed, the vein would blow within an hour. My Doctor decided to put in a long line catheter to access my veins for fluid replacement. This was a fairly simple procedure done at bed side in my hospital room. Unfortunately, I was allergic to the catherter and went into shock. I knew everthing that was going on around me, I could hear them screaming that I had no blood pressure and that my heartrate was almost gone. I could not breathe, but most frightening of all was the feeling in my uterus. It was contracting during this whole ordeal and I just kept praying, Don't go baby, Don't go baby we can make it. They gave me several medicines and I was able to breate again, luckily the baby hung in there. At this point my family had begun to talk to me about abortion. They were trying to influence my Doctor to tell me there was nothing more we could do. He called in a Psychologist to check my mental status, to see if I could mentally handle months more of the vomiting and piercing pain in my stomach. He found me to be a strong willed girl who was going to carry this pregnancy come Hell or high water! Now that I had no veins left, we were stuck with the dilemma of where to go from there. I had taken so many different medicines for nausea, some of which were known to cause premature labor, that we were down a path with no return. He elected to put in a Central Line, which was inseted into my right upper chest wall then threaded into my subclavian artery. It was a little risky but it was a chance we had to take. Unfortunately, the line clotted off, eventhough we were running fluilds continuously. We had no choice but to put in a bigger catheter in my left chest wall it was called a Hickman catheter. It is mostly used in cancer patients to recieve their chemo through. The big problem with this procedure was that it was surgery and they were not sure if I or the baby would fair to well under anesthesia. So, my Doctor decided to only use a local anesthetia for the surgery. They had to use a cat scan machine during the procedure to make sure they did not puncture my lung or, even worse, my heart valve. I had to wear two heavy lead aprons across my belly to sheild the baby from the radiation. I was so weak any way, that it was tough to breathe with them on me.

I came through the surgery and finally had an I.V. site that would last me the rest of the pregnancy. No more needles, they could even draw blood from the port that hung from my chest. I had to learn how to take care of the entry site because they are known to become infected. I, at the time, was only showering twice a week because I was so weak so I didn't have to worry about getting it too wet! My insurance would not cover my Hickman because it was considered experimental in pregnancy, so I had to dip into the family trust to pay for all of this. It had been hell, but appeared to be getting better. My husband took me on my first real date in months to go see the movie SPEED, we dragged my I.V. pole in and sat down. The theatre manager, who was a family friend, joked that he would push my pole around if I would give him a quarter. By this time I was well known as "The poor little pregnant girl with that I.V. pole." For anyone who has seen the movie SPEED, you probably remember the scene where she is driving the bus around the really stiff curve, well, that is when I noticed my headache. I left the movie and went to the ladies room, carrying my little bag of syringes and supplies, I began to test the Hickman to see if it was in the right place. As I pulled back on the syringe I realized that there was something terribly wrong. We left the theatre and went immediately to the hospital, that was two hours away, and checked in. Well, the tube that was to last for months had sprung a leak! It had filled my upper body with fluid, thus causing the terrible headache. They removed the tube and I went home to think about whether I wanted to let them put another catheter in my groin.

That night I started to run a fever, I was so affraid that I had gotten a infection form the tube. I awoke early to find that I had contracted the CHICKEN POX from my two children who were in the midst of it. My fever ran around 103 to 104 for three days during which I was dellirious with pain and itching. When the fever started to go away I was able to hold down clear liquids! Not long after I was eating solid foods. I regained my strength and prepared to deliver what seemed to be a healthy baby! On November 28, 1994 at 4:44pm, with my favorite Steven Curtis Chapman CD playing in the background, Joseph Andrew was delivered by his father with the help of my doctor and God. It was a beautiful birth. I had an epidural because of some more blood pressure problems, so I felt no pain. All I felt was this beautiful human being sliding out of my body to begin the life he certainly deserved. My father video taped an my mother took pictures, all the while trying to forget what they had encouraged me to do those terrible months before. I felt so relieved to have him born so that I no longer had the responsibility of sustaining his body too! He was here to love, nurse and nurture. Today he is almost three and is still a joy.