When April Fool's jokes go wrong...

It was intended to be a pretty harmless, ha ha, joke's-on-you-peeps type of thing.  I mean, you've gotta love seeing everyone post stuff on facebook to the likes of, uh-oh, we're pregnant or we're moving or Sammy is in the hospital with a terrible case of herpes or something on April first.  And I was no exception, I mean, I had a pretty damned believable (apparently VERY believable) story for the day so I ran with it...

Ethan, March 18, 2008

It started with me posting this picture, of the day my son Ethan was born, 4 years ago and saying, "Lucas decided to come on April 1st instead of April 10th" or something to that effect. I must admit, every one's reaction made my day.  When will I ever get to pull a prank like this again? It was so worth it.  And I still have no regrets! In fact, I am still laughing about it.

Well, karma is, as they say, a bitch.  Now through out my entire pregnancy, my blood pressure ran a bit on the high side.  But at my Dr's appointment on the 29th, it was pretty high, so high I was thisclose to being sent into the hospital to be monitored.  So when I got home, being the good little phlebotomist/medical assistant that I am , I decided to monitor my BP daily to make sure all was well in the world.  It was pretty normal every day, until Monday morning. Not wanting to be a worry wart, or hypochondriac I didn't want to alert the media right away.  I tried to rest a bit, still not going down. Tried to drink a bunch of water, still not going down.  I finally had to call my mom to seek her opinion on the matter. Should I call my doc or not? The verdict was call, just to err on the side of caution.  The office then told me to head on down to the hospital, get checked out.

If anyone knows my husband you can imagine the phone call I had to make to him as he was at work. 
Me: "Hey babe, how soon will you be done at work?"
Him: "Bout 30-45 mins, why?"
Me: "Well...Not to worry but my blood pressure is pretty high and the doc wants me to go to the hospital sometime soon. But finish what you're doing, then we'll leave whenever you get home."
Him: panicking "Um, what do you need me to do , should I leave now? Let me go tell my boss. (enter boss name here) I um, my wife is I mean her blood pressure is high, we have to go to the..."
Me: "Calm down, please."
Him: "I'm just going to finish up and um I , um we are uh..." insert more panic-panicy panic talk...
Me: "Please just relax, they are probably just going to monitor me and send me home ok, please don't freak out and end up getting in an accident on the way home."
Him: "Ok, I'll be home soon..."

Him not coming home right away gave me time to pack my bags, shower, chill out and get ready to go.  I seriously thought that at the very least, they'd watch my BP, send me home and possibly do the section the following day.

I was pretty much calm and collected the entire time.  Not really worried because I felt totally fine, normal even.  I mean I had had it with being pregnant that was for sure but I didn't actually think that that night I'd be having a baby.

Once we got to the hospital I had to leave my husband in the lobby while they checked me in.  The charge nurse was horrible and basically blew me off like I was one of those stupid patients who worries about everything.  She told me that I'd have to go to a room and try to "calm down" while they waited for another nurse to be called in and take care of me.  Once I was in that room, no one came in and took my BP until the nurse who was called in arrived.  The first hour I was there was the most terrible "service" anyone could have ever had.  By the time my nurse took my BP, it was 175/101. Pretty dang high, so much for calming down!

Once everything was said and done, my doc decided the best way to cure pre-eclampsia was to just deliver the baby. So that evening we prepared to have our son.  Sometime after I had been hooked up to all the monitors and such, I ended up going into labor anyhow, and they had to start me on a drug called magnesium to help control my BP.  Now, Mag hurts like hell when it's running through your body and between the IV meds, the BP cuff squeezing the crap out of my arm every 15 mins and contractions, shit hurt real freaking bad! I was pretty miserable! It was a trifecta of horrible-ness I'd not wish on my worst enemy! The time could not come any faster for that spinal block!

Once we actually got to the OR, our surgery was delayed due to a woman having twins in the room next door, au-natural mind you.  It was actually pretty cool hearing twins be born, and I for one minuet wanted to have twins myself. Just for one minuet...But the time came and everyone was happy and laughing and having a good time.  It was seriously such a positive feeling, I was very pleased at the entire OR team. Much better than my last section.

At 8:34, p.m. Lucas was born.  He looks just like his big brother did, but with dark hair and that Italian skin color (Vs my and E's very pale German). He has been great at nursing, great at sleeping and has a very active colon. 

Lucas, April 2, 2012

I wrote this post in January of '11 about the fear I felt about not having enough room in my heart to love another child.  It wasn't until that moment he arrived that I knew that was so out the window.  The heart is a wonderous thing, it grows to accommodate.  Now I can't imagine my world a mere 8 days ago with out this beautiful boy in it.  Having my boys with me, curled up on the bed watching TV or whatever together is the most perfect thing I could ever imagine.  And I'm so glad that this April fool's joke tried to get the best of me, because I couldn't have been happier with the results!