Confession: birth stories are my guilty pleasure. I just love the excitement and anticipation associated with bringing a baby into the world. And each story is so unique and special. Recounting the best day of a parents life is just magical. I think in another life I would have had/will have some kind of career associated with birth or new moms. Or maybe I’d be an actuary, its a broad spectrum. Anywho! This birth story starts a few months before the actual birth due to some unexpected complications.
June: At the tail end of our annual Maine vacation, I started to develop flu like symptoms… fever, chills, body aches, headache. But no other traditional cold symptoms like cough or congestion. So I decided to go to the urgent care clinic to see what was going on. The doctor suspected a tick borne illness which I thought was unlikely because I had not seen a tick on me, felt a bite, or found any kind of mark, bite or evidence of a tick having been on me. She took blood and said the would be back from the lab 5-7 days later to confirm whether or not it was a tick-borne illness.
The next day the symptoms got worse. So much so that we decided to leave Maine early and begin our drive home. We stopped at my sister in laws for the night which is about 1/3 of the way home. Woke up the next day still feeling awful but hoping we could drive the remaining 2/3 so that I could be treated at home by my doctors. It was at this point I started to feel concerned that this could be pregnancy related and not related to a tick at all. In the back of my mind I was thinking we should maybe stay with my sister in law and go to the ER in her town, but I didn’t want to be overdramatic about how I was feeling. So off we went. About 2 hours into the drive I noticed i was having a lot of braxton hicks contractions. About every 15 minutes. I also hadn’t been feeling the baby move and was getting concerned. I had been taking tylenol to help with the symptoms but the tylenol was now no longer effective. I was also starting to feel short of breath (omg do I have COVID). So naturally I started to panic and told Townsend we needed to stop and pull off to go to the ER. He was shocked. I had been trying my best to play it cool but the thoughts running through my head about this being something assiociated with the pregnancy were enough for me to finally make that call. I mapped us to a random hospital in Columbia, MD, the city where I was born because I knew it was a nice suburban town that would have plenty of parks, Chick-fil-a’s, and other kid friendly things for Townsend to do.
After I was admitted and tested negative for COVID, the nursing staff and doctors jumped into action. Baby’s heart rate had some irregular patterns and my blood work came back with elevated liver enzymes and low platelets and they were concerned i could have HELLP (a form of preeclampsia). They quickly informed me I would be there at least overnight. I had visits from a range of doctors, OB, infectious disease, internal medicine, and testing began to determine what the cause of these symptoms. Meanwhile, Townsend booked a hotel for the night and notified family (who also quickly jumped into action and drove/flew in to help).
Flash forward three days, we still had no answer. The infectious disease doctor had decided within 24 hours of my stay that this was likely a tick borne illness, considering Maine is tick habitat. While running a million different tests, she put me on Rifampicin, an antibiotic that is apparently most commonly used to treat Tuberculosis because the normal antibiotic, Doxycycline, is not recommended for pregnancy. The antibotic was working and had resolved the fever and chills, but the headache still lingered along with low oxygen from the shortness of breath. They knew that I was out of town and understood the need to get back home and had decided it would be ok for me to leave since the antibiotic seemed to be improving things. But right as they were about to discharge me, baby had another deceleration in his heart beat causing concern and told us we would have to stay another 24 hours. I was mostly feeling better. I wanted to get home to my doctors, they understood and said that I could leave, but that I would have to sign a document saying that I had left against medical advice, which I agreed to. We drove straight through the night and were home by 8am the next day. I had my 28 week OB appointment scheduled for 11am that day so I took a quick nap and then we went to my appointment. I told my doctor a brief version of the events that had transpired the previous few days and showed her my legs that were beginning to swell and she immediately readmitted to the hospital where I stayed another night.
My local hospital started some testing and monitoring, but it was a relatively uneventful stay. However, I did get a call that evening from the urgent care in Maine confirming that my blood work came back positive for anaplasmosis, a tick-borne illness. Aftern a quick google search, I learned that anaplasmosis is transmitted by a tick that does not embed (like so many do), and the bite leaves no mark at all which explains why I never had evidence of the tick/tick bite. I also learned that my symptoms matched perfectly to what was lsited by the CDC including one of the late stage symptoms “respiratory failure” marked by the shortness of breath and low oxygen levels I was still experiencing. But either way, I was happy to have an answer. I went home the next day once my blood work came back with liver enzymes and platelets back to normal.
July: I told you this was a long story. Its not over. I went home, happy to be back to normal and soooooooooo excited to sleep in my own bed! Hosptial beds are awful. But that night I could not sleep because my hands and my feet were so itchy. Which was really annoying, but I didnt think much of it. Afterall, we were about to go to the Keys with friends for an adults only 4th of July weekend and in natural Jenna fashion, I was not going to miss it regardless of tick bites, hospital stays, or itchy hands and feet. So we go to the Keys, and it gets worse. Like I’m constantly itching. And my back hurts… really bad. WTF. So I’m paranoid the whole time but playing it cool. We get home and I am now low key bleeding on random parts of my body because the hands and feet itching has spread to full body itching. I tell my bestie Courtney, who is a CRNA and is just smart AF when it comes to anything medically related, and she said it sounded like Cholestasis of pregnancy and that I should call my doctor to go get blood work. My doctor agreed and when the results came back called me and told me to go to the hospital immediately yet again.
Turns out, Courntey was right. My liver enzymes were now 4x as high as they were when I had the tick bite and more than 10x higher than the normal range. More testing began, but they came to the same conclusion Courtney did and informed me that with Choelstasis, they would be monitoring me closely which included 2 ultrasounds and doctors visits each week followed by delivery at 37 weeks. Apparently the greatest risk for Choelstasis is still birth so they recommend early delivery to mitigate that risk.
Birth Story: Together with my doctors, we decided on an induction date of August 31, 37 weeks to the day. I was anxious to have the baby that day so that he and Marvel can be 2 years apart in school, August 31 is the cut off date. I kept telling the nurses I wanted to make sure he was born that day. Pitocin started around 8:30am, I was about 3cm when admitted and 70% effaced.
We told the nurses and the midwife that we wanted to keep his hair color a surprise and not to say anything during delivery. I was certain he was going to born with a head full of red hair like his brothers and Townsend was certain it would be dark brown.
A little after noon, they increased my Pitocin in preparation to get me an epidural and then break my water. I started to feel the contractions coming on stronger but also was annoyed it was taking so long because they wouldn’t let me eat. Next they came in to give me the epidural. I seriously hate this part. I don’t remember getting it with Galilee because I was blacked out from pain, but remember it being so awkward and uncomfortable for Marvel. It seemed to take an unusually long time and I recall them trying several spots before they got it right. They had me lay on my side and checked me, I was now 4cm which seemed very slow compared to the 3cm I was when I had been admitted several hours before. Now that I had the epidural and supposedly no longer feel anything, the midwife came in to break my water and speed things along. As she… ahem…. got in there, I remember thinking, ok, wow, so this feels weird, and I must have been flinching and making facial expressions because she asked me if I could feel it which I said, yes I certainly can. She said not to worry, the epidural would start to circulate and take effect soon. Over the next 20 to 30 minutes the contractions really intensified and started getting closer. I could no longer talk through them and was feeling every bit of each one that went by.
Eventually the nurse came in and asked me if I was feeling the contractions because she noticed I was breathing heavily. I said yes, I could feel theme and she observed as another one came on and I closed my eyes, breathing through it. She had the epidural people (Courtney certainly has a more professional name for this… CRNA’s? Anesthesiologists?) come back and they pumped up the epidural…. which had no effect. The nurse and the epidural people recommended to me that I get a second epidural because this one must not be placed correctly, causing me to feel all of the things. At this point I burst into tears because I really didn’t want to get another one. They said I was only 4cm and that I had a long road ahead of me without pain medication so I should really consider it. Naturally, I called Courtney, I wanted her to corroborate what the epidural ladies were telling me. She said I should get a second epidural too, so I obliged. Sitting up, bending over as they prepped me for another epidural in between contractions, I started to feel pressure. Lots of pressure. I told them I felt like I needed to push. They said to just sit still while they finished. I did my best but kept insisting I needed to push. they finished quickly and the nurse checked me again, this time, I was 9.5cm and it was go time.
The midwife was called in and they got me ready to push. If you were wondering, I could still feel everything. The second epidural had no effect either. 2 failed epidurals. But I didn’t have time to think about it much, it was time to put some lippies on and push. After a few strong pushes, he was born at 3:05PM with a head FULL of brown hair and cleft chin so prominent! We were overjoyed. They started to wipe him down and quickly saw there was a big knot in his cord. As they were all talking about his features and commenting on the birth I was noticing that he wasn’t crying or making many noises. I also didn’t feel him breathing. I asked the nurses about this but they assured me he was fine, still connected to the cord and therefore still getting all the oxygen he needed.
I heard a few little cries, but again, no breaths in. I kept my hand on his back. Soon Townsend cut the cord and I expected then he would start to breathe. I was getting very concerned and said again, he’s not breathing and he’s blue, he’s not getting any color, something is not right. The nurse grabbed him and took him to the warmer, within seconds at least 15 people rushed into the room and started performing chest compressions on him. All of a sudden, the date of his birth and the color of his hair seemed so unimportant. I felt embarrassed for even being particular about them. I was just looking at Townsend with tears in my eyes. He ran over to watch as they were stitching me back up. Could this be happening? The one big risk of Cholestasis of pregnancy? The risk we had been discussing the past several months at all the extra monitoring appointments? Stillbirth? I sat there helpless, in fear of what was happening. Then I heard murmurings from the doctors and nurses in the room, he was breathing, the chest compressions had worked and he was ok. The NICU doctor came over to talk to me and said not to worry but that they were taking him to the NICU until further notice. His blood sugar was low, likely due to not breathing for at least 7 minutes after he was born. Townsend went with them and I stayed back, now delivering the placenta.
The next 24 hours he stayed in the NICU. It was a strange experience not sleeping with my baby after he was born. I woke up in the middle of the night and went to see him. He was fine. We were fine. We had a scare, but knowing all of the possibilities of what could have happened, made us overwhelmingly grateful for a healthy baby boy. Many parents are not this lucky. Many parents leave the hospital without a baby coming home with them. My heart aches for those parents. Its a year after his birth and I can’t watch the video Townsend took of him right after he was born because I can see the concern in my eyes and hear the fear in my voice as I say again and again that he’s not breathing. This is another reminder that the trauma I still feel a year later from what thankfully turned out to be a happy ending, is nothing compared to what other parents must feel. Each pregnancy is a miracle, each birth miracle, each life a miracle. Forever reminded how blessed we are with these beautiful 4 children.
