We are thankful every day

Here's the story of Nico's early arrival: We went in for a routine biophysical and appointment at 37 weeks 6 days (last Tuesday the 17th). Baby did great on the biophysical and there was no cause for concern on her end (sono pictures to come). However, my blood pressure had been creeping north for a few weeks and this time was a bit too high. That along with a couple of other things (protein in the urine, puffy feet) sent up enough red flags that they asked me to go have blood work done in the hospital right away. The nurse practitioner was checking everything with the doctor on call since our doctor was out of the office last week and her guess was that depending on the lab results I'd be sent in for an induction Thursday or Friday. Let's just say we were not too excited about that news, mostly because we were in shock that the baby could be here in just a few days. Shortly after we got home from the appointment in the early afternoon a series of back and forth phone calls took place: to/from the doctor's office, to/from my doula, to/from my mom and Jason, trying to get a good grasp on the situation and the choice now in front of me: the lab results had come in, they were not good, and we were scheduled to show up at the hospital at 5:30p that night for an induction. The choice was now between an induction and to go ahead and do a c-section without laboring. Wait, what?! I have to make that decision? Now? Like right now?! As in the baby will be here sooner than in a few days?? It was really crazy for the next couple of hours as I was trying to wrap up a few school related things and Jason had attempted to head into the office for the afternoon. I decided to go ahead for the c-section and instead of showing up at 5:30p we now needed to show up between 3:30 and 4p to start the IV and antibiotics and get me prepped. Kind of a wimpy decision in my head because "the plan" was always to have a natural labor, etc. but there were several other factors that finally guided me towards doing the surgery that night instead of laboring throughout the night and then seeing what the morning brought. And as it turned out, I didn't actually end up with a choice about the c-section based on more lab work that was done after we arrived at the hospital. In just a couple of hours my platelet levels had dropped more than 10,000. I don't exactly know what that means (I'm not a doctor yet!) but I know that "normal" platelet levels are above 150,000 and mine had dropped from over 100,000 to 90,000 in a few hours - and that they don't want to do surgery if they're close to 70,000. Something was going to have to happen right away and they would not have let me try to labor after all. We arrived at the hospital around 3:45p and Nico was born at 5:22p so everything happened very quickly. It was considered an urgent, not an emergency, c-section. I was very sick even during the surgery and threw up almost the entire time. Gross. After 9 months of nausea that wasn't a surprising end though.

Long story short: The final diagnosis was severe pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. They kept us in the hospital for an extra day to monitor everybody (mostly me, as Nico was released from being monitored the next morning). We both feel like we received very good and attentive medical care here and the result really was healthy mommy, healthy baby. Even though exactly none of what we had planned happened we are thankful every day for her, for my health and the medical professionals who caught the warning signs in time, and for God's provision. She's a perfect little girl and we'll consider it an honor to raise her for God's glory.

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise: give thanks to him and praise his name." Psalm 100:4

P.S. In case you were wondering, having a girl will not make me like pink, ruffles, or tutus any more than I already do.