A crappy pregnancy . . .

I'm all sentimental because my baby girl's birthday is the Friday. I cannot believe it has been 5 years since she made her appearance into the world. . .

The pregnancy was crazy. We had Dustin, 2 very demanding foster kids, 2 dogs (one a new puppy- or horse- he was a Great Dane), and Harrison was still a toddler himself. Not only that but, I am a sweaty mess in the summer. I get horrifically hot even when there isn't a large child growing inside me, so the summer was miserable. I was so sick that I never gained weight, it just moved around.

Then there were a carp load of issues. . . initially I tested positive that McCartney had Down's Syndrome. They actually asked if I wanted to continue with the pregnancy. Continue? Are you nuts? Why wouldn't I? So I had to have additional testing to see if it was accurate so they could determine if there was anything that warranted specialists at the birth. The first amnio didn't work. Didn't work you say? The doctor not only said I had to be FULL of water, but forgot and arrived 2 hours late. I was pregnant and FULL of water. I thought I would die. Then he poked me no less than 10 times trying to withdraw fluid. Nothing worked. I was miserable. I couldn't handle waiting the 2 weeks until the appointment with the specialist to do another amnio, but what choice did I have? I fretted and fretted for 14 days and got FULL of water again. The next amnio took all of 2 minutes and one poke.

I waited a week to find out that the test was a false positive and nothing was wrong. I didn't really care, but it was a relief to find out no specialists were needed. But, they asked if I wanted to know the sex of the baby. Since they grew chromosomes they knew definintely. I cried and cried that I had my girl.

Then at about 32 weeks I had an appointment with the OB and he said something about my rhogam shot. I asked him to clarify because the nurse the last pregnancy told me that I was B+ bloodtype. He looked back at the paperwork and he said I was B- and I was mistaken. I told him to look at my paperwork from the previous pregancy. Sure enough the nurse had mistakenly written B+ on the front of my chart. He said, "Well, no harm no fowl. Your inital bloodwork showed no signs of anti-bodies so unless you've breeched the placenta we have no problems." My eyes got really big and I said in a little voice, "I had an amnio." He sent me for the shot anyway telling me it wasn't a problem. The hospital freaked out. I freaked out. They told me all these awful scenarios that my body could be fighting my baby girl as we spoke. That she would need a total blood transfusion at birth, that she may not live. They said that if I knew Harrison was a negative like me it would be okay. I called the pediatrician, he had no record of his type. The hospital said they would have it in their records.

This was on a Friday night. I had to wait til Monday. On Monday I found out that something happened and the hospital did not take his blood so no one knew his type. I began freaking out and low and behold my OB walks into the record room, to check Harrison's type himself. I began screaming at him that his mistake could cost my child's life. He freaked out, rightfully so. We did a bunch of testing that day and he got emergency results. McCartney was fine. No anti-bodies. He actually asked if I was going to sue him. . . it could've been a very big mistake. Even through all this issues I really liked my doctor. . . not sure why. . .

At 37 weeks my bloodpressure that was normally perfect or low, sky-rocketed. I was put on bed rest and even though I was good and did what I was supposed to (we even had the kids go to respite) I began to lose my vision sometimes. They decided to induce. I went into the hospital on a Friday evening and they were going to start inducing in the morning. My mom went home to stay with Harrison and Robert went to Best Buy to get a tape for the video camera. I could not be restful, I kept telling them I was having contractions. They kept saying, "No. Nothing's registering on the machine." I didn't care what was registering. The OB came to check on me and left. Robert finally got back in and I told him to get the nurse NOW. She sighed and resigned to check me and I was already 10 centimeters. I felt like sticking my tongue out and saying "Told you so!" She turned to Robert and said, "If you want her mom here, you better call her NOW." My mom got there about 15 minutes later and I had McCartney 7 minutes after that. My doctor didn't even make it.

McCarenty was a pain even then . . . the world revolved around that pregnancy just as she thinks it revolves around her now . . .

I love her with every fiber of my being.