After 35 weeks of a completely normal and healthy pregnancy, I was diagnosed with what doctors call Preeclampsia. (Preeclampsia is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby. Affecting at least 5-8% of all pregnancies, it is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine.) I was at one of my regular doctor visits when they noticed the swelling of my feet, high blood pressue, and protein in my urine. I was in my doctor's office for about 2 minutes before she sent me straight to the hospital. I was then put on bed rest at home and told that they would try and get me to 37 weeks before they would deliver. 37 weeks is considered full term. The hard part of Preeclampsia is that you feel fine... but have a high chance of having a stroke or seizure if your blood pressure gets too high. I was closely monitored for those two weeks and then induced on June 16th. The inducement took a while since I was three weeks early. So on the 19th... after 60 some hours of labor and three hard hours of pushing doctors decided Carter's head was turned in a way where he would have to be delivered by C-section. It was probably the most emotional hour of our marriage. Our healthy baby boy was delivered at 3:08pm. Because of the Preeclampsia I had to stay on some pretty horrible medicine for the 24 hours following delivery to prevent seizures. It was hard because I didn't feel comfortable picking Carter up on my own until a couple days after the surgery. I don't know how I could have done it without Dan. He never left my side. My Mom has also been amazing. She flew out as soon as I was put on bed rest.
So... that's our life for the past four weeks. It feels great to finally have things getting back to normal. I also couldn't finish this post without adding a couple more pictures of Carter!
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