Ehhh, Just a Little Scare

Last Thursday I caused some ruckus at my school. As I've been approaching my due date over the last several weeks, my greatest fear has been that my water will break during the middle of teaching and I'll create quite a scene. Little did I know, that isn't the only dramatic situation that I can cause while pregnant and working. :Last Thursday I discovered that I could create another dramatic situation that had nothing to do with going into labor! Here's what went down...or at least...from what I remember.

Last Thursday after lunch, I had a bit of a scare. My students were all working on an assignment on their Chrome books and I was trying to finish editing some papers on Google documents when I noticed that my eyes were acting funny. It was as if I'd just looked into the direct sunlight and all I could see were big, bright spots. I was sitting next to a window and the sun was bright out so I just assumed that the sun must have reflected off the computer screen and into my eyes. I figured I'd give it a minute and then my eyes would go back to normal. So I readjusted my position so that I wasn't in the direct sun and waited a few moments. But a few moments passed and my vision didn't get better. I tried squeezing my eyes real tight and reopening them, but that didn't work. I tried using just one eye and though it helped, I still could only see things in my peripheral vision.

When it came time for my students to go to specials, I asked my assistant to take my students to where they needed to go and explained to her that I was having trouble focusing and I was going to just take a nap during planning in hopes that maybe I just needed to give my eyes a break. She willingly took my students and turned off the lights for me so I could rest in peace. To much avail, I wasn't able to go to sleep. The longer I laid my head on my desk, the worst my vision seemed to get. Along with my lack of vision, I started feeling sick and I could feel a really bad headache coming on.

As the minutes ticked by, I felt worse and worse. Knowing there was no way I would be able to drive home after school, I called my dad and asked him to come get me in an hour. I explained to him that I had a really bad headache and was having trouble seeing so I was a bit worried about driving home. I asked him to come pick me up at 2:30 and just take me home to rest. I told him Kevin and I would just come get my car later in the evening when he got off work. He asked if I wanted him to come sooner but I explained to him that I only had another hour left of work and all the kids would be doing would be packing up and going to recess. I figured since they could do that on their own, I could make it.

When I got off the phone with Dad, I decided to head down to the office and pick up my mail before getting my kiddos from specials. As I walked in the office, our secretary asked me how I was feeling. I told her that I didn't feel so hot. I explained to her that I was having trouble seeing and I felt sick. She told me the nurse was there so I should go in her office and have her check me out. I didn't figure it would be a big deal so I went in there and explained to the nurse how I was feeling. She told me to have a seat and she'd check my blood pressure. My blood pressure was measuring 140 over 100. To most people, that isn't high, but my blood pressure typically runs around 100ish over 70ish so it was unusually high for me. She had me lie down for a few minutes with a wet rag on my head. She checked my blood pressure again and just five minutes later it was measuring 160 over 100. Immediately, she called my doctor's office and explained the situation. Of course they told me to come in right away... thankfully, I already had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon.

After talking to the doctor, the nurse asked me for Kevin's number so she could let him know what was going on. Unfortunately by that point, my blood pressure was so high that I was pretty much out of it. For the life of me I couldn't remember Kevin's number. The only thing I could tell her was he worked at Ball but I didn't know that number either. She looked it up in the phone book and tried calling but of course, being a corporation  you have to go through twenty five automated messages and you still can't speak to anyone so she didn't have any luck. Knowing my mother-in-law worked at another local school, she then tried calling her. Unfortunately, my mother in law was tied up at the time and couldn't come to the phone. Go figure! So again, she tried asking me for Kevin's number. I tried racking my brain but couldn't come up with the number. But I could tell her to call our assistant principal.  Of course the nurse had no clue why and I couldn't tell her why to call her I just knew in my mind she should. I just kept telling her over and over to call Tania. Finally she did and Tania came downstairs. Of course, right away Tania knew why. Her husband worked with Kevin. Thankfully she was able to get a hold of her husband and he was able to page Kevin. In the meantime, my mother in law ended up calling the school back so the nurse filled her in on what was going on as well.

Once they finally got Kevin filled in, they decided in order to save time, the assistant principal would bring me to meet him and he could take me to the doctor. That way he didn't have to back track and they could get me to the doctor faster. I don't remember anything after that. I just remember a bunch of people being around me and several people mentioning not having a wheel chair at the school. I think....I'm not positive... but I think I was rolled out to Tania's car in an office chair. Haha. I do know I was rolled out the front of the school right about the time of dismissal so I'm sure I made quite a site to all the people in the carpool line! haha

Tania got me to Kevin and he rushed me to my doctor's office forty five minutes away. I was so out of it I don't even remember the ride. When I arrived at the doctor's office, they put me in a room right away so I could lay down. Unfortunately, my doctor was out of town so they sent a midwife in to check on me. As soon as she checked my blood pressure, she sent me straight to the hospital next door.

We got checked in at the hospital and they decided to draw several vials of blood to test me for toxemia/preclampsia again... for the third time. After drawing my blood they put me in a room and hooked me up to several monitors. They wanted to monitor my blood pressure, Harper's heartbeat, and my contractions. They told me the tests would take about an hour and then I'd meet with a doctor.

Three hours later I was still in the hospital waiting for my blood pressure to stabilize. My head was killing me and all I could do for some relief was to sleep. They refused to give me any medication until they decided what actions to take. (FYI, the nurse told me that you ALWAYS take medicine before going to the hospital because it's always hours before they can give you any!)  Dr. Taavon, the doctor on staff, came in and discussed inducing me. Since I was the only one being affected by my high blood pressure and Harper was making it just fine, I told the doctor no way. I knew there was no way I could endure being induced and face a long labor with the way I was feeling. Afterall, I couldn't even lift my head or open my eyes because I felt so bad. On top of that, I really wanted to see my regular doctor; not that there was anything wrong with the doctor that I was talking to. In fact, he delivered my nephew and my coworker sees him. I just felt more comfortable with the one who knew me best. In the end, the doctor on call released me to go home once my blood pressure stabilized and instructed me to take some time from work and let my body rest if I wasn't going to let him go on and take Harper.

We ended up leaving the hospital around nine that night. I felt so awful that I slept the whole way home. Thankfully Kevin called everyoine and filled them in on how Harper and I were doing. If I'd have tried to fill them in, there's no telling what I'd have said as apparently, I was talking out of my mind.

Once we got home, I literally crawled up our stairs and just crashed in our bed... clothes and all. It was the best sleep I'd had in weeks! I slept for 11 solid hours.. no bathroom break in the middle of the night or tossing and turning to get comfortable. I was out cold.

It was a crazy day and thankfully we haven't had any repeats like that in the last week. However, despite how serious the situation was, some good did come out of it. I finally got to record the sound of Harper's heartbeat. We got to listen to it for the four hours we were there and that made it worth every minute of the pain that I had to endure while being there.

Here it is (: