Say hello to Violet Irene Kelliher! She’s perfect and precious and we are obsessed! Little big baby made her appearance a little premature at 34.5 weeks at 3:19am on March 11, 2022. I planned to birth at Cooley Dickinson but I ended up being transferred to Baystate in an ambulance and being delivered right away via repeat C-section. Violet had to go to NICU for help breathing and eating and to catch up with some of her development, but her birth weight was actually more than Buggy! (Violet was 7lb 9oz at 34.5 weeks and Elizabeth was 6lb 9oz at 38 weeks!)
Thank goodness Violet was trying to bust out early because it wasn’t a moment too soon for my health. I don’t even know where to begin with talking about her birth and the aftermath. It truly almost killed me. Preeclampsia is no joke. It is a condition that only effects pregnant women, so naturally they have no idea what causes it and no idea how to prevent it. I had a “mild” case of preeclampsia with Elizabeth and this time with Violet I had a medical mystery/emergency/fluke/crisis case that caused me to be in the hospital and ICU for almost 2 weeks. They had been monitoring my blood pressure during biweekly appointments and it spiked to 192/110 at my doctor’s visit on 3/10/22. The OB sent me to the labor unit at Cooley right away, before they decided I had to go to Baystate for the NICU. After giving birth, I had 4 days of escalating blood pressure, constant coughing, oxygen desaturation, and tons of scans and tests. They figured out that my preeclampsia caused critical high blood pressure and pulmonary edema (accumulation of fluid in my lungs). The high blood pressure led one of the valves in my heart to start leaking into my lungs and causing severe inflammation in my lungs. So fluid was building up with no way to escape and my heart was pumping out of control. They performed a bronchoscopy to examine the inside of my lungs and determine the source of the inflammation. I had to be intubated during the procedure and my first extubation attempt did not go well. But they started draining the fluid from my lungs/body, controlling my blood pressure, and using steroids for the lung inflammation. I was able to resume breathing on my own very quickly after extubation and all my vitals were returned to safe levels within a few days with medications and IV. These conditions were caused by preeclampsia at their root, but my lungs and heart basically started battling each other. It’s absolutely fucking crazy. Thank god the specialists at Baystate didn’t give up until they figured out what was going wrong. They fucking saved my life. My body needs time to recover but I feel a million times better. (Oh and I had major surgery to have a human taken out of my body and I have a massive incision and I’m postpartum and relearning breastfeeding and no biggie.)
Luckily I have lots of healing snugs and I think pure serotonin is just coursing through my veins right now. I was released on Monday and Violet came home Thursday afternoon. Buggy finally got to meet Violet and my weak heart nearly burst with love. I am so in love with my little family right now. Each one of us is so strong and I love us all so much. Violet was such a little trooper in the NICU, working her little butt off to grow and meet milestones/requirements of development. Elizabeth was so flexible and adaptable. She behaved like an angel for Gramma and Daddy. She didn’t understand how scary this was and just sort of accepted that having a baby means mommy will be gone for a long time. I missed my Buggy so much it hurt. I am eternally grateful that my L&D nurse got special permission for Buggy to come visit me in my room before I went to the ICU. I was seriously not sure when/if I would see her again. My mom drove to Westfield at 11:00pm on the night I was getting admitted and stayed to take care of Buggy for the entire time. My mom is a legend. She learned Buggy’s whole routine, all the meals, daycare, bedtime, oh my god everything. We could not have made it through without my mom. And Paul. I love Paul so much. He slept in my hospital rooms, drove/walked/ran from home to multiple hospital rooms to daycare to store, communicated with my doctors when I could not, loved and cared for all four of his ladies, stayed so strong but open during some fucking scary shit, and still made it home for almost every Buggy bedtime. I am so lucky and so in love. This was the scariest two weeks of my life and I’m so proud and amazed that we made through alive. Our little family is just perfect. 💜
seems like you dropped your standards and are now living a normal life with a good family. You should advise young women to do the same, expecting men to be superheroes is ridiculous and unfair
ReplyDeleteHey there anonymous trash panda, I never compromised any of my standards. Not one bit. In fact, I got more than I ever expected. I got a smart, funny, kind, tall, sexy, well-employed, well-endowed liberal. He loves that I'm educated, assertive, feminist, and curvy as hell. And he's good with computers, he builds stuff, he's a Veteran, and he's an unbelievable father. Oh and and and I had gained weight since my TED talk lol! And he loves every inch of my body! I literally got everything I wanted and MORE. Go back to your basement, loser.
DeleteI'm a tenured professor now and I will continue to advise all my young female students to NEVER compromise their standards for losers like you, and advise my male students to BE BETTER if they want to attract a real woman.
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