Tate James Wilkey
Born December 22, 2017 at 6:45 pm
6 lbs 3 oz - - - 19 1/2 in
This is really long and I don't expect anyone to read it all -this is more for me to remember everything that happened! :)
My due date was supposed to be right around January 10th but Tate needed to join our family three weeks early so he joined us for Christmas in 2017! We sure love our Tate.
Talk of having Tate early started when I was exactly 36 weeks along. The night before I started itching really bad all over my body but mostly on my outer thighs and upper arms. I didn't think too much of it until the next morning when I woke up and found tons of bruises all over my outer thighs! I saw the bruises and had no idea how they got there unless it was from me scratching my thighs really hard. It was so strange and not only was I itchy and bruised but I felt awful. I didn't sleep good the night before, had a loss of appetite, and was nauseous. I knew that I needed to call my OB and get an appointment to come in that day to see what was going on. I was able to go in that same morning and I was really nervous because my body just felt so off and I was worried about our sweet baby. I called Jon and told him what was going on, dropped Hudson off at a friends and then headed to the doctors.
I was so emotional at this appointment because I was so tired and I felt so cruddy! It was embarrassing how quickly I was in tears and the Doctor really could not get out of the room fast enough - not my favorite doctor of the bunch! But anyways when the doctor was there she told me I needed to get some blood work done to check on my liver and I knew (thanks to google) that this was to check and see if I had cholestasis. She prescribed me some medicine to help with the itching too all assuming that I would be diagnosed with this cholestasis. She also checked me for the first time and I was 70% effaced and dilated to a 2. Anyways I got some blood work done right there in the office and then the next morning I had to go to the hospital to get more done.
Here's some info about cholestasis if you're wondering what it is....
americanpregnancy.org - Some women experience a very severe itching in late pregnancy. The most common cause of this is cholestasis, a common liver disease that only happens in pregnancy. Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP) is a condition in which the normal flow of bile is affected by the increased amounts of pregnancy hormones....Cholestasis may increase the risks for fetal distress, preterm birth, or stillbirth. A developing baby relies on the mother’s liver to remove bile acids from the blood; therefore, the elevated levels of maternal bile cause stress on the baby’s liver. Women with cholestasis should be monitored closely and serious consideration should be given to inducing labor once the baby’s lungs have reached maturity.
So anyways... Thursday morning I went and got that blood work done at the hospital and just waited to hear back. Early that afternoon a nurse from my OB's office called and told me that my liver enzymes were high and that I needed to go to the hospital again that day to get a non stress test done to check on the baby. I also scheduled another appointment with my OB for Friday to go over the hospital lab results and to talk about what will happen next. Again this was all assuming that I had cholestasis. (The lab work from the hospital would tell us for sure if I had it - it checked my bile salt levels.)
Later Thursday night we went to the hospital and got the NST done and everything looked and sounded great. Our baby was healthy and moving a lot! It was great to be reassured by that test that our little guy was doing good. When we were at the hospital getting that done we asked the nurse lots of questions about cholestasis and she was very helpful and was able to calm my nerves for the most part. Although she did tell us that I would most likely be induced the following Wednesday and that surprised and stressed me out! Even when we were walking out she said ok we will probably see you next week! Needless to say Jon and I left the hospital that night thinking for sure we would be back that next Wednesday having a baby! I was dealing with so many of the symptoms of cholestasis I thought that I had it for sure - what else could it have been?!
On Friday Jon and I met with another OB at my doctors office and that was pretty much the worst appointment. My bile salt levels came back perfect - they were a 3! To be diagnosed with cholestasis it has to be 10 or higher. So the OB said I did not have cholestasis and he had no idea what was going on with me so he had me set up an appointment with a specialist at a maternal fetal medicine office. That appointment was set up for the following Monday. I felt so dumb and crazy leaving that appointment on Friday - was everything I was feeling just in my head? I still felt that I had cholestasis. Don't get me wrong, I was grateful because I didn't want to have our baby so early and I didn't want the health of our little guy to be at risk but I knew something was wrong. So we waited until Monday to hopefully get more answers. Jon and I were so worried that we would go to the specialist and they wouldn't be able to tell us anything either so we almost didn't even go on Monday!
We met with the specialist on Monday. This appointment took forever!! I think we were there for almost 3 hours. We got an ultrasound done to check on baby and to see if they could find out what was going on. Again everything looked great with our little guy. After the ultrasound the specialist came in and talked with us. I told her everything that has been going on and she simply told us that I had cholestasis!!!! She just said that if I were to get the labs drawn again she was positive that my bile salt levels would be higher. She recommended that I be induced sometime between 37 and 38 weeks and that I get non stress tests done every 48 hours. She didn't order more lab work because she didn't think it would change anything. So she just sent all of the information to my OB's office and then we got another NST test done while we were there.
Jon and I talked things through and decided that I should be induced on the next Wednesday or Thursday putting me at 38 weeks. That way we could still spend time with family over the holidays and baby boy could grow and stay in my belly longer.
On Tuesday I called my doctors office and set up another appointment to get a NST done and also an appointment to meet with an OB - that was set up for Thursday.
Those days in between NST tests were the longest! I had to count fetal movements every hour and if anything felt wrong or off I needed to go to the hospital. It was so stressful and I still felt so yucky, I was barely getting any sleep at night, and I was super itchy especially at night. Not fun.
Thursday finally came around. The NST test went well and baby again had a strong heartbeat and was doing good. We then met with the OB. He checked me and I was dilated to a 2.5 and effaced 80%. We talked about when I wanted to be induced and his thoughts on waiting until then. He seemed to think it was ok but he wanted me to get more labs drawn just to double check. He told us that if my liver enzyme levels or my bile salt levels were a lot higher that I would need to be induced that Saturday but if they weren't crazy high then we could wait until the next week like we had planned and would continue to do NST tests. Jon and I both felt good about that plan so I went to the hospital again to get blood work done.
That night Jon and I were able to get a lot done for Christmas and everything. The next morning (Friday the 22nd) we had our own little family Christmas. Since we were going to be traveling up to Ogden and Logan for Christmas we didn't want to haul our gifts around. Hudson loved opening his gifts this year and is obsessed with a tricycle Santa brought him. :) As Jon was putting together one of Hud's toys I got a call from a nurse from my doctors office. She told me that my OB wanted me to be induced that day as soon as possible because my liver enzyme and bile salt levels both had gotten much much higher.
(Liver enzyme levels have two numbers that are normally around 15-30 but my two numbers were 400 and 760. Bile salt levels are normally under 10 and remember mine was a 3 the last time they checked but this time it jumped to 178)
After that phone call I waited for a call from the hospital, they were going to tell me when to come in. We were so surprised that I needed to go in that day and I was so stressed, worried and scared. I wasn't ready to give birth and our home wasn't ready to bring our little guy here. I wanted to clean and grocery shop and I still needed to pack my hospital bag! Jon and I were running around our home trying to get more done up until we went to the hospital. The hospital called soon after I got off the phone with the nurse. We were supposed to be there between 11 and 11:30 that morning to get started! (It was 9 when they called!) I called my mom right away and luckily she was able to come down to our place right then to watch Hudson. I am so grateful for her and all that she does. Jon called his mom too to let her know about what was going on, then Jon and I tried to get as ready as we could.
I was sad that we didn't have any more time to spend with just Hudson while he was our only kiddo. I really had a hard time imagining having two kids! How would I love and take care of both of them?!
Jon gave me a blessing before we left and then a few minutes later my mom showed up. We gave Hudson some loves and then headed to the hospital to have sweet baby Tate.
We got to the hospital right at 11:30, checked in, and headed up stairs to Labor and Delivery. I had my IV in and the doctor broke my water all by 12:30! Everyone was anxious to get our little guy here safe and sound. They started me on pitocin right away and continued to up the amount they were giving me every 30 minutes until they reached the max. I knew I would get an epidural but I wanted to wait as long as I could before I did. I slowly started to dilate more and I was slowly starting to feel the contractions more and more. Around 5pm I was dilated to a 5 and I decided I wanted the epidural then. By 6pm I had the epidural and within the next half hour things progressed super fast and I was dilated to a 10. The nurses quickly called our doctor and he headed straight over to deliver our little guy. Tate joined us 15 minutes later and he was healthy and strong! I don't think the epidural fully kicked in this time around because I felt a lot and it was super painful and uncomfortable but that's ok, it was definitely all worth it in the end. We stayed in the hospital two nights and left for home on Christmas Eve.
We are so grateful for modern medicine and everyone who has helped us out this past month.
We love our little Tate so so much and couldn't imagine life without him.
