Wesley's Birth Story

Just for the record, my sister and sis-in-law have recently posted their kiddo's birth stories to each of their blogs, I'm not really doing this because I thought it was the cool thing to do, more so because I'm afraid I'm beginning to forget details to what was the best day of my life to date. So therefore I'm going to post this now, because my writing things are in boxes somewhere in Virginia, so that I have it for the future. And also, some who may read this may not know or understand all of the craziness of Wesley's birth week.

Ah, and another disclaimer, I'm the worst story teller EVER! :) ENJOY!

It was a cool, dark night...

Okay, no, really:

I'll start from the beginning.

Not THAT beginning, but the part when things started going awry.

Towards the beginning of my third trimester, when I was going to the OB every 2 weeks, I noticed a significant gain of around 20 lbs in just 2 weeks time. I new I hadn't changed my diet, but when my Dr. didn't mention anything I thought nothing of it really...just felt really crappy about my lack of self control when it came to the sweets! A couple of visits later the midwife in my Dr's office noticed that my blood pressure was creeping up at each visit. At that point I had been doing some research on preeclampsia and noticed that there were many signs pointing to that being the problem, so I asked her what her thoughts were. I remember her saying "Well, Dr. D noticed a significant weight gain at your last appointment so we're watching it, but no protein has showed up in any of your samples". So that's what we were waiting on...protein in my samples. (I choose the word sample because anything more gives me the willies! :) I think you all know WHAT samples I'm referencing!)

At that point they were telling me that I needed to stay off of my feet and take it as easy as possible. Do everything I could to keep my blood pressure down...but what I couldn't talk about at the time was the stress put on me by the possibility that Derek would be leaving mere days before Wesley was born! I'm sure that you've seen the posts of all of my struggles during that time. Struggles with trusting God and patience, and contentment with whatever was to happen. So needless to say, my blood pressure stayed high throughout the rest of my pregnancy. So much so that at times that were genuinely concerned about my health.

The Sunday prior to delivery I was in the hospital for monitoring and the Dr. on call, Dr. Kang, told me that if I was his patient he would probably have tried to induce me that day! But God wasn't finished testing my patience yet!! Over that weekend I had a few tests done, including a 24 hour sample. When the results came back we were told that I was far away from preeclampsia, but my platelet count was low, therefore, if I did go into labor my chances of bleeding to death were higher because I wouldn't be able to clot. Naturally when I told Derek of the situation it scared him.

We spent the rest of that day on pins and needles while waiting to hear from his superiors on the boat whether or not they were able to allow him to stay behind, because the boat was scheduled to leave the next day. Finally that evening we found out that they were going to let him stay because my health was so at risk. Well, the next morning came and I went in to my Dr. for more monitoring and while I was there I found out that the results that we got the day before were all wrong!!! My platelets weren't low, they were right where they should be, and although I was still not considered preeclamptic, I was borderline. At that point we had found out that the boat was not going to leave that day, so Derek had to call in and let them know that things weren't as dire as we were led to believe. (Just for the record, we were misinformed and believe that it was no fault of Dr. Kang's. I don't want to make him sound like he's clueless. I'm pretty certain HE was misinformed himself)

After that phone call I spent much of that day in tears, staying as close to Derek as I could because I just knew that this was God's answer. Derek was leaving the next day and there was nothing we could do about it. But there was one thing I left out of the equation. A Christian captain with a heart for family and a passion for legacy. Captain Roger Isom. He gets NO credit for working things out, but he gets so much thanks for allowing God to use him in a HUGE way. That night Derek was asked to call Capt. Isom to discuss what we were going to do. The boat was DEFINITELY leaving the next day, with or without him, that was up to Capt. Derek talked for a while, very respectfully and very honestly. He let the Capt. know that yes, there were other options. My mom could be there in a matter of hours and stay with me for a while, and we had close friends that would look out for me, but he felt like as a scared husband, almost father, he needed to be there with me. I'm not sure when he decided it, but at some point the Captain informed Derek that he respected his decision and that he would see him in 3 days. That was the time period we were given, whether Wesley was born in that time or not, we had 3 days!!

Now it's almost 1 so I have to finish this tomorrow. I know the suspense is killing you already!