The rest of the pregnancy for a few weeks after that was pretty uneventful, then my blood pressure issues that I had with our first child started creeping in again. I started having some slightly elevated numbers at the Dr's office and was soon taking my blood pressure at home and keeping a log of them to show the Dr. Something I had with this pregnancy I didn't have with the others was the severe low back/hip pain and that pain would shoot down my left leg making it very hard to walk. This started around week 27, we got me one of those pregnancy belts to help support my belly and back. During the entire pregnancy I kept saying I thought he was going to be my biggest baby yet. My belly got bigger quicker and I could feel him moving around like crazy! Even the sono techs kept commenting on how wiggly he was while trying to get his measurements.
At week 20 we had our sonogram that told us he was a boy, we quickly decided on his name Samson. We wanted a bible name with a good meaning and one that was not very common. Samson means "like the Sun". Some translations say "HIS Son" like the Son of God. It is a Hebrew name, when we saw it popped up on a list of male bible names I started thinking about the Story of Samson, how he was a man of great strength. He was favored by God, yet he was also human and made mistakes. He paid for those mistakes, but in the end God granted him mercy in his final act of life. To me it's always been a great story in the bible but never anything really special. But the more I thought about it the more I realized how much I loved the idea of naming our son Samson. At the 20wk sonogram he was measuring almost a week bigger then his due date. Dr commented he was going to be a "big baby".
As we continued to grow his movements were getting stronger, at times it felt like he was going to burst out of my stomach! One of our favorite things to do as a family was for me to place my cell phone on my expanding tummy and watch Samson kick it! Even the slightest pressure on my stomach would cause him to react by pushing back or kicking. The kids got a kick out of watching my phone bounce on my belly and sometimes sliding off cause he had kicked it so hard.
As I continued to grow the discomfort of walking and the blood pressure issues got worse. We decided it might be a good idea to get a day care lined up for the 2 other kids in case I ended up on bed rest. We did that just in time, at wk 33 I ended up having a bad day, wasn't feeling good and was having issues with my blood pressure. I was advised by the Dr on call with my OBGYN's office to go to the hospital for some monitoring. While there of course by the time I got there the BP issues were a little more under control however while they had me on the baby monitors I started having regular contractions. I'd been having "braxton hicks" for a few weeks but nothing real strong or regular. These contractions were pretty strong and were coming every 2-3min. The nurse called the Dr on call and informed her of what was going on, it was decided to keep me over night and begin me on a course of medications. I was given IV antibiotics because they had not yet done my strep b test they do before the baby is born and so they were treating me for it just in case I continued into labor. They also gave me medication to stop the contractions, this medication also lowers blood pressure so it was a win/win. They also gave me steroid shots to help Samson's lungs develop quicker just in case they couldn't stop the labor. I spent a few nights in the hospital as a result of the monitoring and the shots needed to be 24hrs apart. They did some testing and eventually the labor stopped and I was allowed to go home but was now as predicted I was on bed rest. I was told that after week 34 they would not try to stop labor should I go into labor again so I needed to make sure I took it easy to keep from going into labor early. The Dr gave me a goal of reaching at least 36wks.
The kids began going to daycare that following work week, Casey would get up early, get the kids ready and drop them off at daycare before heading to work and I was left alone all day. This went on for about 2 weeks, I don't care for the super quiet house and I miss my little kiddo's terribly. Most mornings I would cry as they would leave because Eli would be crying for mommy and didn't want to leave me.
A week after the pre-term labor began I started having the blood pressure issues again, I felt really bad and my chest was starting to hurt and the antacids weren't helping at all like they had before. I also had a severe headache and black spots in my vision (a sign of pre-eclampsia) Again I was sent to the hospital for observation. Due to the headache and the chest pain they kept me over night again and tried to resolve the issues. They gave me a strange antacid mixture that I drank that was supposed to help and all it did was numb my mouth and made the pain worse and upset my stomach. The Dr then ordered a sonogram of several of my organs. The big concern was my liver, this was the most un-fun sonogram I've ever had. Due to being pregnant the tech had to push super hard to see around my growing uterus and left bruises along my rib cage. She checked liver, spleen, and gall bladder (that I know of). Everything checked out, next up was they sent a neurologist in to see me for the headache. I knew this was not a typical migraine headache and after talking with me he agreed. He did say he thought it was a rebound headache from taking Tylenol every day for the last few weeks for the back pain. Later that day I was released from the hospital, that was a Saturday (before mothers day). I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep but couldn't from all the discomfort.
A few days later (Weds morning) at 35 wks & 3 days I had not been able to sleep all night the night before. My back was hurting so bad, it would ache bad but then every few minutes it would get worse and shoot pain down my leg. I began trying comfort measures. Tylenol, heat pad, stretching etc. Finally I googled to see if there was something else I could try to relieve the pain. I read one of the things to try is to get on all fours and alternate between rounding my back and arching my back. I started doing that and began to notice every time I would round my back I would feel something "leaking" I decided maybe I should stop doing those and since it was 4:30 in the morning and I didn't want to wake Casey (he gets up at 6am) and I wasn't in labor I would wait till he woke up to discuss what we should do. We decided I should call the Dr on call, at first the Dr on call wasn't to worried about the back pain, but when I told him about the leaking he got concerned. He told me to go to the hospital just to make sure I wasn't in labor. I said I wasn't having contractions and it didn't feel like labor but would do it to make sure. Casey dropped me off at the hospital which happened to be on the way for the most part to the kids daycare. I really expected to be observed for a couple of hours and sent home.
I arrived at the hospital around 6:45am, they take me and hook me up to the monitors. They checked my cervix to see if I was dilated past the 1 they had gotten a couple of weeks back. She said I was still at a 1 but when they did the swab to see if the "leaking" was aminonic fluid the nurse goes "Well, your ruptured. You are having a baby!" I was a little shocked, she called the Dr and they began the admit process. Over the next couple of hours I didn't progress at all. No contractions but I continued to loose fluid, Dr didn't want to take a chance in me loosing all my fluid and having labor delay to long (for the babies safety) so they started me on the induction drugs to get labor moving. This was the slowest labor ever for me, normally the drugs work well with me but this time it didn't. Contractions did start but I wasn't dilating. After several more hours the nurse tells the Dr she can still feel a full bag of waters when she checks me. I was worried they were going to stop all meds and send me home at that time, they didn't. Dr came in and broke my water. He said chances are Samson's head was blocking it and not allowing all the fluid to flow out. Labor continued to progress slowly which is odd for me at that point. Finally late in the afternoon they tell me I'm dilated to a 4 and things should move a little quicker. This was around 5 or so in the after noon, meanwhile Casey had gone to daycare to pick up the kids and bring them home where Grandma met him to watch them for the rest of my labor. Around 7pm I started feeling some pressure, I asked the nurse if she was going to check me soon since they had been checking about every 2hrs. She said she would around 7:30, they were busy so it ended up being a little after 8 before she came back in. I was just about to push the call button and tell them to check me NOW cause I could feel like we were close to crowing due to the pressure. She came in and checked me and was like "Oh! There he is! We are fully dilated and ready to go!" Thankfully my Dr was IN the hospital already as she was on call just on another floor. They called her and she was there in minutes, due to the fact Samson was early they needed to have a NICU team in the room when he was delivered. We had to wait a couple more minutes for them to show up, as my Dr was getting her robe/mask/gloves on she looks down and goes "Oh my! He's crowing!" she puts one hand down on his head and says "Slow down little guy I don't have both gloves on yet!" The nurse rushes over with another glove and puts it on her hand for her. Dr said "Ok, so his head is already out to his ears. Are you ready to push?" I was like "Now? Don't I need to wait for a contraction?" she said "no, just give a little push really just sneeze and he will be out" So I gave a little grunt. Seriously they said my "delivery" was just 30 seconds. Dr said "Ok you can stop pushing" I hadn't even really begun to push and he was out!
His color was great, already pink by the time they placed him on my chest, he was so tiny. The NICU staff moved in to check on him while I'm saying hi and he was looking at me. They left him on my chest as long as they could before needing to take him over to the warmer and clear his lungs of fluid. They brought him back long enough for me to hold him for a few minutes and taking a picture of Casey, Samson and I. Finally they said they needed to take him up to the NICU because he needed to be on the c-pap machine for a couple of hours. Casey went with them to see where he was going and to find out all the stats.
Samson Chad Mollett was born 5/14/14 at 8:18pm, originally the NICU staff yelled out to Casey "5.4" I don't know if they just had the wrong weight that first time (happened with Willa) or if that wasn't the weight like he thought it was. I didn't find out till he had come home with his admit info that his weight was actually 4lbs 9oz! He was 18 1/2in long.
Samson spent 4 days in the NICU for observation, he did great and was off the c-pap in just a couple of hours. Over the course of the 4 days he continued to improve and was soon nursing on his own, the only time they fed him via the ng tube was at night when I couldn't be there to nurse him after I was released from the hospital. The night before he was thought to be going home they said I either needed to room in the hospital so I could come nurse him every few hours or he needed to be allowed to take from a bottle. I said to let him take from a bottle. They told me the next morning he didn't seem to care for the bottle much and we did well nursing in the morning. Samson came home Sunday May 18 with instructions for me to follow up with his Dr on Tues to check his jaundice levels and weight.
Tues May 20th we went to the Dr for his check up. His weight was up to 4.14! Which the Dr was VERY pleased about! Said that he only expects a 2-3oz gain over 2 days and he almost doubled that! Said clearly he was eating well and we were doing awesome at home. I love our little guy! He's since slowed down his eating and only eating every few hours instead of ever hour and has been spending more time awake during the day.
Here are some pictures from the hospital. :)
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| Seeing each other for the first time. |
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| All three before going up to NICU |
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| Early the next morning, doing great already! |
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| Home just 4 days later! Big brother and sister LOVE him! |
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| Such a proud big sister! She loves him so! |
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