Knocked up no more!

Clearly, quite a bit has happened since my last post... I spent the week after penning that puppy in and out of the hospital. BP would go up, doc would send me to the hospital, they'd drug me more, BP would drop, they'd send me home, then BP would go up again. lather rinse repeat. It was an ever escalating battle - drugs vs. skyrocketing BP. 'I dare you!' 'I double dare you!!' By the time we'd reached the triple dog-dare of blood pressure treatment aka 750mg of TWO different BP drugs 3 times a day with full left side only hospital bed rest, it became pretty clear that we were out of options. It was babytime.
Because she was only 34 weeks, I was all for riding it out as long as possible. A couple of docs in my ob's practice were down with that, to a point. And there was a lot of 'discussion' about exactly where that point was. This was a bit confusing from the patient side of the conversation since opinions varied. When you are hospitalized, you get the doc du jour, which means you get the opinion du jour. 'You are good, just hang on your left side indefinitely and when your BP spikes again, we'll have a baby!' Next day, next doc? 'Get her out!! NOW NOW NOW!!!' Um, what? Many confused calls and intense spousal conversations later - we went with doc 2s opinion, who, come to find out, was dead serious about the 'NOW' part of her opinion. The hubby barely had time to get to the hospital before they were wheeling me into the operating room. He was literally met at the door with the little paper booties and hat. Exceptional timing!
I'll spare you the details of the delivery, but it could have been worse. We went c-section. Considering that rolling onto my right side spiked my BP by 20 points, we were pretty sure that a 24 hour bout with intense induced pain would probably have had a negative impact on my readings, to the tune of 'not enough drugs in the world'. So a quick slice n' dice and boom! Baby.
She was born at 3 something on march 7th (hey, I was drugged - cut me some slack!) and weighed 5lbs 9ozs. And after 10 days in the NICU, she was allowed to go home. I had to stay in the hospital myself another 4 days. The first of those 4 days, I was drugged to the gills on magnesium, to prevent seizures triggered by my ridiculously intransigent blood pressure. I refer to that period as my Keith Richards days. I was borderline incoherent and feeling zippy pain. This was especially welcome since shortly post birth the epidural wore off/broke (trust me you don't want the details) and I had been feeling EVERY bit-o-pain that comes along with being gutted like a codfish. Yay for magnesium, I say! And percocet and tylenol 3...
Next few posts I'll get y'all up to speed on the transition from human podcreature to mommyhood - its been quite a ride. But details will need to wait - the infant is paging me (read: there is an air raid siren going off in my home).... Happy Early Mother's Day!