A Birth Story (The Short Version)

A couple weeks ago I woke up with a kink in my neck.  Throughout the day it got progressively worse so I called my OB.  She suggested that I take some tylenol and keep a heating pad on it which I did for two days only to have the pain continue to get progressively worse.  I called the OB again and it was suggested that I go to a local ER and get some percocet which I did.  I used it sparingly because I didn't want to drug the babies but the pain persisted.  Then after about a week of suffering I woke up in the middle of the night with stomach cramps.  I began vomiting and didn't stop for about 12 hours.  I actually hesitated calling the OB again but I just knew something was not right. Jason and I drove into the hospital on a rainy Monday night thinking that I'd be given some IV fluids and something for the nausea and sent on my way.  Instead, I was told that I had a very severe form of preeclampsia called HELLP Syndrome and that the babies needed to be delivered immediately.  I was just 34 weeks.  We had nothing packed and had only what we wore into the city.  About an hour later Arlo John Sullivan Coleman was delivered weighing in at 4 pounds 11 ounces and just moments later Ellis Cameron Sullivan Coleman was born weighing in at 3 pounds 4 ounces.  Surprisingly Ellis was doing just fine despite his size and hypo plastic left heart and joined my in my room shortly after I was sewn back up.  Arlo needed to be monitored a bit more closely in the NICU because he was having a tough time breathing on his own. Thirty-six hours later I was feeling a lot better and was sent to the maternity ward with Ellis.  Jason had been able to see Arlo several times and assured me that he was doing just fine in the NICU.  He just needed to work on breathing a bit.   After lots of visitors that second day Jason and I send everyone home to settle in for the night with Ellis.  My spinal was starting to wear off completely and I was beginning to feel some pain.  That pain that I had had for two week before the c-section had returned and it got progressively worse just as it had before except this time it was very rapid and much more severe than it had been.  After hours of trying to tell nurses that I thought something was wrong I was finally seen by someone who decided to do a quick ultrasound of my abdomen.  Suddenly things began to move very quickly and frantically.  They took Ellis away to the NICU, sent me upstairs to get a proper ultrasound and had several liver specialists to come talk to me.  It was, by far, the most painful thing I've ever experienced.  I was rushed off to the ICU for close monitoring and further tests.  As it turns out I have a very rare and life threatening complication of HELLP Syndrome.  I have a large hematoma on my liver.  So here we are eight days after the babies were born, eight days into my what is to be a very long recovery.  Arlo is still in the NICU and will be for a while.  He's breathing well and is now learning how to eat.  Ellis is still with us.  He's a little angel.  If we hadn't come back for him I don't know what would have happened.  Here we are eight days after the babies were born savoring every moment with them, loving them, taking it one step at a time.

Arlo John and Ellis Cameron