It is so hard for me to believe that 19 days ago I was sitting in my living room and got the unexpected call from my dr stating that I needed to get back to Labor and Delivery because my liver enzymes were just too high. I remember asking Dr. Jacoby if I could wait to come in since our refrigerator had gone out that morning and the "fix it guy" was coming at 3:30. He insisted I get there ASAP and I told him I would call Eddie and have him come and home and take me up to the hospital. To be honest I was really upset and mad, I did not want to go back to the hospital, I’d spent so much time there the month of March that I just was not looking forward to going again. I remember taking my time, I got ready, packed a suitcase, Eddie came home and started yelling at me to hurry up, and I of course was in no hurry to go back to the hospital... just not what I wanted to do! I was so angry, poor Eddie got the brunt of it. Bless his heart, he really put up with a lot from me during this pregnancy!! We finally got out of the house and were on our way to the hospital, when I got to Labor and Delivery the nurses looked at me and said "We were expecting you a lot earlier than this...", yeah I just smirked and said " ahh yeah", yup, I had a bit of an atitude..I know it was not their fault but I just did not want to be there. I felt fine, I was not sick, did not have a migraine, my blood pressure was ok... there was NO reason for me to be in the hospital...or at least I thought.
My dr showed up about an hour later and came into the room sat on my bed and "thrusted" my lab work at me and said in a stern voice " Roxanne I was not kidding with you, your labs are not good, your numbers are 10 times the normal level and we need I have called a gastroenterologist specialist to see you". I looked at the labs and could not believe it. My dr explained that people with those numbers should be extremely ill right now and in some distress, of course I was not experiencing any of those symptoms. They redid the labs while I was there and had the results back stat just as the Gastro guy arrived. To make a long story short, he did not hold back any punches. He told me that I was in acute liver failure and they needed to make a decision to keep me at that hospital or transfer me to Baylor Medical Centers Transplant department. He said usually people in my condition were very ill at this time and I was lucky that I was not. I was in shock I had no idea what he was talking about, he left the room to consult with my dr, Eddie and I just sat there. Within 10 minutes my OB/GYN and the Gastro guy came walking into my room, my dr sat down on my bed again and the look on his face said it all… he told me they consulted with my high risk dr and based on my most recent labs they were taking the baby that night, and would decide the next morning based on my morning labs whether to transfer me to Baylor or not. They hoped that once the baby was delivered it would alleviate the stress on my liver and things would start coming back to normal. So that is how little Elyssa came into this world! They told me that they would be taking me down to the OR around 8pm to prep me for my baby’s delivery. Eddie of course immediately started calling family and friends and almost everyone came up that evening. Lisa, Tonia, Cheri, Tammy, my in-laws Eli and Wilse, Carla was coming down from OK, and my mom took an emergency flight to Dallas the very next morning. Everyone was excited about the baby’s arrival but also extremely concerned about my health. I have to say that even though it was suppose to be the happiest day of my life I have to say, the over shadowing effect of my impending health condition did a lot to harbor some of my feelings. Our princess was born kicking and screaming, I will never ever forget the sound of her first cry when I heard it or the feel of her little cheek against my lips when I kissed her for the first time. They brought her over to me after she was cleaned up and I kissed her little cheek, tears pouring from my eyes, as I told her how much I loved her and how much her daddy loved her. Eddie also got to hold her for a second before they whisked her off to the transition nursery. She had a really rough first night, her glucose levels kept dropping, she had trouble breathing and was having trouble maintaining her body temperature, but she was a little fighter and by noon the next day she was brought to my room for the first time. Eddie spent the first night in the hospital with me. We did not get much sleep; we were both very worried about my condition and the baby’s condition. No one was giving us a lot of info and it was one of the scariest nights of my life. The next morning they did stat blood work on me and we found my numbers were coming down, I was not out of the woods but they were satisfied enough to cancel the transfer to Baylor for me and to just keep monitoring my levels. I felt like a human pin cushion but I got to stay with my baby! My labs have all come back into normal ranges except one and they are still monitoring me but we are all trying to stay optimistic that my troubles are over. I have a little one who is pretty dependent on her mommy right now…can’t have anything happen to me now!
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