Mallani Claire Meredith

I am starting this blog a little late, but I know if I don't get it started before I go back to work, it will never be done. I am going to let some of the pictures tell the story.

I was scheduled to go in for a check-up with Dr. Wiedower on June 16th. Jim and I went into the doctors office, and of course, my blood pressure was high. It always is up when I go to the doctors office =). Previously, I had been in the hospital for 15 days at UAMS for liver complications, it was completely miserable. So, Dr. Amy Wiedower, my doctor who I absolutely love, told me that if my blood pressure was high she was going to admit me back into the hospital. That morning before I left I had taken my blood pressure 5 times and it was really good, so I was sure that I wasn't going to have to go to the hospital again. When I got to Dr. Wiedower's office my blood pressure was 170/110 & for those of you who don't know that's really high. Dr. Wiedower sent me straight to Labor and Delivery for them to monitor my blood pressure and for fetal monitoring.

This was the second time that we had to walk down the hall from the doctors office to admit ourselves to Labor and Delivery. This time I didn't cry like before and I wasn't freaked out at all, not knowing how my day was about to unfold. The nurses were waiting for us and they got us in a room quickly. Jim and I didn't even call our parents because we didn't want to freak them out, we were just going to wait to see what the nurses said and then call them. I was still was so mad at my blood pressure for being high and a little upset because I thought I was going to have to stay in a suite for the remaining 3 months of my pregnancy(until my due date)at Baptist. After they put me on the baby monitor in our Labor and Delivery room, the nurse noticed that Mallani's heart rate was decreasing. Normal babies heart rates fluctuate; going up and down a lot. Mallani's heart rate was going down, but it wasn't coming back up they way it should. I always thought the problems were with me, I never thought that something could be wrong with the baby. This is when it all got REALLY SCARY....

Dr. Wiedower came over from her office to check on us. She told us both that Mallani seemed to be under stress and she was really worried, and she thought that there was a good chance that we were going to have to deliver today. I thought surely not, no way! She then explained that she was just going to sit outside of our room, cancel all of her appointments at the office, and just watch the baby monitor to see how Mallani was doing. All I can remember thinking was this wasn't supposed to happen like this, we didn't have the baby room done, I was only 27 weeks pregnant and none of my other friends had premature babies. What if Mallani didn't make it?

I remember when I was 24 weeks and admitted to UAMS, they gave us this preparation speech, but they mainly talked to Jim, showing him the NICU and what steps they would take to resuscitate her when she was born. I guess hearing it from my doctor, and not 10 specialist doctors at UAMS made it more real. When I was 24 weeks pregnant they gave me steroid shots over a 72 hour period to help develop Mallani's lungs just in case we had to deliver her early. I strongly believe that those shots have helped her tremendously...

Dr. Wiedower came back into our room and said she thought it was time to deliver her now. (Dr. Wiedower practices at Baptist and not UAMS. However, she came to visit me a couple of times while I was at UAMS. While I was there she met Jim's dad who is also a doctor.) This time when Dr. Wiedower came in she asked Jim if he wanted her to call his dad and explain what was going on. It was at this point that I knew what was about to happen. Jim then called my parents, who were totally shocked, and told them to come to Little Rock because we were about to have a baby. Dr. Wiedower had asked me thirty minutes prior to that if I wanted to get an ultrasound from Dr. Chatelain, the high risk pregnancy doctor at Baptist. Now all of the sudden she couldn't even wait for him to get from his office to our room. That was the LONGEST 15 minutes of my life. I asked her to please wait, just so I could hear it from one more doctor, that it was time to deliver our baby. Finally, when he showed up, he showed me how Mallani hadn't grown from the 24 week ultrasound like she should have. The blood flow from the placenta through the umbilical cord was not doing what it was supposed to do. He then convinced me that baby Mallani would be doing better in the NICU at than she would be doing in my belly, within the next 5 minutes, I was in the operating room.

After surgery, I remember her cry sounding like a little kitty cat. But at least I did get to hear her cry, so that made me believe that she was going to be okay. It wasn't at all like I pictured it. I didn't get to hold Mallani. I felt like I was on the scene of Grey's Anatomy. I still remember it being to most uncomfortable thing in the world and thinking there was no way that my epidural was working yet, but we won't go there. There was a big curtain in front of me, and Dr. Wiedower kept poking her head over the top of the curtain, saying, "Lauren, are you okay?" It still makes me laugh thinking about it! That was the only funny thing about my c-section... She is so full of personality, even when she is giving a c-section! Great, great, great doctor =)