How am I doing?

I've received some messages asking how I'm recovering so here's the basics...

My blood pressure is still not normal and may never be. I've gone back to pretty much all low or no sodium foods, mostly fresh or cardiac friendly and am taking a dose of labetalol twice a day. It took all of 2 weeks but it seems my swelling has finally stopped. I was severely bruised and had alot of bleeding during and after the surgery but am healing quite well now. I am still quite sore and have to watch what I do but am able to drive which is nice. Just no yoga and gym workouts just yet (ha). My incision had to be vertical - well the muscular part is - which will add time to my recovery. Also, My hematacrit and hemoglobin will take at least 90 days to recover. They avoided a transfusion post surgically because I could stand, walk, talk and was not dizzy - only tired. So, the doctor wanted my body to recover on its own rather than adding the pressure of a transfusion to my blood pressure and kidneys.

Overall, I think I'm doing ok considering all that's happened. I realize that we never did post why I had to be delivered. The short story is: Kuylen was in severe distress (which we knew) and the worse he got, it seemed the worse I got. I started bleeding 2 days prior to being delivered and an ultrasound showed that David was starting to go into distress as well and that Mary Louise, although stable at that time, was showing signs of going along the same path (they would all eventually end up with reverse blood flow in their umbilical cords and placental insufficiency). My lab work looked terrible. So terrible that they didn't even wait for all of it to come back - perinatology was called and delivery was recommended. An emergency c-section was performed within the hour. It was to say the least awful. I was awake the entire time however and heard David and Mary Louise cry tiny cries before being intubated. When I saw Kuylen, he was kicking in his tiny plasic warming bag - I'll never forget that little face. My mom and Brent were both holding my hands and taking photos throughout the surgery.

It wasn't until after that that the real swelling started. The rest I think is in the other blogs.

I called to check on the babies this morning. Mary Louise is still weaning well from her ventilator and the plans to extubate sometime today are still in effect. David is stable as of this morning. He is off of the epi completely and the vent settings are unchanged - still a high dose of oxygen but he may tolerate a change after blood gases are drawn this afternoon? We'll see...