The Story of Us

Chapter Three

      In September a month before the baby was due, Nicole's father had to have surgery on his knee. He had hurt his knee while in the army and had surgeries on it years ago, but it just kept getting worse every day. So, he decided to have another surgery on it and it seemed to be okay.

     The next day his knee was hurting him extremely bad and he had a high temperature. We took him back to the doctor and he found out that he had an infection from the surgery. So, they would have to do another surgery and it was just a few days after he had the other one. It was a very stressful time for everyone. They were all very worried about Nicole's father.

     After the next surgery he started feeling a lot better but Nicole’s Mom had to stay with him to help him with everything, since he couldn't walk on it without crutches.

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      It was now a week before the baby was due and Nicole had a doctor’s appointment. Jackson was at work and her father’s knee was not even close to being better, so her Mom couldn’t leave her Dad to take her to the appointment. Nicole's brother Scott ended up taking her to the Doctor appointment. Scott stayed in the waiting room, while Nicole went back with the Nurse.

     The doctor told Nicole that she thought the baby was Breech (turned the wrong way). Nicole would have to be referred to a surgeon and have a C-section. This news scared Nicole and she was very upset that Jackson or her Mom wasn’t with her. Nicole went back to the waiting room to find Scott. When they got into the elevator, Scott asked her what was wrong. Nicole told him everything and was crying uncontrollably the whole time.

      The next Monday; two days before the baby was due, they went to see the surgeon, Dr. Ramey.

     "The baby is definitely breech." said Dr. Ramey. He started looking at her chart. “Your blood Pressure is pretty high too. But, it’s probably just nerves. We will check it out.

I’m going to go check my Schedule, I'll be right back." He said as he left the room.

     The doctor was back in less than five minutes. “How about we have this baby tomorrow at about eleven 'o clock?"

     Nicole was shocked that is was going to be so soon. She said, "Okay." but was kind of worried and scared.

     The next day, they were at the hospital by seven in the morning for all of the pre-surgery stuff that needed to be done. Nicole was tired and extremely hungry since she couldn't have anything after midnight the night before. She also had heartburn really bad.

     The first thing the nurses did was check her blood pressure and it was extremely high. The Doctor thought it was just because she was really nervous and scared. The doctor decided to give her some medicine to calm her down. Then a little while later they checked her blood pressure again and the medicine didn't help any at all, it actually was a little higher. So, they ran some tests and found that she had a condition called Preeclampsia (pregnancy induced hypertension). This discovery just made her surgery much more complicated. The doctor had to give her more medicine for her nerves and also some medicine to make sure that she wouldn't have a seizure or stroke, due to the high blood pressure. The Preeclampsia also makes her platelets in her blood low. She has a very high risk of bleeding to death.

Everyone there was very scared and very emotional.

       While one of the nurses was checking Nicole's blood pressure she asked, "Do you know if it's going to be a boy or a girl?"

     "No, we wanted it to be a surprise." answered Nicole.

     "So, what names do you have picked out?"

     "Anna for a girl and Tyler for a boy."

     "Oh, those are cute! What do you think it will be?” asked the nurse.

     “A girl!!!"

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     At 12:08pm., on October 17th 2000 they pulled the precious baby out and said, “Little Anna is peeing all over everybody!" So they knew right then it was a girl!!!

     Anna was born and she was perfect! And Nicole was fine! Everyone was so grateful that they were all alright and now they were so happy to have Anna as an addition to their family. Anna had brownish-blonde hair and had her daddy's pretty blue eyes, and Nicole's beautiful smile. Anna is Nicole’s miracle baby!

     Nicole's blood pressure was still very high so she had to continue to take blood pressure pills after she came home from the hospital for several weeks. One day Nicole started to feel very light headed and she was very weak. When she went back to the doctor, they told her it was because her blood pressure had came down and the pills were making it too low. Nicole stopped taking the blood pressure pills and she started to feel a lot better!