I Remember When... Panagiota Was Preggers

Loutsa, Sept. 3, 2007

As a number of you already know, Pegs had a pretty difficult pregnancy. She liked to joke that she didn't suffer from any of the typical problems associated with pregnancy (hemorrhoids, constipation, cravings), but she got all of the rare and esoteric ones. For example, whenever she ate anything with sugar (including natural sugars like fructose) she would swell up like a balloon. Her ob/gyn later theorized from her collective symptoms that she might be allergic to progesterone, which is one of the hormones that the body produces in large quantities during pregnancy to promote gestation. As you can imagine, being allergic to the very hormones your body is producing can make daily life a little challenging, but Pegs so looked forward to being a mother that she more than happily accepted these inconveniences as a small price to pay for the ultimate reward.

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All of these little difficulties were tolerable, if not fun, until the beginning of her final trimester, when Pegs started itching ... a lot. A fan of self-diagnosing on the internet, Pegs came to the conclusion (later confirmed by her ob/gyn) that she had cholestasis of pregnancy, a rather rare condition in which bile is swept into the bloodstream from the liver. When the bile makes its way into the veins near the surface of the skin, it causes uncontrollable itching. Some sufferers have been known to scratch themselves until they bleed; in some severe cases, women have elected to terminate their pregnancies.

Thankfully Pegs' case wasn't that severe, but it was pretty bad, to the point where any light or incidental contact (such as a kiss on the cheek or rolling into her during the night) could trigger an itching attack. It got so that she couldn't sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up, and within a couple of weeks she was a wreck. 

On top of the unpleasant physical effects on the mother, cholestasis can be potentially dangerous to the fetus. The fetus is fortunately immune from the itching effects, but a high level of bile in the bloodstream can slowly kill the placenta, which eventually will cause the baby to suffocate in utero. If the bile salt level is too elevated within a couple of weeks of the anticipated delivery day, the standard procedure is to induce labor. Unfortunately, the results from bile testing often take more than a week to come in, so it takes constant monitoring to be safe.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Nov. 9, 2007

On a Friday morning a little over two weeks before Pegs was due, we went to the hospital to get the results of her most recent bile test. The results were already a couple of weeks old, delayed by one of the innumerable French holidays. Pegs' doctor looked concerned when she came into the room with the results, and she recommended that we either induce or do a C-section that day to ensure that there would be no harm to the baby. Pegs had been very intent on having a natural childbirth (she had initially pushed hard for a water birth at home, but given all of her pregnancy complications, I was pretty adamant that she give birth in the hospital), so we decided to induce rather than operate.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Nov. 10, 2007

Pegs' ob/gyn gave her some meds to provoke contractions, which they did in spades, but they failed to cause her cervix to dilate. We were eventually given a private suite on the maternity ward (lucky us, all of the other rooms were occupied), where she spent hours on end pacing and trying to get comfortable. After six cervical exams (during the last of which Panagiota cried out loud in pain and discomfort), a very sleepless night, and 29 hours of unproductive labor, Pegs finally agreed to have a C-section. Shortly thereafter, Sofia emerged (with some difficulty) from the womb; I'm fairly certain that the doctor actually said, "Would you look at the shoulders on that sucker?" It took the doctor, her nurse and the anesthesiologist to pry Sofia out; we found out weeks later that her shoulder was actually dislocated during the delivery from all of the tugging and pulling.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Nov. 10, 2007

Needless to say, Pegs was exhausted, so she crashed right away. I pulled my third all-nighter in a row to stay up with Sofia and call the family to tell them the unexpected but good news. The next morning, after some much-needed rest, Pegs wanted to spend some alone time with Sofia, and she insisted that I get some sleep in her bed. As our luck would have it, a nurse walked in shortly thereafter and shot me a very dirty look for sleeping in Pegs' bed while she sat on the couch. After that I wasn't the most popular new father with the nursing staff, but we didn't care. As Pegs said herself in the video below, it was a pretty painful experience, but it was well worth it.