At 2 minutes to 22:00 on the 22 of June my son was born. Perfectly healthy. He weighed 3.33 kg, measured 48 cm head to toe, and he had a full head of dark hair.

His mom had only had a brief, drousy moment with him before he was taken out to his dad and family. She had delivered by cesarean section due to accute complications and needed a few hours to get finished up. Me and some close family were nervously waiting in the clinic's visiting room when two nurses with a stroller appeared proclaiming "Here's your baby boy!". We all rushed up to see the newborn. It was the most incredible feeling to see him and hold him for the first time.

After much rejoice, congratulations, camera flashes, and one after the other holding him, it was getting late. It was still a few hours before I was allowed to go and see my wife in the post-op. I was left there alone with my baby boy in my arms, looking into his wide awake baby-bluish eyes and just feeling him grow on me.

A sudden turn

Her pregnancy had been going beautifully for eight and a half months. It was now in the last month, only two weeks till the due date, and apart from some mild swelling in the feet and feeling a little tired for the last week or so there was nothing at all that indicated that the birth would be anything but normal. We went to the midwife and doctor for checkups every week, and they found nothing out of order.

Then one monday night she started feeling sick and had a pain in the chest, and progressed to throwing up. It went on through the night and into the tuesday morning, but as it stopped and she felt better before I went to work that day we didn't think too much of it. Then the next night at about 4:30 in the morning it started all over again. Only now it was worse. She just couldn't keep anything down. Even boiled water came right back up. She was starting to feel weaker and more and more dehydrated. It was too early to call the primary physician so we tried the hospital. They wanted to know if she was having contractions, and since she didnt't they wanted us to wait until 9 to get to our primary.

At 9:30 we got into the doctor's office. The vomiting had subsided somewhat, but she had still not been able to eat anything. He was looking at her history, taking blood samples and checking her breathing and the fetus sounds, and everything seemed to be in order. So he started to suspect that it was just a normal reaction from the pregnancy, perhaps combined with a common flu or something. The CRP levels were not high, but he did notice a slight increase from the week before so he suggested that we go home and relax, and if it got any worse we should go to the hospital.

We went to the car and headed to her mom's place. Then it started again, vomiting and increased chest pains. I wanted to turn the car around and go directly to the hospital, but she really wanted something to eat. She hadn't had any food since the night before. After a ten minutes drive we got there, and her mom had a hot meal waiting. But she was now so dehydrated that she couldn't shop shaking. After about fifteen minutes I called the hospital and told them we were coming in.

A quick decision

At the hospital we were shown into a room and a midwife came in and did some tests. But the moment she saw how badly she was doing - all pale and constantly shaking - she called for one of the doctors. The doctor did an ultrasound of the fetus and placenta and measured sizes and bloodflows, and found everything in order. So he concluded that the baby was doing fine. Considering the state of my wife he wanted her committed for the night, put on an intravenous drip and have some extensive blood tests taken.

Once the drip was in place and her dehydration was getting better, she started feeling a bit more relaxed. She felt really exhausted and wanted to get some sleep. All that was left to do was to wait for the remaining results of the blood tests to come back. All the results so far had all been just fine, so we agreed that I would go back home to pick up some stuff and get a few hours of sleep before returning. Most probably all the tests would be fine, and with the drip restoring her hydo balance she would be OK soon.

About 21:00 she called me, waking me. The doctor had just been with her. They had found something wrong in the blood tests. I should come in and spend the night, as they might have a cesarean performed the next morning. My stomach instantly tied into a knot. This is serious! Something really is wrong with her!

I was still really tired and had slept in my clothes, so I needed a shower before going in to spend the night at the hospital. When I stepped out from the bathroom after fifteen minutes there was a missed call on my cell phone - from her. I called her right back, and got that knot tied even tighter. The doctor had been back. They were going ahead with the operation right now. She was just about to be wheeled out for preparations. As I hung up the phone my heart sank. I wasn't going to make it in time.

From the car on the way in I called my mom, and went by and picked up her mom. Also her brother and sister got the message. We were all waiting in the clinic's visiting room as the baby arrived.

Serious but atypical

When the baby arrived, so did the operating doctor. He explained to me what had happened and why the decision was taken so quickly. It was her liver and kidneys that had shown severely elevated results in the blood tests. This was an indication that there could be a serious Preeclampsia - a condition that could be dangerous both for the baby and his mother if not treated. The only treatment for Preeclampsia is to deliver the baby, he explained, and then the condition should normalize by itself. Given the severity of the results they had made the decision to act right away.

The only trouble was that the symptoms she had shown - nausia, chest pains, vomiting - were not typical of this condition. And if it was actually some other cause, then they didn't know what to do. If the liver or kidney's condition did not improve after the delivery as they hoped, she could go into a complete organ failure - a contidion that is fatal. They were going to keep us in the hospital and monitor her health by extensive blood tests on a daily basis. We could only cross our fingers.

At about 24:00 I was allowed up to visit her in the post-op. She was still weak and tired, but she wanted so much to see me and to hold her baby. We got to stay there until 01:00, when they were going to clean her up and get her ready to leave the post-op. Me and my little son went back down and was given a room and a bed where we sat waiting for her to arrive. At about 2:30 they wheeled her hospital bed next to mine, and placed the baby's little bed between them. We held him for a while before we asked the midwives to care for him for the night so we could get some much needed sleep.

The missing piece

For the first three or four days my wife was in really bad shape from the c-section, but she slowly got better after that, although constantly drousy from the painkillers. She started getting out of bed and even walking around a bit. Then at the sixth day the chest pains struck again with full force. The doctor did several checks and eventually found the cause. In an ultrasound they discovered a gallstone and an inflamed gallbladder. This was the missing piece of the puzzle. Now the symptoms started making sense. The chest pains, the vomiting, it all could be explained by the gallstone. And gallstones are, although very painful, completely harmless.

Still, the blood test values had not been falling back to normal yet and she still looked less than well, so they decided to keep her under observation a few more days. We ended up staying in the hospital for eleven stressful days until they felt comfortable letting us go home.

Now everything is just fine with us. The gallstone is still not treated. But either it will go away by itself, or, if it starts to hurt again, we will have to come back in later to remove it surgically. Right now we are busy learning what life with a baby in the house means...