You wouldn’t think that a routine doctor’s appointment would have sent my little world into a complete upheaval, but here I am–life has changed. While everything is okay right now, things were a bit hairy for awhile there.
So, routine doctor’s appointment last Tuesday. I was pretty psyched because I hadn’t gained too much weight, and everything seemed to be fine, we were both really healthy, feeling pretty good–I have been a bit more exhausted than normal, but I assumed that was just a part of the whole pregnancy experience. I asked the doctor for an ultrasound since we haven’t seen the baby since I was 20 weeks (I also wanted a new picture–which I still didn’t get). In hindsight, I am so glad we did–amazing how a seemingly silly request to see your baby ends up being something that could have prevented a really dangerous situation.
We start the ultrasound and the doctor notices that the baby is really really low–like in position to be born low (face down, etc.). While that in itself wasn’t unusual or cause for concern, the doctor asked me if I had been having any contractions. I had been having a few of those Braxton Hicks contractions (which really isn’t painful, it just feels like the baby is balling up and the tummy/uterus gets a bit tight). Those are normal, so I never really felt cause for concern. I had always told myself I didn’t want to be one of those women who freaked out over everything, so I didn’t. The doctor thought that these contractions, along with the baby’s position, was actually a bit suspicious, so she (it wasn’t my usual doctor doing the ultrasound–btw) wanted to do a pelvic exam just to check.
I’m not concerned at this point, because I feel great overall, the baby has been kicking and moving up a storm, and I always thought that you would feel crappy if something dangerous was going on or the baby would stop moving or whatnot. So the pelvic is done, and the doctor says that my cervix is short–which is not what they like to see–they like the cervix to be long. I’m still not sure what that means (I mean, is my cervix naturally short, or does it shorten? I should ask the doctor next week…) SO–the doctor does a swab, (at the time I wasn’t sure why it was done, but I’ll get back to that later). She says she wants me to go to the hospital to be monitored. I tell her I want my regular doctor to come in and do a check before I go over to the hospital prematurely. (my first request for a second opinion..haha) My regular doctor comes in and does the same pelvic exam and agrees with the other doctor. He tells me, however, that I would just go in and be monitored for a few hours and it would be an inconvenience, but he is not really concerned. THIS makes me feel good. But then the other doctor comes over and says something about me being put on magnesium, and I should be monitored for 24 hours, which I didn’t like to hear, this means an overnight hospital stay. You see my problem–I have two doctors telling me two different extremes of my situation, which only proves to be confusing and a pain.
Needless to say, I am a bit emotional at this point, but still optimistic. We drive down to the hospital, I am admitted and put in a room (a really nice room btw) only to be moved to a teeny tiny little triage room, since they had an actual laboring mother who needed the space. The triage area had no television, and was big enough for me (in a bed, obviously) a tray table and two chairs. Very small. My husband is doing his best to calm my fears and reassure me that everything was going to be okay. They put these fetal monitors on my stomach and I try to relax for a little while. I am starving at this point, so my husband goes out to get us some food. While he is gone, another nurse comes in and explains that she will be inserting an IV just for hydration’s sake–I’ve never had an IV before, so it hurt a bit. Oh, if only I knew the pokes, prods and pinches that were to come, but that was just the beginning so I said ouch and that was that. After my husband got back with dinner, the nurse comes in and says that the test swab they took at the doctor’s office came back positive for fFN which is Fetal fiberonectin. The presence of this fFn is an indicator that I could go into labor within the next two weeks. fFn is basically the biological glue that holds the fetal sac to the uterine lining. I won’t go into a lot of detail about it here, but if you are interested you can read up on it here http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/ffn/test.html.
I was told that I would be given steroid shots to help the baby’s lungs–in case the baby does decide to come early. Apparently I am having contractions so they also put me on magnesium, which is used for stopping of contractions. I am so confused at this point. I thought you were supposed to be able to feel the contractions, that you would know–am I a horrible pregnant person or what? Only later did I find out that preterm contractions are very different than the ones that tell you to push. They feel more like PMS cramps, which I had been feeling. Again, I had previously been told that these were normal, so I didn’t think anything of them. The administration of the magnesium involves them monitoring my urine output, so I have to have a catheter inserted. I won’t go into detail, just suffice it to say it isn’t pleasant. I will definitely be in the hospital overnight at this point. They have to keep me on the magnesium for at least 24 hours–and I have to have another steroid shot in 24 hours as well.
Emotionally, I am a wreck. I am so worried about this tiny little baby not being ready to be born and the possibility that he/she will come out too soon I don’t know what to do. I can’t relax enough to be comfortable in the bed, so they give me a sleeping pill–I still wake up during the night, whenever my IV machine starts beeping and buzzing I have to call the nurses to let them know, the baby monitor would also beep when it ran out of paper–The lab people would come in to take my blood–to make sure the magnesium was doing its job. In other words, a pretty sleepless night.
The next morning (Wednesday), my doctor does his rounds and says he is still not very concerned, and he thinks I could be out of there by the afternoon. THEN the other doctor (who did the original ultrasound) came in a bit later and said that I wouldn’t be going home for awhile, because they were still very worried about the possibility of preterm labor. So I’m confused. Very confused. I’m getting two different answers and I don’t really like the situation. That night I tell all of this to my nurse. I’m so frustrated that someone won’t give me a better idea of what is going on with me. Granted, I am going to do EVERYTHING I have to do to make sure my baby is safe and I don’t go into preterm labor. I also understand that you can’t give exacts in medicine (especially when it comes to babies and delivery), however I am getting these two different opinions–one very laid back and one very uptight and concerned. I explained that I don’t have a relationship with this other doctor, and I hate that she is calling the shots–I have developed a relationship with my doctor and want him to tell me what is really going on because I don’t know what to think at this point. So the nurse tells me that she will talk to my doctor and make sure he comes in the next morning during his rounds and I should have a list of questions handy.
It is Thursday morning and I have sent my husband to work. The poor thing is going a bit stir crazy and I know that he can’t do anything for me while I am in the hospital. I felt it would be best for him to have some normalcy in his life. My doctor comes in and I tell him everything that had been bugging me up until that point, how HE was my doctor and I wanted to hear from him what was going on. While I was totally appreciative that the other doctor had caught everything, etc. I didn’t feel like I had much of a relationship with her. Honestly I would have never chosen her as my doctor. I don’t know, but she just didn’t make me feel as comfy as my doctor had always made me feel. He listened to me and said that he thought the best thing would be to take another fFn swab, just to make sure that we didn’t have a false positive. Apparently, false positives are very common. However, with this he told me that if I had another positive, I would definitely be in the hospital for two weeks. If it was a negative, I would be released the next day and be put on home bed rest. I wasn’t happy about the possibility that I would have to be in the hospital for two weeks, but at least I knew something. That made all the difference. I called my mom and my husband to tell them what was going on, and I just started praying. Praying for a negative and praying that my baby would be left to grow a bit longer inside. However, I kept preparing myself for another positive. I had to do this so I wouldn’t lose it emotionally. I thought of the things that I would have to do, how I would have to retain some sort of order to my life, etc. No, it wasn’t what I wanted, but I wanted my baby to be taken care of, I no longer matter in this situation–the baby is the most important person in the scenario, and whatever would be best for the baby is what I would do–the rest would fall into place.
The swab is done after lunch (please, don’t let me get started on hospital food–while I’m sure it was the stress, I was thankful I hadn’t had much of an appetite since the first night there). After that I had about an hour to wait. I prayed and prayed. The nurse came back in and was smiling, it was negative!!! We cheered and yelled and just had a grand old time. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had better news. They had to put a call into my doctor and find out how he wanted to wean me from the medication and how long I would have to be monitored after being weaned, but they were 90% sure I would be going home by Friday afternoon. Sure enough, they start weaning me off of the magnesium and I am totally off of it by about 6 p.m. Thursday night. They keep the IV and the catheter in, in case the contractions start back up and I need the magnesium again (while I hated the damn thing, the thought of them taking it out only to put it back in was not cool, so I didn’t complain too much).
Friday morning at 6 a.m. the nurse came in to take the catheter out and let me actually stand up and go to the bathroom, brush my teeth at the sink, all those little things you take for granted. The doctor came in at 7:30 and told me they would be writing up the discharge papers, but I was to be on bed rest–I could take a shower and get up to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, and he was actually going to let me sit up at a table for one meal a day just so I would feel normal. He wanted to see me middle of the next week, to check how I was doing, and he would see about modifying the bed rest restrictions. It doesn’t look like I will be going back to work, but at least I won’t be in a hospital bed. The doctor gave me a prescription to help prevent contractions from starting, thank goodness for modern medicine, eh? I was officially discharged and my husband came to pick me up.
So here I am. Officially day one of my home bed rest. Thank goodness for the laptop–I can see I will be putting it to use in the near future. Yes bed rest sucks, but the alternative is a premature baby or staying in the hospital, so I am so very thankful that I am home, in my own bed, my own nightgown, able to get up and go to the bathroom when I need to.
I think what totally caught me off-guard in this whole situation was how healthy I had been, how healthy the baby had been and how wonderful we were both doing. I mean, we still are doing well (I don’t FEEL sick) and the baby is really really healthy and thriving, still kicking up a storm–there is absolutely no fetal distress. But, just the idea that I was so worried about gaining the extra weight and how I felt like I needed to exercise and whatnot–now I can’t do that, and since I won’t be active on any level, it is guaranteed I’ll gain more weight than I was anticipating. But the most important thing I realized is none of that crap even matters. Weight gain, money, etc. is so insignificant when it comes to the health and well-being of your child. I will do anything to make sure this baby stays inside of me for a bit longer. Everyone is very positive about the situation, and I could very well still go full-term. The reality is that the baby could be born a bit early, but as long as we take the precautions necessary, the baby will be healthy.
Apparently the baby weighed in at about 4 pounds on Tuesday (at 31 weeks babies usually weigh in around 3 lbs or so…). So we could still have a nice fat baby even if born a little early.
Keep the baby in your thoughts and pray for AT LEAST 5 1/2 more weeks of pregnancy (here’s hoping for 8!) BTW: Nurses rock, and if it hadn’t been for my nurses I would have gone a bit crazy. I never knew how much they do for you and how awesome they really are, and I am SO appreciative of all the work they did for me and my beautiful, wonderful baby.