My due date was April 25th, 2009. So, when I started having some weird cramping on Tuesday, Jan 20th, I tried not to let myself freak out too much. I had been having all sorts of round ligament pains throughout the pregnancy, so I tried to convince myself that this was all normal and the pains were just strengthening. Besides, I thought, I had my monthly doctor's appt on Thursday, Jan 22, so would talk to Dr B about this and a whole list of other concerns I was having. I had become a little hyper sensitive over the past couple of weeks and was more nervous than I had been through the first 5 months of my pregnancy. I was trying to rationalize with myself and attributed it all to the fact that things were becoming more real as my belly grew.On Wednesday, I went into work and felt good. As the day progressed, the cramping started feeling different; more pronounced. I made a pact with myself that if the cramps were still there when I got home that night, I would call into my doctor to tell her about it. I finished the day, ran some errands, and by the time I got home and walked Otis, it was around 7pm. Jon had class so I was ready to settle in for the night and watch some bad TV when I noticed some bleeding. All of a sudden, the pretense of normalcy washed away and I was alarmed. I called into my doctors after hours number and got the doctor on call. He said that I shouldn't have any type of bleeding at 26 weeks and althought it may be nothing, I should check myself into Labor and Delivery as soon as possible and have the hospital call him once I was settled in. I called Jon immediately and luckily, caught him just as his class was taking a break. Jon left class immediately and in 20 minutes, we were headed to Prentice Hospital.
We tried to keep thing pretty light at first in an effort to support each other. I was starting to cramp more and more at this point but didn't want to freak Jon out any more than he already was, so tried to keep it to myself. We checked in around 8pm and shortly thereafter they had me in a gown and we were answering 100+ questions on everything pregnancy and medical history related. At this point, for some crazy reason I can't quite fathom now, we still thought that we would be going home that night sometime. When one of the doctors said she would be back in to check on us in 2 hours, both Jon and I were startled. We couldn't quite grasp this for some reason. But she was right and around midnight we were still there, waiting on the results from my examination. Things got real shortly there after when a doctor came in looking serious and nervous at the same time. She had my test results and said she was pretty sure that my water was ruptured. They were calling my doctor on call and were going to check the test results again just to make sure. But she kept using the words 'precarious situation' and 'serious'. She also said that no matter what happens, I wouldn't be going home until the baby was born. This is when the enormity of the situation hit both of us... The baby wasn't due for 3 months and 1 week!! This couldn't be happening. They immediately started attempts to hold off labor. They injected me with steroids to help Ethan's lungs develop faster 'just in case' and started a magnesium IV drip that is believed to hold off bleeding of the brain if things were to progress faster than everyone hoped for.
Next step: ultra sound. And ultra sound showed Ethan as breech. Another concerning situation. With my water broken, there was a possibility of infection; now with him breech, it added a whole other list of things to be concerned about. I felt like I was having an out of body experinece by now. We were exhausted and I was hooked up to so many wires and tubes, I couldn't move. Not like anyone would let me if I could. And then I had someone telling me to let them know if I ever felt that a foot was pushing through. What?!?!! A foot? Seriously? This was all so surreal. Jon was trying to hold it together for me, but I could see the wave of emotions playing through his face as his mind went through all scenarios presented to us at this time. None were good. Either our baby was going to be born alarmingly premature or they would be able to stop the labor and I would be bed ridden... in a hospital... anywhere from 1 week to 2 months.
Somewhere around 2am, the doctor on call from my ob/gyn's practice came in and gave us the full run down. He was staying over night just in case labor hit. They now didn't think I'd make it through the night. They really were hoping to stave off labor for 48 hours; which would give the full doses of steroids and magnesium time to enter my system and give Ethan a better chance and less risk. Then came the stream of specialists all giving us details of what their role would be and all possible scenarios we may face with a baby born at 26 weeks, 5 days. It was all a blur and I started blocking everyone out. All I wanted was to be alone with Jon so we could absorb the situation together.
We settled in for what became the longest night ever. They had my bed positioned so my feet were above my head and I had to be on my side. The magnesium made me really hot and nauseated. I did almost fall asleep a couple of times, but just when this was about to happen, a nurse would wake me up to check my vitals. At some point, Jon had to run home to take care of Otis and pick up some essentials. I felt so alone when he was gone and just watched the clock the whole time. When the sun came up, we were both relieved for so many reasons. 1) we had made it through the night without going into labor and 2) we were able to start making calls to our parents, family and close friends alerting them to the situation. It felt really good for both of us to talk to those closest to us and feel their support.
No comments:
Post a Comment