Saturday, June 14, 1997 at 2:45 pm, I
was 24 weeks, 1 day pregnant with my
first & only child when I felt quite a
bit of wetness. I foolishly thought the
baby had shifted onto my bladder,
causing me to leak a little urine. It
continued for 24 hours & stopped
abruptly. The entire time the baby moved
& kicked. Three days later I started to
leak again & called my OB. I went to the
hospital for an ultrasound & the tech
reported her findings to the OB over the
phone. He ok'd me & sent me home.
During the drive home, the ultrasound
results were delivered to the OB.
When I walked in the door, the phone was
ringing. My OB suggested very calmly, I
might add that I return to his office to
meet with a perinatolagist & could I
bring my husband- But, really, there is
no cause for alarm. The perinatolagist
performed another ultrasound & confirmed
that my water broke. After an hour long
fetal monitor, they also confirmed that
I was having contractions that I
couldn't feel, but were indeed the
start of labor. I was admitted into the
hospital onto the labor & delivery
floor, because noone could guarantee me
that I would not deliver a preemie that
night. They started an IV of antibiotics
to ward off infection and Magnesium
Sulfate to stop contractions. I was
devastated & could barely comprehend the
situation because less than 4 hours ago,
my baby was fine! They told me so!
In came the barrage of neonatolagists to
explain that my baby had a 63% chance of
survival, the lungs were very immature &
it would need a ventilator. I was given
a shot of betamethisone to boost lung
development and told to rest. I was
hooked up to a constant fetal monitor
which I couldn't understand. The
heartbeat sound it made got on my nerves
after 5 minutes. Let me say that I had
no comprehension at that point what a
life line that sound would be. A lamaze
teacher came in to give me a crash
course in pain management & I basically
laughed at her. I wasn't delivering, I
am scheduled to start my classes next
week! I tried to get some rest, but all
I heard that night were screams of pain
& cries of pleasure from all the mothers
delivering their beautiful, healthy
babies like I was supposed to in another
16 weeks.
The next morning another peinatolagist
the 2nd in a group of 2 came in to see
me and confirmed again, that "Yep, your
water broke. Man, there's hardly any
there!" Thank you very much, idiot! I
actually became very close to this man &
learned to adjust to his way of
doctoring. They confirmed that they had
slowed down the contractions, but wanted
to keep me in L & D for constant
monitoring. I received a 2nd shot of
betamethisone. I thought I would go
crazy, because I felt normal but I
wasn't allowed to shower & had to call
a nurse every time I had to pee so she
could chart how much! After two days,
the drs. agreed that I was stable enough
to be moved to the Woman Care floor
designed for female patients of all
types & some of the nurses were trained
for preterm labor .
I was thinking I would be discharged &
watched very closely, but I learned that
PROM has a very high risk of infection
for the baby. The first day on this
floor, I was told by a nurse that "You
moms that aren't sick can do your own
tracking of fluid intake & output,
don't call us to dump your hat." the
bucket to collect fluid, if you catch my
drift I was OUTRAGED. Here I was, told
that I couldn't get out of bed, let
alone go home to get anything & that I
had to STAY until I delivered whenever
that may be and some dumb nurse is
saying I"m not sick--- I lost it. I
continued the IV meds & weekly
betamethisone shots and they gave me a
mini-pump to administer Terbutiline to
also help with the break through
contractions I was having. The nurses
checked my temp & blood pressure every 4
hours.
The drs explained that the goal was to
make it to 32 weeks, & then we would
discuss shutting off meds & seeing what
happens. I had daily Biophyscial
profiles indepth ultrasounds to monitor
fetal development & 2 fetal monitor
strips were run daily. I became very
adept at interpreting the profiles &
strips. My first strip was run at 7am &
I would wake up for the positioning of
the conductors, then just lay there and
listen to my baby's steady little heart
beat & just pray that we would be ok. My
days were long & boring and I sometimes
felt a little stir crazy.
My husband was a saint, because on top
of all this, we had just moved back to
the area & he was trying to adjust to a
new position at work. And, we had been
looking for a house while living in a
service apartment. My husband was
wonderful about that. He would go out on
Saturday morning house hunting & come in
with the camcorder to show me the latest
prospects. The Drs approved a 15 minute
wheel chair ride daily, but even that
became kind of a pain in the butt. I had
to ask whoever was visiting if they
wanted to go get a drink, never letting
on that this was my break for freedom!
After about four weeks, I lost it. I
completely broke down & cried and yelled
& begged them to let me go home.
Looking back on this I am appalled,
because I was asking them to disregard
my baby's health & just let me go. I
actually tried to bargain with the Drs
about the shut off date for my meds. I
remember saying that maybe 30 weeks
would be better, maybe 31, PLEASE- That
one week makes all the difference in the
world for a preemie, but at that point I
couldn't see that. I can remember
crying & telling them, "I would give
anything to just walk away from this for
even 5 minutes. Just act like this
wasn't happening."
That outburst put things back into
perspective a little and gave me the
resolve I needed to hang on. Meanwhile,
medically, my arms were starting to
rival a seasoned drug users, so they
decided to install a PICC line partially
inserted central catheter so they
wouldn"t have to change IV sites every
5 days. This was inserted too far & it
actually went into the heart chamber. It
set off a little PVC that sent my heart
beating madly every once in a while. It
was fixed, but I was moved up to the
cardio floor for 24 hour monitoring. I
felt like a zoo creature because these
nurses wanted to know everything about
preterm & what was that little
terbutaline pump I had & how did it
work- My ekg read normal so back
downstairs I went to my old room, which
they held for me. It was cute, the
nurses put up a little Welcome Back sign
& all stopped by to say hi.
A few days later about 5 weeks into this
it started. I went to the bathroom one
afternoon & there was blood. I panicked
& the drs came to check it out. My
cervix was still closed, so they ran
blood tests. They confirmed that my
placenta abrupted, but not enough to
cause harm. The bleeding stopped & the
baby continued to kick & show great
signs on the Biophys. It even learned to
roll & kick my ribs! I want to point
out, that NEVER during the daily
ultrasounds did we find out the sex.
After all this happening, I wanted one
surprise left. We named the baby Roo
after Kanga & Roo.
Days moved by pretty uneventfully until
my placenta abrupted the 2nd time,
August 1, 1997. They moved me back down
to Labor & Delivery for continuous
monitoring because the contractions were
pretty strong. I could feel them & they
were registering pretty well on my
strips. I remember thinking, this is my
father-in-laws's birthday today, please
let me hold off until tomorrow. This
baby will never live it down. I stayed
over night down on L&D & again. Pain &
screams filled the air. This time I was
terrified. The contractions settled down
& back upstairs I went.
August 4th, 31 weeks 3 days, I woke up
not feeling quite right. I immediately
told the nurses who called the Dr. I
skipped breakfast on advice from the dr,
and ran the strip. Sure enough, I was
contracting at regular intervals, but no
bleeding this time. I called my husband
& told him that I was being moved
downstairs to L&D a normal procedure at
this point, and I think there was
something in my voice that said this is
it. He left work & came to spend the day
waiting.
At 2:30pm I told them that I thought I
abrupted again & just hadn"t bled out
yet my medical diagnosis. The nurse
joked that maybe I should go to school
for this. The blood results came back &
I was right. We all talked about it &
the Drs thought that we were close
enough to 32 weeks & I had 7 shots of
betamethisone under my belt. The baby
looked good on that morning's biophys.
I panicked & begged them to wait a
little while longer. What a switch.
Three weeks before I was begging to
quit, now I was begging them to stop the
contractions & let me continue! They won
in the end and let me turn off the IV.
By 4:30, my contractions hadn"t changed
& they decided to help things along with
Pitocin. It did nothing but make my
contractions very strong. My husband
went to get a bite to eat around 6:30
and I laid there crying. My mom kept
calling wanting to come over & I told
her no. I wanted to be alone with my
husband & I would call her later. After
10 hours of Pitocin, and no dialation,
the Dr. tried to manually dialate me. I
thought I was going to pass out from the
pain. I begged for an epidural. 4:00am,
the anasthesiaoligist came in to
administer the epidural. My husband left
the room & they started it. Finally some
relief. My husband came back in & we
waited for the epidural to take full
effect. So I laid there listening to the
heartbeat & loving the relief I felt.
Then the baby's heartrate just started
slowing down. It was like slow motion.
All the way down to 60 bpm. They gave me
an oxygyn mask & called the Dr. We
discussed very quickly the cesarean
procedure & he left to scrub up. I was
given a huge dose of Phenabarbitol which
had me in left field because, for some
reason unknown to the drs, it helps
reduce brain bleeds in preemies.
The phone rings in my room. I fully
believe that mothers have an internal
monitor for their children because it
was my mother. She had woken up 10
minutes before with this intense fear &
couldn't put it out of her mind. I told
her what was happening & she said she
would be right there. They wheeled me
into the delivery room & asked my
husband to wait a minute until they were
set up. The Dr started to cut & I could
feel it. I yelled & he told me they
couldn"t wait, that they were putting
me under. The last thing I remember was
asking for my husband. From my husband,
I learned that the nurse went to get
him. When they were walking back to the
OR at 4:46am, he heard a cry. The nurse
turned & said "that"s your baby." He
was amazed because the baby wasn"t
supposed to be breathing the Dr's told
us. It was going to be small & weak &
sick! I found out later that when
Nicholas came into the world & screamed,
the whole OR just kind of froze. They
were standing by with a ventilator
because he was only 31 weeks 4 days. His
apgars were 9 & 9 and he weighed 4 lb.
3.6 oz. and was 17-3/4 in. long.
Fifteen minutes later I woke up to see
the Dr standing over me. The first thing
I asked was "What did I have?" The
second thing was "Is he ok?"
"Room Air" sounded like the best words
ever uttered. My baby was breathing
fine. No vent or extra oxygyn needed.
The Dr was kind enough to take a picture
of my handsome, BREATHING, little boy.
Nick spent 24 days in the NICU with no
problems at all. He was simply a
feeder/grower, as the nurses called it.
Sixteen months later I sit typing this &
wonder what happened. My son is the
happiest, healthiest 31.4 weeker I have
heard of. He has no residual problems &
has been caught up developmentally for
months. He even has all of his teeth
with the exception of two-year molars.
My husband & I are still very frightened
about the idea of this happening again.
I long to have another child, but my Drs
can offer no explanation or odds on
repeating this.
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