We had a very eventful, very unplanned week last week. On Tuesday, we were having a normal day. I got up early and fixed a big breakfast for the family. We were doing lots of laundry. And then during naptime, I started noticing frequent contractions. It was enough that I decided to call Josh and then call the doctor, and they told me to go to the hospital.
I was hoping they could either tell me it was nothing or give me a quick fix and send me on my way. After a few hours of monitoring, they determined the contractions were not slowing down, so they gave me a pill which was supposed to stop them quickly. It did not, so they gave me another of the same pill. There was still no change. So, they decided to "pull out the big guns," which was magnesium sulfate-the dread of every pregnant woman. I was on this drug for 24 hours with Hannah's labor, and it did nothing for me except make me miserable, so I was not looking forward to doing this again. Plus, they did a quick ultrasound, revealing that our baby girl was breech. At 33+ weeks, that's not usually a huge deal because she still has plenty of time and space to flip, but if you're in active labor and she's breech, that means a c-section, which I'll be honest, is one of my worst nightmares. I've had two fairly easy labors and deliveries, and after all I've been through with this pregnancy, I am hoping for the same again! My parents had the kids, so I called to tell them that things weren't going well, and mom said that things were not going well there either as Jacob had come down with the stomach flu-noooo!
Soon after that, the torture began. They stuck with with a million needles and connected me to lots of machines and started the mag. I was only on it a short time before I began throwing up incessantly, even though I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. After awhile, Josh had to go home and tend to the kids, and I was alone and very sick. At one point, I was sure I was going to pass out. I don't think I have ever been so close. It was the most awful feeling. I quickly paged the nurse and she came to stay with me until it passed. I slept horribly in the delivery bed with all kinds of things going on in my room all night.
I still felt miserable in the morning. The day nurse started me on Zofran to help the nausea, and that made a huge difference. Then I had a day full of visitors-Sandy, then Betsy, then Josh. By the time Josh got there, I couldn't even hold my eyes open, so I hardly saw him. He left early in the evening, and then I was there by myself for the next two days. Josh and the kids would have come to see me, but the stomach flu made that impossible. I had no idea I would be there that long! They wanted to get two steroid shots in me and let them each sit for 24 hours with the mag going. They also had me on Penicillin just in case my Step B test came back positive (which in the end, it did not). At the end of the 3 days, they did a fetal fibronectin test, which came back negative, which gave me a 99% chance of not going into labor in the next 14 days. The doctors were concerned to release me with the stomach flu being in our house, since dehydration can put you into labor, but they were comfortable once no one had gotten sick in 12+ hours. It ended up that didn't really matter because Hannah could not kick the virus and continued to get sick intermittently for the next 3 days. So far, none of the adults caring for Hannah and Jacob got the flu, so we have our fingers crossed that it was a "kids' virus."
I was so out of it when I got released that I didn't even tell Josh I was coming home. I meant to but apparently forgot. Mom offered to come get me, and I walked in our front door to a surprised and very happy husband. I asked if he knew I was coming home, and he said no he didn't. Ha! Oops!
After I got home, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with my thoughts. As a mom, you just want to do what's right for your family, and with medical things, I always question if I made the right choices, even when I'm just following doctor's orders. It's ironic because these contractions were very similar in time to my pregnancy with Hannah, and I had a really hard time after she was born early, wondering if I had made a mistake by not going in earlier, not being able to stop her labor, and being upset that I didn't get the steroid shots for her lungs. This time, I did the exact opposite. I went in right away, got the labor stopped, and got the shots. And yet, I still question myself. Was it all necessary? Did I do the right thing? I totally disrupted our family's life for the week and spent 3 nights away from them. Josh missed almost a whole week of work. I guess my main question is if the labor really would have continued without all of that treatment. If so, I feel that I did the right thing. But, I wonder if it would have gone away on its' own and we could have avoided all of that? Being a mom is hard sometimes!
The other thing that was really hard was just keeping everyone up to date. I was in the hospital for 72 hours, and Josh was with me for maybe 10 of those hours. We were both just trying to keep our family going. And I was miserably sick and tired for most of it and only had my Kindle for communication. So, I felt overwhelmed by the number of e-mails saying that I hadn't updated anyone, etc., etc. That part was exhausting!
Thankfully, I came home to a wonderful meal prepared by ladies from our church, which lasted us the entire weekend. And on Monday, another good friend brought us two meals, which will last several nights. And we received money to order pizza and lots more offers for meals! That was a great help because we had absolutely no food in the house, and I certainly didn't have the energy to grocery shop or cook for several days at least. After four days of being home, I still don't feel great. I am extremely weak, but I am not on bed rest and was told I could basically continue life as normal. I have 10 days left on that 99% guarantee, so now we just wait and see what happens!
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