"Miles! Stop it! You're not done marinating!"
So, I went into preterm labor on Monday.
So, Monday afternoon at around 2, I was sitting on the couch with Josh, and my back hurt really bad, but I figured it was just from the way I was sitting.
So I got up, and went out to the bank and the grocery store, and my back KILLED.
I couldn't stand up straight or walk normally.
I got back home, and sat on the couch while Josh and I had lunch.
Eventually even sitting was killing my back so I had him help me upstairs, so I could lay down.
I started getting concerned because my back has never hurt that bad before, and I was having some really low cramping too, so at 3:30 I decided to call Dr. Levin.
He told me to go straight to Labor and Delivery.
We got there at about 4, and settled into a room, and an on-call doctor came in to check my cervix.
I was 1 centimeter dilated. She wasn't sure that the dilation was caused by my cramping and back pain though, since you can dilate for quite a while before you ever go into labor.
Up until that point I hadn't been having any uterine contractions, just back labor (which hurts far worse, btw), but after she checked me, I started getting steady contractions every 1-2 minutes.
I was hooked up to two monitors. One to watch the baby's heartrate, and another to monitor my contractions. They were super uncomfortable, and nurse's kept having to come in every 20 minutes or so to readjust them because Miles likes to be uncooperative and move all over the place.
So, because I was having steady contractions and I was only 28 weeks, they needed to give me something to stop them.
The first thing they like to give women in preterm labor is a shot, but the shot raises your heartrate, so it has to be below 120 in order to give it to you. Mine was hovering between 125 and 130.
No dice.
Then their next choice is a pill version of the same medicine. Well, I can't take pills. Have never been able to.
I tried for about half an hour to get this pill down, but it just wasn't working. The nurse (who was really really sweet to me even though we could tell she was so frustrated and just wanted to go home) kept getting things to try and hide it in, but it wasn't going down.
So finally, they had gotten to their last resort. Magnesium Sulfate.
It's given through an IV, and makes you feel AWFUL. The doctors really don't like giving it because it can have some really harmful side effects such as shutting down your nervous and respiratory systems. If it reaches a toxic level, you fall asleep, and they can't wake you up. You stop breathing, and they have to quickly give you a reversal medicine. Awesome.
And oh, some of those side effects started happening to me.
At 6:45 I was given a shot of steroids to help Miles' lung development should he end up being delivered, and they started the magnesium.
They also had to put a catheder in because I wouldn't be able to get up.
Now, this drug is awful. It makes you feel very hot, and completely groggy and out of it.
When they gave me my "bullet" dose, I literally felt like my body was on fire. Every inch of me was burning. At this point though the grogginess wasn't TOO bad. I could still keep a conversation and have both of my eyes open at the same time.
Oh, and I mentioned it's given through an IV right? Yeah. My veins SUCK. No really. To get ONE IV in, I was poked FOUR times. And they hurt BAD. My veins are tiny, and like to roll, so she would stick in this huge needle, and then have to move it around to try and find the vein. Needless to say my arms are totally bruised up.
Anyway. Eventually the bullet dose was done, and they put on the maintenance bag which was to be left in for AT LEAST 24 hours.
I was not allowed to have anything to eat or drink, which was awful because that medicine makes your mouth really dry.
I was given ice chips though, so that helped a bit.
Even though most of the time I was too woozy to get them in my mouth on the first try.
At about 10 Josh went home for the night, because the room was freezing him to death (the AC was turned WAY up, but I was still sweltering). I tried to get to sleep, but it just wasn't happening.
I had a blood pressure cuff permanently attached to one arm that went off every 15 minutes, I was hot and miserable, and every hour a nurse had to come in to check my reflexes because the medicine can get to a toxic level and start shutting them down.
I also had my finger hooked to a machine that checked my heartrate, and the oxygenation of my blood, because as I said earlier, the medicine can shut down your respiratory system.
At about 2 am, I woke up feeling VERY nauseous, short of breath, and out of it. I paged the nurse, but before she even had a chance to get in there I threw up all over.
I was COMPLETELY out of it. I didn't have much control over my body, my eyes wouldn't stay open or focus on anything. It was really scary. Eventually my nurse came in and turned down the dose of the magnesium.
At this point she also checked my reflexes, which were starting to diminish.
My oxygenation machine said that the oxygen in my blood was perfect. It was 98-100 most of the night.
At 3 she came in to take blood so they could check the magnesium levels.
All that was needed was a small vial, but of course, because my veins are retarded, I ended up being poked FOUR more times.
The room was so cold that even when they did get a vein, my blood dripped out really slowly. They had to go and get a warm blanket to wrap around my arm to try and get the blood flowing.
At about 3:30 they were finally done, and I tried to get to sleep.
I woke up to the oxygenation machine beeping like crazy.
I looked at the oxygen level and it was in the 70's. Shit.
I tried to take some slow deep breaths, and eventually the machine stopped beeping and it went back to 98.
Around 4 the nurse came in and told me that the blood had come back from the lab, and that my levels were too high, so she took me off the magnesium.
Luckily at this point my contractions had spaced out dramatically, and there hadn't been any cervical change from the time I came in.
At 7am Dr. Levin came in with the doctor from the day before, and they checked my cervix again. Still no change, so he said that as long as the contractions didn't start up again, after I got my second dose of the steroid (at 6:45) I'd be able to go home.
Hooray!
He had the catheder taken out, the blood pressure cuff taken off, and I was taken off the oxygenation machine.
I was feeling MUCH better by this point, too.
Ridiculously tired, because I had gotten maybe an hour and a half of sleep since 8:30 the previous morning, but better than I had been feeling on the magnesium.
The rest of the day was pretty much a waiting game until 6:45.
My reflexes were checked every hour or so, and they were coming back nicely.
I was also allowed to eat and drink, so I ordered breakfast but never really ate it because I was so tired.
At around 11 Josh came back to wait with me.
I got about another 2 hours of sleep intermittently, was given the second shot at 6:45, and by 7:15 we were leaving.
Hooray!
However now I am on strict bed rest.
I'm only really allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and take a shower.
I'm not allowed to drive, or cook, or really do much of anything.
I can sit on the couch, or lay in bed, and that's about it.
I have to go back to see Dr. Levin on Monday, at which point he'll probably check my cervix again, and reassess the bed rest.
I have a feeling I'll be stuck at home for a good while though.
I was having quite a few contractions again this morning, but they seemed to have stopped.
Hopefully I don't go into preterm labor again because that experience was AWFUL.
I'm just so glad everything is ok though.
Miles' heart rate was great the entire time, and he was moving around like crazy.
Hopefully he won't try to make another early appearance!
Silly baby.
Ok. I need to get back up to bed.
Enjoy the beautiful weather for me. :(
So, Monday afternoon at around 2, I was sitting on the couch with Josh, and my back hurt really bad, but I figured it was just from the way I was sitting.
So I got up, and went out to the bank and the grocery store, and my back KILLED.
I couldn't stand up straight or walk normally.
I got back home, and sat on the couch while Josh and I had lunch.
Eventually even sitting was killing my back so I had him help me upstairs, so I could lay down.
I started getting concerned because my back has never hurt that bad before, and I was having some really low cramping too, so at 3:30 I decided to call Dr. Levin.
He told me to go straight to Labor and Delivery.
We got there at about 4, and settled into a room, and an on-call doctor came in to check my cervix.
I was 1 centimeter dilated. She wasn't sure that the dilation was caused by my cramping and back pain though, since you can dilate for quite a while before you ever go into labor.
Up until that point I hadn't been having any uterine contractions, just back labor (which hurts far worse, btw), but after she checked me, I started getting steady contractions every 1-2 minutes.
I was hooked up to two monitors. One to watch the baby's heartrate, and another to monitor my contractions. They were super uncomfortable, and nurse's kept having to come in every 20 minutes or so to readjust them because Miles likes to be uncooperative and move all over the place.
So, because I was having steady contractions and I was only 28 weeks, they needed to give me something to stop them.
The first thing they like to give women in preterm labor is a shot, but the shot raises your heartrate, so it has to be below 120 in order to give it to you. Mine was hovering between 125 and 130.
No dice.
Then their next choice is a pill version of the same medicine. Well, I can't take pills. Have never been able to.
I tried for about half an hour to get this pill down, but it just wasn't working. The nurse (who was really really sweet to me even though we could tell she was so frustrated and just wanted to go home) kept getting things to try and hide it in, but it wasn't going down.
So finally, they had gotten to their last resort. Magnesium Sulfate.
It's given through an IV, and makes you feel AWFUL. The doctors really don't like giving it because it can have some really harmful side effects such as shutting down your nervous and respiratory systems. If it reaches a toxic level, you fall asleep, and they can't wake you up. You stop breathing, and they have to quickly give you a reversal medicine. Awesome.
And oh, some of those side effects started happening to me.
At 6:45 I was given a shot of steroids to help Miles' lung development should he end up being delivered, and they started the magnesium.
They also had to put a catheder in because I wouldn't be able to get up.
Now, this drug is awful. It makes you feel very hot, and completely groggy and out of it.
When they gave me my "bullet" dose, I literally felt like my body was on fire. Every inch of me was burning. At this point though the grogginess wasn't TOO bad. I could still keep a conversation and have both of my eyes open at the same time.
Oh, and I mentioned it's given through an IV right? Yeah. My veins SUCK. No really. To get ONE IV in, I was poked FOUR times. And they hurt BAD. My veins are tiny, and like to roll, so she would stick in this huge needle, and then have to move it around to try and find the vein. Needless to say my arms are totally bruised up.
Anyway. Eventually the bullet dose was done, and they put on the maintenance bag which was to be left in for AT LEAST 24 hours.
I was not allowed to have anything to eat or drink, which was awful because that medicine makes your mouth really dry.
I was given ice chips though, so that helped a bit.
Even though most of the time I was too woozy to get them in my mouth on the first try.
At about 10 Josh went home for the night, because the room was freezing him to death (the AC was turned WAY up, but I was still sweltering). I tried to get to sleep, but it just wasn't happening.
I had a blood pressure cuff permanently attached to one arm that went off every 15 minutes, I was hot and miserable, and every hour a nurse had to come in to check my reflexes because the medicine can get to a toxic level and start shutting them down.
I also had my finger hooked to a machine that checked my heartrate, and the oxygenation of my blood, because as I said earlier, the medicine can shut down your respiratory system.
At about 2 am, I woke up feeling VERY nauseous, short of breath, and out of it. I paged the nurse, but before she even had a chance to get in there I threw up all over.
I was COMPLETELY out of it. I didn't have much control over my body, my eyes wouldn't stay open or focus on anything. It was really scary. Eventually my nurse came in and turned down the dose of the magnesium.
At this point she also checked my reflexes, which were starting to diminish.
My oxygenation machine said that the oxygen in my blood was perfect. It was 98-100 most of the night.
At 3 she came in to take blood so they could check the magnesium levels.
All that was needed was a small vial, but of course, because my veins are retarded, I ended up being poked FOUR more times.
The room was so cold that even when they did get a vein, my blood dripped out really slowly. They had to go and get a warm blanket to wrap around my arm to try and get the blood flowing.
At about 3:30 they were finally done, and I tried to get to sleep.
I woke up to the oxygenation machine beeping like crazy.
I looked at the oxygen level and it was in the 70's. Shit.
I tried to take some slow deep breaths, and eventually the machine stopped beeping and it went back to 98.
Around 4 the nurse came in and told me that the blood had come back from the lab, and that my levels were too high, so she took me off the magnesium.
Luckily at this point my contractions had spaced out dramatically, and there hadn't been any cervical change from the time I came in.
At 7am Dr. Levin came in with the doctor from the day before, and they checked my cervix again. Still no change, so he said that as long as the contractions didn't start up again, after I got my second dose of the steroid (at 6:45) I'd be able to go home.
Hooray!
He had the catheder taken out, the blood pressure cuff taken off, and I was taken off the oxygenation machine.
I was feeling MUCH better by this point, too.
Ridiculously tired, because I had gotten maybe an hour and a half of sleep since 8:30 the previous morning, but better than I had been feeling on the magnesium.
The rest of the day was pretty much a waiting game until 6:45.
My reflexes were checked every hour or so, and they were coming back nicely.
I was also allowed to eat and drink, so I ordered breakfast but never really ate it because I was so tired.
At around 11 Josh came back to wait with me.
I got about another 2 hours of sleep intermittently, was given the second shot at 6:45, and by 7:15 we were leaving.
Hooray!
However now I am on strict bed rest.
I'm only really allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and take a shower.
I'm not allowed to drive, or cook, or really do much of anything.
I can sit on the couch, or lay in bed, and that's about it.
I have to go back to see Dr. Levin on Monday, at which point he'll probably check my cervix again, and reassess the bed rest.
I have a feeling I'll be stuck at home for a good while though.
I was having quite a few contractions again this morning, but they seemed to have stopped.
Hopefully I don't go into preterm labor again because that experience was AWFUL.
I'm just so glad everything is ok though.
Miles' heart rate was great the entire time, and he was moving around like crazy.
Hopefully he won't try to make another early appearance!
Silly baby.
Ok. I need to get back up to bed.
Enjoy the beautiful weather for me. :(