Bedrest: Day 18

The bedrest chronicles: Day 18

Hubby texts: What u doing
I text: Laying here :) You ?
Hubby texts: No really. Standing here.
I text: lol Where's here?
Hubby texts: Here is where the heart is.
I text: groan

Then he walks into my hospital room.  Big dork - I love him so.

***

All is quiet here in my corner of the hospital. Baby E keeps passing his biophysical profiles with flying colors and his monitoring each night is strong. He keeps all of the nurses on their toes by continually dodging the heartbeat monitor or evading the ultrasound by curling up in odd positions or doing cheetah flips when they're trying to watch him breathing. Monitoring is really play time for him as he uses the the monitoring point as target practices for his hand chops and karate kicks. There is something about the waves it makes in his amniotic fluid that gets him all revved up! Playtime mommy!

An interesting tidbit of news that my doctor passed onto me was that most women who have preterm labor have one of three infections: strep B, mycoplasma or ureaplasma (spellings?). They start treating patients immediately for all three as the cultures take awhile, however mine came back positive for mycoplasma. The presence of this does not always cause preterm labor, but in my case, I fit the statistics. It's nice to know that it's nothing I could have prevented. More antibiotics it is for me!

Thank for the well wishes on my bathroom privileges! Yes, I'm a big girl now!! lol In all seriousness, it has made an incredible difference in my comfort. However the even bigger news is that we've been doing so well that the doc is going to send us home!!! In my wildest dreams, I did not expect to be able to go home before 32 weeks if at all. However, my lack of contractions, bleeding, and leaking has convinced my doctor that I should get to go home at 31 weeks. That means next weekend people! Yippee, hurrah, cartwheels!

My angel of a dad is flying up on Saturday to tend to me while I'm at home. While I'm a little nervous imagining that my stitch will tear open while we're taking the hour long drive from our house to the hospital, I'm glad that I'll be in such capable hands. My dad is an excellent caregiver who I'm sure will be a good tyrant about me doing absolutely nothing. He's also quite handy in the kitchen which makes me start drooling with longing over some non-mush like food. I swear I have eaten baked chicken and mashed potatoes like seven times this week to avoid whatever the special of the day they are whipping up down there in the hospital kitchen.  I digress...

My other source of happiness came yesterday when my hubby brought down my darling dog, Sweetpea, to visit. With the advent of wheelchair privileges, I escaped from my little room into the delightful but rare sunshine that the skies have been hoarding. Apparently, this was the summer to move to Anchorage as it has rained for a record 31 days! So, in the sunshine, my hubby wheeled me out to a little grassy area and brought my wiggle-waggle dog to me.  Just sitting there petting her soft fur and getting doggy kisses worked like a charm on my spirits.  I must admit that this past week has not been my best as I started getting sad and a bit lonely. It was nothing a nice crying jag couldn't take care of but the happy dog visit really reversed my downward trend.

So here I lay on day 18 of hospital bed rest, overjoyed that tomorrow we will hit the 30 week mark. The next real milestone from the doc's perspective is 32 weeks, but I'm celebrating every day. Who would have thought I would make it here!

xoxo

Dereliction of a Blogger and a Cervix

For many days now I have been wanting to blog but either too busy or too tired to write anything! First I didn't want to write to complain about the 60 days we've spent traveling or living in an on post hotel (because it can get old after awhile). Then I was way too busy partying like a pregnant woman (ie eating and providing old friends with copious amounts of alcohol) in California! Hitting the ground running when I landed back in Alaska, I've been busy closing on our new house. More on all of these fun fantastic events later as they definitely deserve their own posts.

Last night I surpassed my dereliction of duty as blogger and added an MIA cervix to boot. Yes, just when I thought everything was okay and I was ready to start preparing for this baby....my incompetent cervix hit.

On Friday, my husband and I shared a little loving which has been far and few between with our mutual fear of somehow hurting baby E. Later that night I noticed the mucus I had been discharging for about a week was tinged with blood which made me a little nervous. When I called L & D to check with the nurse, she indicated that it was probably something coming loose from earlier in the day. So I continued on with life, checking but not worried about this. However, on Monday,  it got worse which prompted phone call #2. The nurse didn't think that it was too much of a problem, but said to go ahead and come in anyway just to check.

When I arrived, they hooked me up to hear the baby's heartbeat and for contractions which they said I was not having. After finishing the vaginal exam, the doctor asked me, "How much do you know about pregnancy complications?" Dum dum dum. You really don't want your doc asking you that! I braced myself said, "enough to know a lot of crappy things can happen." To make a long story short, I was four inches dilated with the amniotic sac and feet hanging through my cervix. Antibiotics to ward off infection and steroids for baby E's lungs were administered. They transferred me by ambulance to the larger hospital in Anchorage with the NICU (which I came to find out is ranked #2 in the country). There, I had definite contractions which slowed down a little with some lovely drugs. My new doc shot very straight telling us we had three options: 1) Have surgery to put in a cervical stitch after they pushed the amniotic sac and feet back in and then remain on bed rest in the hospital until delivery; 2) do nothing and bed rest in hospital until delivery, or 3) deliver him right then.  We went with option one even though it's not typical to do this stitch after about 22 weeks. We didn't really have anything to lose with option one and our doc has had success with this even past the 22 week mark.

I may be kind of morbid in this sense, but I have the knowledge that with any surgery there are risks. So I told my husband that if I died, to know that I loved him and to make sure baby E knew I loved him dearly.  After many phone calls to my family, I finally managed to wake my dad up and let him know what was going on. They whisked me off to surgery immediately after this. Thankfully everything went smoothly and they had me tucked away in the prenatal ward in the early morning. Where now I sit typing this and will remain for either the duration of my pregnancy or possibly until 32 weeks if I have someone to take care of me at home.

Speaking of home, my terrific husband is going to get to receive our household goods and unpack all by his lonesome AGAIN! Last time we arrived somewhere new, I was in my 2WW for IVF #2. He had the whole  house unpacked in four days! Now he gets to do this again which will actually be a great distraction for him instead of sitting here with me.

The whole ordeal is in perspective for me. While I don't love or even like that this happened, I am grateful that everything is okay for now. I'm ecstatic that we're at 27 weeks and have a chance at a viable healthy baby. I know that I love my husband, my family, my friends, and my baby B. It could be better, but it could be a lot worse. So for that I'm grateful.

xoxo