I didn't get around to posting that I got released on Saturday. But I guess you didn't miss much, because I'm back in L&D this morning.
This is RIDICULOUS.
Update: Sedate-and-hydrate did the trick, so I'm back home now.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Off the mag
It took a while, but I got off the mag at noon, though I am still in the post-mag coma. Currently still in L&D, but I'm theoretically being moved to the floor any time now, and will stay until tomorrow.
Still no dilation, so I'll get to go back home. I guess they really weren't kidding about how we'd keep doing this every week if we had to. And I guess it looks like we'll have to.
67 days to go.
Still no dilation, so I'll get to go back home. I guess they really weren't kidding about how we'd keep doing this every week if we had to. And I guess it looks like we'll have to.
67 days to go.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The trend is broken
It's Wednesday night, and I am NOT in the hospital. How sad, that this is a deviation from the pattern.
Things have been... not exactly quiet, but not enough to make me feel like it's time to go in, for which I have a reasonably high threshold. The standard advice is 4 contractions or more in an hour. I don't even NOTICE if I have that -- I can't be bothered to time them until they get under 10 minutes, and I don't do anything about them until they've been well under that for a couple hours. Otherwise, I really would just check into the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy, and the food is much better at home.
26 weeks, 1 day. 69 days to go.
Things have been... not exactly quiet, but not enough to make me feel like it's time to go in, for which I have a reasonably high threshold. The standard advice is 4 contractions or more in an hour. I don't even NOTICE if I have that -- I can't be bothered to time them until they get under 10 minutes, and I don't do anything about them until they've been well under that for a couple hours. Otherwise, I really would just check into the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy, and the food is much better at home.
26 weeks, 1 day. 69 days to go.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Home again
After a quiet night of almost no contractions at all, I was released this morning to the comfort of my own bed. I've had a few contractions here and there, but nothing that seems to want to fall into a pattern, so it's back to the routine of bedrest and Procardia. It's nice to be home.
74 days to go.
74 days to go.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Uterus alert level: yellow
So, no prizes for guessing that I got a second scenic vacation to L&D. (I got the same room as last week -- no new scenery, even!) I had had a lot of contractions Tuesday evening, aaaallllmost enough to push me over my go-to-hospital threshold, but they settled down enough for me to fall asleep. I suspect they might have continued throughout the night, though, because I woke up with them in the morning. It eventually became clear they were settling in for the long haul, and after a couple hours, I called G to come home and take me in.
For a while, it looked like the second verse would be the same as the first -- get on the monitor, verify that yes, those are contractions, give me some terb and fluids, and wait a while for it to not work. However, the baby started going a little bit off-script during that waiting process, and decided he was tired of having his head squeezed every four minutes. He started having early decels with the contractions, and dropped off the monitor entirely here and there, and generally started freaking everyone right the heck out, so they quit fooling around and got a mag bag hung.
Mag sulfate is pretty much just as lousy as I remember it being from last time. I felt really miserable while I was getting the initial bolus dose, enough to make me ask for some Stadol so I could just go away for a little while. After that, it settled back down into general queasiness and fatigue, which is pretty much where it stayed. Most importantly, it got the job done with the contractions.
They took me off the mag this morning, because in addition to not having contractions, I stopped having some skeletal reflexes. Mag sulfate works by interfering with the calcium ions that cause muscle cells to contract, so it tends to stop *all* your muscle cells from contracting very effectively. So no, your uterus doesn't contract, but it also gets hard to do things like stand up or focus your eyes, or have your leg kick out when something hits the front of your kneecap. I've been off the mag for quite a few hours now, and I still feel like I'm just kind of half-melted into the bed.
Since my uterus decided to get with the program, I've been moved to a regular room, and fed, and heplocked off, and allowed to go to the bathroom. All of these things are fantastic. There's sunshine coming in my window and cool white sheets on my bed, and I'm content to just lie here and not contract and not have a baby. I'm not dilated or effaced, and nobody has said anything about yesterday's FFN being positive, so I'm assuming it's negative. I tested positive for a mild UTI, although I had no symptoms of one, and I'm kind of hoping that maybe that's what's been behind all this uterine uproar.
I fully and completely expect that I'll be making more visits to L&D over the next few weeks. I'd like to avoid having one *every* week, but Dr. Pro says if that's what it takes, that's what we'll do. There's really nothing else *to* do -- not much point to trying a terbutaline pump when the terbutaline shots never work, and I'm already on Procardia. As long as I don't dilate, she'll keep throwing me back out to home bedrest.
75 days to go.
For a while, it looked like the second verse would be the same as the first -- get on the monitor, verify that yes, those are contractions, give me some terb and fluids, and wait a while for it to not work. However, the baby started going a little bit off-script during that waiting process, and decided he was tired of having his head squeezed every four minutes. He started having early decels with the contractions, and dropped off the monitor entirely here and there, and generally started freaking everyone right the heck out, so they quit fooling around and got a mag bag hung.
Mag sulfate is pretty much just as lousy as I remember it being from last time. I felt really miserable while I was getting the initial bolus dose, enough to make me ask for some Stadol so I could just go away for a little while. After that, it settled back down into general queasiness and fatigue, which is pretty much where it stayed. Most importantly, it got the job done with the contractions.
They took me off the mag this morning, because in addition to not having contractions, I stopped having some skeletal reflexes. Mag sulfate works by interfering with the calcium ions that cause muscle cells to contract, so it tends to stop *all* your muscle cells from contracting very effectively. So no, your uterus doesn't contract, but it also gets hard to do things like stand up or focus your eyes, or have your leg kick out when something hits the front of your kneecap. I've been off the mag for quite a few hours now, and I still feel like I'm just kind of half-melted into the bed.
Since my uterus decided to get with the program, I've been moved to a regular room, and fed, and heplocked off, and allowed to go to the bathroom. All of these things are fantastic. There's sunshine coming in my window and cool white sheets on my bed, and I'm content to just lie here and not contract and not have a baby. I'm not dilated or effaced, and nobody has said anything about yesterday's FFN being positive, so I'm assuming it's negative. I tested positive for a mild UTI, although I had no symptoms of one, and I'm kind of hoping that maybe that's what's been behind all this uterine uproar.
I fully and completely expect that I'll be making more visits to L&D over the next few weeks. I'd like to avoid having one *every* week, but Dr. Pro says if that's what it takes, that's what we'll do. There's really nothing else *to* do -- not much point to trying a terbutaline pump when the terbutaline shots never work, and I'm already on Procardia. As long as I don't dilate, she'll keep throwing me back out to home bedrest.
75 days to go.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Day 5
For Father's Day yesterday, my husband got up at 7 AM with the girls, mediated four fights and two tantrums, then took them to Toys R' Us, Target, Best Buy, Linens N' Things, and Wal-Mart. He put up with naplessness and the ensuing whining, grilled pork chops for supper, bathed the girls, and did the dishes and a load of laundry. He got up at 6 this morning, so he could get to work by 7 and be home for more child duty by 4:30, when the nanny has to leave.
I think I may have to cave and let him buy the giant widescreen TV he's lusting after, as a reward for being Father of the Year. He certainly deserves it, poor man.
I got to leave the house today and go to a doctor's appointment. It was nice to see some sunshine, although it is freakin' HOT outside today, 96 degrees with heat index. I'm already flushed all the time from the Procardia, and heat doesn't help. Procardia isn't as bad as mag sulfate, which is like the aftermath of a day at the beach on spring break -- you didn't use enough sunscreen and drank too many margaritas, and you feel sunburned and nauseated and dizzy so tired you can barely move -- but it's vaguely reminiscent of it.
The doctor's appointment itself wasn't too exciting. Baby sounds fine, and I just need to keep doing what I'm (not) doing, and come in if I have contractions. Dr. Pro did say that she will be concerned if I do begin to dilate at all, because the Lagniappe is breech, and therefore at even higher risk for things like cord prolapse If I do start dilating and he is still breech, we'll be talking about hospital bedrest, and we will make the decision to deliver sooner than we would with a vertex baby. Clearly, the thing to do is not to start dilating.
78 days to go.
I think I may have to cave and let him buy the giant widescreen TV he's lusting after, as a reward for being Father of the Year. He certainly deserves it, poor man.
I got to leave the house today and go to a doctor's appointment. It was nice to see some sunshine, although it is freakin' HOT outside today, 96 degrees with heat index. I'm already flushed all the time from the Procardia, and heat doesn't help. Procardia isn't as bad as mag sulfate, which is like the aftermath of a day at the beach on spring break -- you didn't use enough sunscreen and drank too many margaritas, and you feel sunburned and nauseated and dizzy so tired you can barely move -- but it's vaguely reminiscent of it.
The doctor's appointment itself wasn't too exciting. Baby sounds fine, and I just need to keep doing what I'm (not) doing, and come in if I have contractions. Dr. Pro did say that she will be concerned if I do begin to dilate at all, because the Lagniappe is breech, and therefore at even higher risk for things like cord prolapse If I do start dilating and he is still breech, we'll be talking about hospital bedrest, and we will make the decision to deliver sooner than we would with a vertex baby. Clearly, the thing to do is not to start dilating.
78 days to go.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Bedrest
So, two days of bedrest down, and hopefully about 80 left to go.
I'm supposed to be on complete bedrest rather than just house arrest, although of course I've been experimenting to see what I can and can't do. I sat on the sofa for a couple hours yesterday and chatted with my girl Stacey, with the girls crawling up into my lap and all over me (and ran out of nifedipine to boot). That was good for a round of contractions, although they settled down after I popped a pill and lay down for a while.
My husband the jail warden says no more sitting on the sofa with the girls around, which is just rotten. I'm in the bedroom with the door closed -- can't even leave it open and baby-gated, because the poodles can jump the baby gate, and they will get excited and leap on me. (The dogs in question are 50-lb standard poodles, mind, not your grandmama's teacup Fifi.) Basically, I'm locked up alone in the bedroom, without my children or my dogs, alone with the laptop and the knitting. Doesn't that sound pathetic?
I'm hoping that the contractions will settle down in time, and I'll be able to move around the house a little more. Today, I am having them whenever I stand up, sit up, sit back down after standing up, roll over, get kicked in the cervix by the Lagniappe, or do anything other than stay in a semi-recumbent position. There's no pattern to them yet, but it feels like they're just waiting for a good excuse to fall into one.
There's a lot I wanted to do before the clock ran out on this pregnancy. I was going to make a crib quilt and bumper set for the baby's quilt -- I should show you the play quilt I made for him, it's adorable -- but that involves lots of standing up and cutting fabric, and then lots of sitting at a sewing machine. I have a maternity top cut out and ready to piece together, but I don't need it now, because I won't be leaving the house to speak of. The nursery is nonexistent (well, right now it's an occupied guest bedroom, which is a whole 'nother story), and I guess I won't be picking out paint or window treatments or decorations or furniture. I wanted to get my hair cut next week, and sort out a bunch of old clothes and take them to Goodwill or sell them on eBay, and replace the dead pansies in the flowerbed, and fold and put away the laundry. I planned to go to my sister's wedding next weekend, and my niece's birthday party the week after that, both of which are over an hour's drive away, and held outdoors. We were going to take the girls down to the Coast for the weekend, and try to get away for an evening to see a movie or two. I have business meetings to go to, which will either have to be canceled or held in my living room.
Most of all, though, I have to hang on to the baby for a while longer. I don't think I'm in imminent danger of delivering any time soon -- it's reassuring that I'm not dilating or effacing -- but that's not something I want to put to the test.
I'm supposed to be on complete bedrest rather than just house arrest, although of course I've been experimenting to see what I can and can't do. I sat on the sofa for a couple hours yesterday and chatted with my girl Stacey, with the girls crawling up into my lap and all over me (and ran out of nifedipine to boot). That was good for a round of contractions, although they settled down after I popped a pill and lay down for a while.
My husband the jail warden says no more sitting on the sofa with the girls around, which is just rotten. I'm in the bedroom with the door closed -- can't even leave it open and baby-gated, because the poodles can jump the baby gate, and they will get excited and leap on me. (The dogs in question are 50-lb standard poodles, mind, not your grandmama's teacup Fifi.) Basically, I'm locked up alone in the bedroom, without my children or my dogs, alone with the laptop and the knitting. Doesn't that sound pathetic?
I'm hoping that the contractions will settle down in time, and I'll be able to move around the house a little more. Today, I am having them whenever I stand up, sit up, sit back down after standing up, roll over, get kicked in the cervix by the Lagniappe, or do anything other than stay in a semi-recumbent position. There's no pattern to them yet, but it feels like they're just waiting for a good excuse to fall into one.
There's a lot I wanted to do before the clock ran out on this pregnancy. I was going to make a crib quilt and bumper set for the baby's quilt -- I should show you the play quilt I made for him, it's adorable -- but that involves lots of standing up and cutting fabric, and then lots of sitting at a sewing machine. I have a maternity top cut out and ready to piece together, but I don't need it now, because I won't be leaving the house to speak of. The nursery is nonexistent (well, right now it's an occupied guest bedroom, which is a whole 'nother story), and I guess I won't be picking out paint or window treatments or decorations or furniture. I wanted to get my hair cut next week, and sort out a bunch of old clothes and take them to Goodwill or sell them on eBay, and replace the dead pansies in the flowerbed, and fold and put away the laundry. I planned to go to my sister's wedding next weekend, and my niece's birthday party the week after that, both of which are over an hour's drive away, and held outdoors. We were going to take the girls down to the Coast for the weekend, and try to get away for an evening to see a movie or two. I have business meetings to go to, which will either have to be canceled or held in my living room.
Most of all, though, I have to hang on to the baby for a while longer. I don't think I'm in imminent danger of delivering any time soon -- it's reassuring that I'm not dilating or effacing -- but that's not something I want to put to the test.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Round One
Last week, we went on a family vacation to a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. It wasn't much of a vacation for me -- no hiking or whitewater rafting for the pregnant woman, and the girls were less than amused by the sleeping arrangement. I had some episodes of contractions while we were there, but nothing too major. They started up again after we got home Sunday evening, though, so off I went to see Dr. Pro on Monday. She put me on nifedipine every three hours, and told me to rest and drink water and come to L&D if they kept up
They stopped for a while, then started back up again, and stopped and started several more times through Monday and Tuesday. Every time
I was about to make up my mind to head in, they'd quit. By Wednesday afternoon, though, they had quit quitting, so in I went. Terbutaline wasn't very effective -- it never does much for me except give me the shakes -- but they ran some fluids and gave me some Stadol, and eventually they tapered off. They're back again this morning, though, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what they're going to do about them.
My cervix was still closed, so I am probably not in imminent danger of actually having the baby. From past experience, my uterus is capable of producing plenty of sound and fury, without actually doing much. Eventually, I'll most likely get sent home with instructions to take it easy and come back if anything changes, and I'm ready to skip to that part of the program (especially the part that involves breakfast). Still, I'm a little dismayed that this has started so early. I was hoping to get to 30 weeks or so before we started playing this game -- 24 weeks is, well, a little premature.
Update: the good news is that Dr. Pro let me go home, under strict instructions to come back if I feel the slightest need. The bad news is that I'm bed-resting it for the next 12 weeks.
They stopped for a while, then started back up again, and stopped and started several more times through Monday and Tuesday. Every time
I was about to make up my mind to head in, they'd quit. By Wednesday afternoon, though, they had quit quitting, so in I went. Terbutaline wasn't very effective -- it never does much for me except give me the shakes -- but they ran some fluids and gave me some Stadol, and eventually they tapered off. They're back again this morning, though, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what they're going to do about them.
My cervix was still closed, so I am probably not in imminent danger of actually having the baby. From past experience, my uterus is capable of producing plenty of sound and fury, without actually doing much. Eventually, I'll most likely get sent home with instructions to take it easy and come back if anything changes, and I'm ready to skip to that part of the program (especially the part that involves breakfast). Still, I'm a little dismayed that this has started so early. I was hoping to get to 30 weeks or so before we started playing this game -- 24 weeks is, well, a little premature.
Update: the good news is that Dr. Pro let me go home, under strict instructions to come back if I feel the slightest need. The bad news is that I'm bed-resting it for the next 12 weeks.
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