Bump in the Road

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've hit a slight bump in the road in the last few weeks.  The day after my 30 week appointment, I ended up in the ER.  It was such a scary experience.

At my 30 week appointment, I had started to have some swelling in my feet.  It had been going on for a few days.  It wasn't awful, but it was enough that my flats squeezed my feet and my feet hurt when I walked.  As my doctor was measuring my belly, he asked me if I was still working.  I said yes, then jokingly said, I only worked 50 hours last week.  He asked me what I did, and I told him I was a CPA, and really, 50 hours was much less than I'd normally be working, ha!  I told him I could probably cut back my hours some if he thought I should.  Dr. H said that would be a good idea.  So, after that appointment, I talked with my boss, and we agreed I'd drop my hours to 40 a week.  I thought that would be an adjustment...turns out that would have been nothing compared to what I'm adjusting to now!

On Tuesday, I just wasn't feeling good.  My lower abdomen and back were really hurting.  TMI - but that morning and again in the afternoon, I'd had a small amount of mucus discharge.  It wasn't bloody at all, just clear, but it still worried me as I directly correlate having a lot of mucus discharge to having Chandler & Paisley 10 days later.  I decided to leave work around 3:45 and came home to lay down and rest.  Once I got home, I showered and had a good deal more mucus discharge.  My lower abdomen and back pain were also increasing.  The combination of the discharge and the pain caused me enough worry that I decided I needed to call my doctor.  I called, left a message, and thankfully, they returned my call within just a couple of minutes.  After describing to the nurse how I was feeling and the discharge, she said I needed to go in to the ER.  I called my good friend who lives across the street and asked her if she could take me, and then called Dusty to let him know I needed him to meet me at the ER.

Once at the ER, they had me change into a gown and hooked up monitors to watch the babies' heartbeats and watch for contractions.  They drew blood, and honestly, now, I can't remember what they said they were checking for.  I know that's terrible, but everything was such a blur.  I do know whatever they were looking for came back negative.  They also swabbed me to check for a yeast infection and I believe bacterial vaginosis, which were negative as well.  They also checked me for a UTI, it showed a slight amount of bacterial growth, but not enough to even start on antibiotics.  Lastly, they did an fFN (fetal fibronectin) test.  Fetal fibronectin is a protein that begins to be discharged as you near labor.  A negative test is reassuring that labor will not likely begin for the next two weeks.  A positive test can indicate that labor will begin in the next 2 weeks, however; this test does commonly have false positives, and I've even read that vaginal progesterone can impact the test as well.  So, even though it was positive, I wasn't too concerned about it.  It did worry me, but not as much as it would have if I hadn't been aware of the chance of false positives.  

Like I said above, all of my ER stay time was a blur.  I was so upset and just thinking of Chandler and Paisley and how I didn't want Kanon and Remington to be born yet.  At 30 weeks, although the chances of survival are fantastic, it would be such a long NICU stay and I don't want that for them.  At one point, I was so upset that the nurse put her hands on my face and told me this wasn't like last time, and reminded me that if they were born, they would be fine.  

I don't know when, but at some point, they told Dusty (and I assume, told me too), that I was having frequent contractions.  I was having a contraction every 2 to 6 minutes.  To try to relax me and make the contractions stop, they gave me stadol to relax me, and phenergan (for nausea, which can be caused by the stadol).  It worked, as I was soon asleep.  They also gave me the first of 2 steroid injections to help mature the babies' lungs.  

I remember them telling me they were going to admit me.  I know I asked them to not put me in room 38, because that was the room I was in when Chandler & Paisley were born.  That's about all I really remember about being admitted to a room.  I vaguely remember being wheeled from the ER to the room.  I asked Dusty how I got from the ER bed into the bed in the room.  He said I stood up and got in the bed myself.  Wow...don't remember that at all.  

At some point, the contractions slowed to 1 - 2 an hour.  I was still having uterine irritability, but they said that the 1 - 2 contractions and the irritability was completely normal.  The babies heartbeats were normal, thank God!  I think I had a couple more doses of stadol and slept decent for being in the hospital and having the babies' monitors adjusted frequently due to my movement and their movement.  

The next morning, Dr. H came by to see me.  He asked us what in the world we were doing there.  ha!  He then mentioned that I would need to be on complete bedrest once I was discharged to try to keep these babies in going forward.  I worried for a few minutes about how to work that out with work, and what that would mean, but decided I'd figure it out later.  Thankfully, everything has been fine.  I was able to get my FMLA and s-t disability paperwork filled out and approved.  My work has been absolutely great, thank God!!

They ended up keeping me another night.  That evening I got my 2nd steroid shot for the babies' lungs.  I was discharged around 12:00 on Thursday.  

On Friday, they had me follow up with a doctor.  My regular doctor wasn't there, so I saw another doctor.  He was fine, but rushed.  For somebody on bedrest, it was frustrating, because I sat and waited in the lobby for over an hour past my appointment time.  The doctor didn't really even have much to say.  More than anything, what I got out of the appointment was that I had gained 10 pounds from Monday to Friday and I could feel it.  

Once I was discharged from the hospital, I was in so much pain.  My chest hurt so much and it was so hard to breathe.  After having my appointment that Friday, I understood why.  I had so much fluid on me from the IV, that it made complete sense.  On Thursday afternoon and evening, I was wondering how much longer I was going to be able to hold on.  I felt absolutely miserable.  I could barely breathe and could barely move.  I was in shock of how terrible I felt compared to just a week ago.  I thought I had absolutely hit a wall.  I guess I was relieved when I got to the appointment and realized how much fluid I had gained.

I had a follow up appointment with Dr. H on Monday and that went so much better!  By that appointment, I had lost 7 pounds since Friday and felt much better.  I could tell the fluid was off, as I could breathe again, and my ankles returned!  He told me to keep resting and we'd try to keep these babies in as long as possible.  

So, that was my scary bump in the road!  I'm so glad I went in.  I still never really felt contractions, but knew something wasn't right.  I'm thankful they were able to stop the contractions and hopefully I can keep these babies in a few more weeks!  

Comments

  1. Yay!! Was just looking to see if you had updated. So happy to hear you're okay and babies are still cooking!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just checking in...Haven't seen an update in a few weeks so praying that everything is ok!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment