Our Worst Week Yet

This week – week 25 - has by far been the most difficult and trying of my pregnancy. If not for the fact that I committed to keeping this blog up-to-date, I would just as soon forget all of it and not even put it into words. Nevertheless, this will at least prevent me from having to speak about it any more than I already have had to, which has already been too much in my opinion.

I’ve been in a funk for a week or so now with my back-pain increasing daily as my belly grows and the migraines starting up again. Early this week, I decided I would try to stop being such a recluse and go outside on the bedroom balcony to stretch and get some fresh air early in the morning after Michael had already left for work. Little did I know that when I closed the door behind me to keep the bugs out, the door would lock in the frame behind me.

To make a long story short, after an hour and a half of screaming for someone to hear me, I was able to get back inside (My grandfather-in-law who walks in the woods most mornings eventually came out and heard me!). My in-laws were set to move in at noon that day and I was terrified that I would have to wait outside in the cold for hours on end wearing a thin t-shirt until they arrived, especially once the bees started buzzing around me! Fortunately, I got inside before I could get bit and live out any of the worst-case-scenarios that had been racing through my mind.

There were some moments of humor for me at least, when our outdoor cat, Stripes, stood down in the grass below and meowed up at me each time I yelled Gene’s name, wagging his tail. We “conversed” for quite a while before he ran and started meowing outside Gene’s door, which I could just barely see from where I was standing. It was like Lassie trying to rescue Timmy from the well, but he eventually gave up and went his own way after he heard noises in the woods…

The two days that followed --these last two-- were much less of a laughing matter…

On Thursday, we had a “’problem visit” with the OB due to some complications and I was given some strict instructions (regarding the number and severity of contractions I’ve been having lately), which I never thought I’d have to follow so soon… In a nut shell: I spent most of my day and night in the hospital yesterday.

After having very bad contractions all day yesterday, I was given instructions by my OB to go to Fairfax hospital at around 2pm. But no sooner than I could get out the door did the contractions start coming increasingly close together and lasting longer and longer. I knew I’d never make the hour drive to my doctor’s hospital so my mother-in-law raced me over to Cornwall, which erroneously informed us on the phone that they had a Labor & Delivery Unit. Long story short, after a very bad experience in their ER which included a nurse botching two IVs in my arm after telling me that he’d been giving them for 25 years and never misses (right after I informed him he’d never make the vein in that arm), and having to stop a nurse from injecting me with morphine of all things(!), I was transferred by ambulance to the hospital that actually has L&D. Once we got there, we played the waiting game for many hours as the staff tried to figure out what was wrong with me.

The monitors showed that I was having constant tiny contractions followed by much bigger ones, but fortunately, the doctor’s were able to confirm that my water had not broken and my cervix was still closed, which was a relief. They were never able to tell me what had caused them but after hours and hours of lying there hooked to monitors, they were able to give me an injection that stopped them. The side effects of the medicine were brutal and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so sick or in such distress from a medicine as I did right afterwards, but I was assured that the medicine was for the baby’s benefit and not for mine. (I had to have a talk with the doctor in L&D about my preference that medicine be given only for Noah’s benefit and not my comfort, after the experience at Cornwall.)

Vanessa was with me in the ultrasound room immediately after the medicine was administered and got to see her brother for the first time. (Michael went to pick her up during all of this and my mother-in-law, Sue, stayed with me.) Nessa was thrilled and the technician was very kind to her, explaining everything along the way. I was suffering the side effects of the medicine during this test so I was turned away and trying to stay calm and taking solace in the fact that Nessa was at least distracted and enjoying herself (quite audibly). Near the end, I did have to ask the tech to please hurry as I did not think I could lay there any longer. I did get to see three quick images: one of Noah's nose and mouth (he has his daddy's bowed lips!), another of his boy parts (why the techs keep feeling the need to show me is beyond me!), and one of him sitting on his knees with his toes interlaced. It was nice to see him again in spite of all that was surrounding this ultrasound.

It was not long after the ultrasound was done that I realized I had been bleeding when they took me down to the ultrasound room by wheelchair and that it was still happening, so they raced me back upstairs to L&D where the doctors and nurses did... absolutely nothing. Seriously. They asked a question or two and then left me laying on the gurney for a couple more hours without so much as checking on me. They pretty much took my word that my water had not broken and I had little choice but to take theirs that it was caused from the very unpleasant exams I'd went through at the two hospitals. Needless to say Michael and I were very unhappy and have no immediate plans to ever return to that (or the previous) facility again.

It was an extremely long day and night but we made it through with God’s help. I had a couple of contractions once we got home but nothing serious and Noah was moving around like the happy baby he is. While we don’t know what yesterday was all about, we do know that Noah is completely fine and unaffected by any of it.

So, as of now, I am on a form of bed rest and am banned from shopping or doing anything that requires me to be on my feet for more than a set period of time. That should be interesting today as we are having a BBQ for Vanessa’s birthday today, but fortunately I trust Michael is competent to handle what needs to be done. This is the first time we have ever had Vanessa on her actual birthday and I hope it’s a day she’ll remember – and that yesterday is one we can all soon forget…