Post-Hospital Update

I'll just start off and say, I hope that nobody was extremely worried yesterday after my last post. Yesterday was a roller coaster of thoughts and emotions for Josh and I, and writing a doom- and-gloom post sometimes makes me have an easier time accepting hard situations as fact.

I'll be the first to admit, when my nurse Renee first told me I was dilated to a one and a half at 28 weeks, I thought she was joking for a good 30 seconds or so, and even when it hit me, it didn't really hit me.

All I could think was, "I'm already dilating?? I guess my nurse must be mistaken because I don't have pre-term babies, I make huge overdue babies that I have to forcefully evict because they get too comfortable."

Yeah, that idea of mine was quickly brought to its knees when I realized she wasn't kidding and that I could clearly see a number of medium contractions getting closer and closer together.

Then she told me that if they couldn't get the contractions to stop before I hit three and a half centimeters,  I would most likely be delivering a baby too soon.

Josh was sleeping on their pullout transformer chair quietly and the nurse was searching for some starting point as to where to begin to stop these worsening contractions.

I generally find myself to have a pretty level head in serious situations as a first response. So, in a predictable fashion, I simply asked my nurse calmly what our first course of action would be. She replied, "Our biggest goal at this moment is to make these contractions not only slow down, but completely go away."

That was a task that was easier said than done.

The first thing I was offered was morphine for pain relief since we couldn't be sure if I would start progressing quickly or not. She was aware that with my first baby I got my epidural as soon as humanly possible, so I was not used to the effects the first stages of labor. I politely refused, explaining that I didn't want to potentially put the baby in distress because of an unnecessary painkiller. There are some options for pain relief that make the unborn baby somewhat lethargic and not as awake as they could be, potentially causing more problems.

Renee understood and she left to get my first round of anti contraction meds.

At that point, I woke Josh and informed him of our new situation. He immediately wanted to know what our next move is, and once Renee returned to the room and could give him the limited info she had.

Josh had to leave me at the hospital for work not long after that. He said his goodbyes as Renee explained that the first trial meds would make it feel like my entire body was jittery, but not to be alarmed. I took the meds and then the first round of waiting began.

Renee had a couple other patients she was looking after, so she said she would be back in about an hour to check my progress.

The moment I was completely alone, the gravity of the situation seemed to hit me like a ton of bricks.

This little life was trying to come into the world far sooner than anyone wants and I couldn't help but blame myself, at least somewhat, for the problem.

I started to cry in the hospital room, praying harder than I have in a long time to let the medicine to be effective to give my second son more time to bake.

I started freaking out worse when in the first half hour, the contractions didn't really subside and the aching lower back pain started creeping in.

Renee returned soon after the help hour mark to give me a second dose of that medication, as well as a steroid shot that was administered into my right hip. (Steroids help unborn preemies lungs develop more quickly so they have less of a risk of a serious breathing problem if born early.)

Seeing that I was visually upset, Renee sweetly and kindly set her hand on my shoulder and reassured me that everything would be okay, even if my baby was born 11 weeks premature. She explained that all four of her children were at least six weeks premature.

Then she said the magic words that helped my guilt. "It's not your fault."

I immediately recognized that Heavenly Father gave me this nurse for a reason. She had been in a similar situation years ago, and could therefore nip all feelings of failure and guilt in the bud.

After the second dose and a steroid shot, she left me again.

The next half hour was spent watching cruddy daytime television that was completely uninteresting.

Next came the worst part of the whole thing; the I.V.

Lucky for me, Renee had a coworker who was able to hold my hand through the process and she did a great job distracting me from my fear of needles.

Renee actually told me something kind of funny, that I'd never been told before. She said she tried to put the I.V. on the top of my arm but the skin was too tough so it had to be a hand I.V.

Lucky for me, she drew the remainder of my blood samples at the same time so I didn't need to get poked again before I left at eight.

Once we determined that the first medicine would be a miss, we went to square two; a different, stronger anti-contraction pill.

We did that guessing game until two in the afternoon when the meds I'm on now started actually showing some promising results, relieving me of a tremendous amount of stress.

My mom and sister kept me company from 11:30 until about 4:00 (they brought me strawberry Pop tarts!!!) We discussed possible plans of me and Lincoln moving down to Provo full time until I delivered. Lucky for me, my parents have a teeny one bedroom apartment attached to their garage that wasn't being used. They said I could sleep with Lincoln in there at night and just go to the main house during the day so I could avoid lonliness.

It was soon discovered that Josh wouldn't be able to be down with us for a good amount of the week, but he reassured me that we would Skype every night he couldn't physically be there so we could keep our routine of saying prayers and giving goodnight kisses (I had a bit of deja-vu from when we were dating and we only saw each other on the weekends...)

At 6 PM, I got a new nurse (who just so happened to be the same woman who helped deliver Lincoln 14 months ago!) Marianne explained the terms of my bedrest for the next little while; no lifting anything above 10 lbs., no excessive standing or climbing of stairs, no shopping trips and tons of fluids. (Staying hydrated is directly linked to fewer contractions in late pregnancy.) luckily, I was told that a once a week  dinner date or seated outing with Josh was allowed, so at least I'm not completely stuck in one place. Also, she said I didn't need to eat a certain diet while resting so I can still eat some of my guilty pleasures occasionally.

Josh was able to come get me at eight and we were discharged shortly after.

Once in the car, Josh and I had a few moments of clarity.

Yesterday morning, I was in so much pain and I felt so nauseated from the still unknown abdominal pain,  I decided to go to the hospital to have it be checked out. Once that pain was under control, we were to be discharged shortly after Renee was made my nurse. If she hadn't asked to check for any progress with dilation, I would have gone home, gone into labor and then gone to my original hospital where they don't have a NICU, (which I wasn't informed of until halfway through my visit to Jordan Valley yesterday) and baby would have probably had to be life flighted to a hospital that did.

Josh and I realized that God was truly watching out for us yesterday, possibly saving my sons life.

I will always be so grateful for the unexpected, and sometimes masked, tender mercies of the Lord.

I will surely be making updates on little guy status whenever we get new information about our condition and I still plan on doing weekly pregnancy updates every Sunday or Monday. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

Mackenzie