Sunday, January 22, 2012 started like normal with a 6 a.m. blood draw for lab work. I had a strange stomach cramp shortly after, but I mentioned it to the nurses and it didn't seem like we should be concerned. The MFM doctor came in around 8:30 to review my test results, and the blood work looked great - the liver enzymes were still dropping, platelets were good, and everything else looked stable. He said that the signs of preeclampsia were not progressing, so we might still reach 34 weeks (Sunday marked 31 weeks). I was starting to get used to the idea of three more weeks in the hospital, but apparently God had other plans for us and the boys!
Just as I started to eat my lunch, the stomach cramps hit me again. I should have savored those few bites of my Subway sandwich because it was the last food (or drink) I would have for a while. It felt like the type of stomach pain that makes you wince and hold your breath for a few seconds until it passes. I guess those "stomach cramps" were contractions - the painful kind. I thought I had become very familiar with how contractions felt, but these were definitely different. We turned on the Patriots & Ravens football game in hopes that I could just relax but it didn't make any difference. Maybe it was the nurse-in-training who drove us crazy & kept us up the night before, or maybe it was Steven Tyler's singing of the National Anthem - whatever it was, I was contracting every 3-5 minutes and was in stages of early labor. Dr. Fesenmyer from my regular OB group came in to check on me and I was 2-3 cm dilated around 4:00ish. Since these contractions were causing my cervix to change, we needed to get them stopped ASAP or plan for the c-section.
We tried my regular medication and it didn't make a difference, so after checking things out around 6:00, they decided to move forward with magnesium sulfate. In the past, magnesium sulfate was used to control preterm labor, but it's pretty nasty medicine so it's no longer used for that purpose. They found that it's actually beneficial for the babies to prevent cerebral palsy, so they wanted me to take it for the boys' benefit and hope that it may also slow contractions as a side effect. The flu-like side effects that they warned me about didn't sound any worse than the contractions, so I said bring it on! I'm so thankful that through this all, we had our favorite nurse, Nancy, to help guide me through it. She got the magnesium sulfate all set up with my IV, got the catheter in (which we would need with the c-section anyway), and then we just waited to see if there was any slowing of those pesky contractions because we needed to stop my body from going into full labor. Fortunately I didn't really feel any of the nasty side effects that everyone warned me about. Unfortunately, it also didn't slow my contractions. After two hours of monitoring and another check-up from Dr. Fesenmyer, they decided it was "go time"...
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| 31 Weeks! |
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| The Amazing Nurse Nancy (left) |
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