Saturday, April 26, 2014

Vasa Previa Update: Week 30

Unfortunately, this week hasn’t been as boring as lasts…

Monday Ultrasound and NST

At the appointment with the specialist on Monday I had both an ultrasound and a nonstress test (NST). Baby is doing good! His stomach has caught up and is in the 40 something percentile (much better than 14th) and overall he’s in the 54th!!!!! That makes me feel so much better! It’s estimated that he weighs about 3 lbs 4 oz. Not bad!

Baby’s heart rate was also good with the NST. He’s a squirt and it’s always hard to get a read on it. We had to do it twice because the results the first time weren’t good enough (it dropped his heart rate a lot). I laid on my side to get it to work the second time.

Thursday NST and Appointment with Regular OB

Baby’s heart rate again looked great this day. Although we thought it dropped way low there for a bit. Turns out the machine was again having a hard time picking up little guys heart and it was picking up mine. Little squirt really makes it tricky.

The NST also picked up that I was having contractions pretty regularly (every 3-4 minutes). That surprised me. I could feel some tightening on some of them (felt like baby was stretching), but about half I didn’t feel at all.

The doctor wasn’t worried about them. They were probably Braxton Hicks (which I’ve never noticed with my other pregnancies), they weren’t painful and the baby’s heart rate was fine. It made me a little anxious to know contractions were actually happening, but I went home not feeling too worried at this point. Braxton Hicks happen.

I should mention that before my 3:00 appointment I had been working in the front flower beds all morning. Nothing terribly strenuous, but probably not taking it as easy as I should have.

Thursday Evening

That evening my back hurt on the right side in the middle and my stomach felt “weird.” I finally used a heating pad on my back and that helped it. I kept trying to figure out whether or not I was still having contractions, but I wasn’t sure.

Friday

All I wanted to do Friday was work in the yard again. Or clean out the garage. Or something productive and physical. But I knew that wasn’t a good idea because of the contractions from the previous day. So I was lazy most of the morning and then by the afternoon my messy house was driving me nuts. I had the kids help me clean the main floor of the house (which is just a kitchen and living room). I picked up stuff from the floor and I swept. Then I got ready for the day (showering, makeup, straightening hair). I did my makeup and hair in my bed, so not strenuous.

During that time I started to feel “weird” again. My lower back was hurting really bad and I couldn’t figure out what was going on with my stomach. It was uncomfortable and had tons of pressure at the bottom of it. I felt a little nauseous, too. I noticed some tightening, but thought it might just be baby stretching because it was never my full stomach.

Joel and I were dropping off our kids with his parents and going out to dinner with friends. I didn’t want to miss that, plus I wasn’t sure what was going on. It’s hard because pregnancy comes with a lot of aches and pains anyway. We still went to dinner and just discussed that we might need to leave in the middle. I pretty much decided I’d use the time out with them to evaluate what was going on and we could head to the hospital after if needed. I also thought maybe it was normal pregnancy back pain and maybe some gas or something.

We had dinner (it was delicious!) and then grabbed some ice cream after so we could talk with our friends more. It was a lot of fun, but by the end of it my back was really hurting and I was pretty sure I wasn’t having gas. There were weird pains and cramps and tightening going on. We called Joel’s parents to ask if the kids could stay there longer while we headed to the hospital just to be safe, but we then realized we’d forgotten my brother and his wife and child were supposed to be spending the night at our house (just a quick passing through on a long drive) and they were almost there. We changed plans and picked the kids up then headed home. We put the kids to bed there since we could leave them with my brother and we headed to the hospital.

Headed to the Hospital

On the way there we got pulled over for rolling through a stop sign in our neighborhood. This was the gist of the conversation after he told us why he pulled us over and asked for Joel’s license:

P: Are you headed somewhere fun tonight?
Me: The hospital (while patting my stomach).
P: It’s that time, is it?
Joel: We’re hoping not. It’s much too early.
Me: It’s a high risk pregnancy and they told us to be overly cautious, so we’re heading in.
P: Well, whether you’re making this up or not it’s a great story and I’m going to let you go. Good luck.

So that was nice of him. Then we drove two blocks and got stopped for 5 minutes by a train. Blah.

Hospital

Once we finally made it to the hospital (around 11:00) I got checked in and monitored. I was definitely having contractions. I felt just like I did when I was in the early stages of labor with my other kids. The contractions were 3 minutes apart, so they gave me a shot of Terbutaline. Crazy stuff! The nurse told me it would feel like I had just had 3 cups of coffee. My heart was racing! Joel could see my clothes move from it in my throat and chest area. Glad they warned me or I would have thought I was about to die or something. I was super jittery, too.

But it worked! The contractions went away almost immediately. Unfortunately, my doctor was out of town just for the night for a meeting. Another doctor came into talk to me. He was nice, but I would have felt way more comfortable with my doctor, who knew everything that was going on. The doctor said I was free to go when I felt comfortable to since baby looked fine and my contractions were gone. It was 1:00 am by this point. He also said I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted because of my situation.

I did end up staying 2 more hours just to make myself feel comfortable that contractions wouldn’t start up again and that baby was safe. It was quite miserable. I had a few more contractions, but since they weren’t in a pattern, they weren’t concerned. Also, baby’s heart rate kept going up quite a bit (180’s, sometimes higher), so that concerned me (his baseline is usually in the 130’s and 140’s). They said it was okay because he was super active and that’s a good thing to have the spike then. And the medicine that made my heart race could make his race a bit, too.  We ended up leaving at 3:00 am with instructions for modified bed rest for the next two days and to go into see my doctor on Monday (I already have an appointment with the specialist for a NST, so I’ll see him).  I’m quite anxious for that appointment.

Saturday

I have been quite exhausted today and have been taking it easy. So boring! I was achy this morning, I’m guessing from all of the contractions yesterday my uterus was just worn out. I took a bath and I felt better.

We went to a BBQ with friends for dinner. I wasn’t going to go, but decided I was bored out of my mind (plus I see this group only once or twice a year and wanted to see them) and went. It was an hour away and we stayed quite awhile. It was fun.

While there my upper leg and back started hurting. We were sitting in the kitchen around the table or counter most of the time, so it could be from that. I did feel a contraction or two on the drive home and my back really started to hurt. I took a bath when I got home and felt fine during it. About 10 minutes after the bath my back started hurting a ton!

I put a heating pad on it and that’s what I’m doing now while writing this. The pain is easing up quite a bit, so that’s good. My plan for now is to wait and see if the pain gets worse and/or if I feel anything in my stomach. At the hospital they told me that since the shot worked it meant I wasn’t in “true labor” and my cervix shouldn’t have changed. They couldn’t check it because of the “pelvic rest.” I would have needed a special ultrasound to check it and it was 1:00 in the morning, so I don’t think they really wanted to (or could… I don’t know). So hopefully it was all just false labor caused by over-exerting myself and it won’t happen so fully like that again.

It’s definitely made me anxious. I was planning on going into the hospital at 32 weeks and the thought of going in sooner is quite upsetting. I’ll obviously go in whenever I need to for my baby, but I hate having to leave my family for so long (and after being in the hospital for 4 hours, I really have no desire to go back).

So, that’s it! Hopefully things will go back to being boring because I am really not a fan of all this excitement.

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