Some Kind of Different: Pregnancy in One Dress (the 34th week... a lot of it)

So I can at least do every 4 weeks I guess! This past week was quite eventful though and even though I didn't get a proper picture with the chalkboard and all, here it is. Week 34, full of excitement adventure and danger. The week of preterm labour and my baby shower!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves! Lets find out what happens at 34 weeks! According to one of my updates that I believe doomed me "If you are worried about preterm labour, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies." Really you say!? Okay let's actually just skip over this business and get down to what happened one fine Wednesday of last week!

PART I:

Adventures of Preterm Labour

So Wednesday morning, Mr. Grey's day at preschool. I had dropped him off, all was well. Lumps and I were home being lazy bums as we waited for it to be time to pick Mr. Grey up and I had a contraction. I was a little confused because it was very much back labour, this pain down in your lower back that radiates to the front of your belly as it intensifies. First of all with my other pregnancies I never had a single contraction until I was in labour, second of all back labour didn't even happen until half way through labour with Mr. Grey so I was a little worried. But my phone played a jaunty Korean tune as it does to alert me that it is time to go hop in the car and pick up a child. So no time to dwell on my contraction. I felt fine! And then it happened again. In the 10 minute drive to the school I had another contraction complete with back labour!

Randomly throughout the day I would have a contraction here and there but then around 6pm they intensified big time. Darling Husband started worrying and after we got the kids in bed he made me call my Momma to make sure she was available to watch the boys in case we needed to go have a baby. I didn't want that to even happen. I stopped telling Darling Husband about my contractions and decided to see if a warm bath would help me any... and while I was at it I cleaned up and shaved, washed my face, brushed my teeth...packed my hospital bag...and sat in bed trying to figure out what to do. The boys were in bed and I didn't want to make my Momma come over. It was close to 11pm by now but damned if these contractions weren't getting worse! I finally went out to Darling Husband, who was oblivious to all that was going on thanks to Battlefield 3. I asked him if I could please drive myself to the hospital. I was sure everything would be fine. They would tell me to drink more water my contractions wouldn't even show on the monitor, it would be like last time but I just wanted to be certain everything was fine. They would want to monitor me for a couple of hours and send me home. I decided to call the consulting nurse before heading in because last time she gave them a heads up that I was coming in and things went a bit more smoothly. That did NOT go as planned. After I told her all that was going on she told me specifically not to drive myself. So we had to call my Mom to come over anyways. And so here I was!

Stuck in the hospital at 11pm exhausted, uncomfortable and I had to wake up my Momma and take my husband away from sleep when he had to work the next day! I do not like to be an inconvenience.

They hooked me up to the machine to monitor the baby and my contractions and sure enough I was having some pretty serious contractions! The nurse checked me I was about 1cm dilated, 60% effaced. They gave me a pill, Nifedipine, that is supposed to stop preterm labour. We waited for it to work...and it never did! They came back and said they wanted to try a shot that should stop the contractions. Came back with the shot and that stuff burns!!! I swear she was shooting some sort of venom into my arm. And then we waited again.

At first my contractions seemed to slow down but after about 30 minutes they started to pick back up again. So since it had a bit of an effect the first time they wanted to give me the shot again. This time I heard what they called it Terbutaline! I have heard way too much bad about this stuff, like how 2 shots is the max you should have! I was a little freaked out, I was already having some side effects from the first shot. I was shaking like a nervous chihuahua and nothing I did stopped it. Well the second shot did nothing at all! The nurse checked me again, 1 1/2cm dilated, 70% effaced. My midwife finally came in to talk to me. She told me babies born at 34 weeks are usually fine, and said she didn't want to do anything else because the next step is much tougher on me and the baby and she didn't think I needed to be put through that so close to full term. They were going to find me a room and admit me but first she wanted to talk to the OBs at the practice who are above her for their advice. A while later she returned. She told me she had talked to the OB doctor and he wanted to transfer me from the midwives to the OBs and they wanted to start me on an IV of magnesium sulfate. She explained that this was one of the more hardcore methods to stop preterm labour that she hadn't wanted for me. I would be hooked up to this IV for 24 hours and it could cause flu like symptoms, which for me means it would because I always get the horrible symptoms! But suddenly her opinion about how well babies born at 34 weeks changed, now she told us of how it might have to be transferred to Tacoma and could be in the hospital for a while! I was super frustrated especially since my BFF since 5th grade is a NICU nurse and I trust her opinion more than theirs and she said they were only saying that to cover their asses. As soon as she left the room Darling Husband broke down and cried, I don't deal well with man crying... I never know what to do when people who don't cry, actually do cry! So we sat there. Waiting for me to be admitted and pumped with drugs that would make me want to die. And then we got good news! My midwife came back and said she spoke with the OB again and he had gotten out of bed (by now it was like 4am) to do some more research and see if there was something else we could do and he wanted to hook me up to and IV of fluids and have me take a double dosage of the first pill again!

I got hooked up to my IV and took my pills. By now I was deliriously tired the nurse kept coming in and asking if I was having contractions and I honestly couldn't even answer her. I was sooooooo tired but I thought they were getting better, and then they finally left me alone enough that around 6am Darling Husband and I passed out, me in my bed strapped to itchy monitors and him in a chair slumped over with his head on the bed. I really thought I got a lot more sleep than I did but recounting this tale I was awake a 6am to take my thyroid meds and then at 7:30 a new nurse woke me up to give me a breakfast menu for some super nasty prison food. The nurse told me my contractions had slowed and were now about 8 minutes apart and to eat breakfast and after the midwife saw me I would be discharged.

And enter new midwife... My favorite midwife is on maternity leave and so this horrible old creature is taking her place (I scowl in disgust as I write about her). She walked in sat down and said, "So why are you here?" I know that doesn't sound too horrible it was mostly in her tone, like I was disrupting her day and she couldn't be bothered.

"Bitch I have been up all night having contractions, having hands shoved in my vagina and needles in my skin and you just come in sit down and say that shit!? Read my damn chart you old bag!" Okay I only said that in my head, but what the hell!? I don't even know you! You could at least pretend to be friendly, use a friendlier tone, something! This is the first time we have met! Shouldn't she be trying to make a good first impression!? I swear if she is the midwife on call when I go into labour again I will be blocking the door to the room and delivering this baby myself!

So anyways she comes in makes me tell her my entire background and checks me again, hardly any change from when my nurse checked me last although my nurse had tiny carny hands so I don't know how accurate it really was. And she tells me I can go! Sadly the horrors do not stop there! My new nurse comes in to take out my IV! I have no idea what the hell that woman was doing. She was already being totally unprofessional and whining about her job for the 3 hours I delt with her and then this. She peels off one side of the tape nicely and then suddenly she just rips the entire thing out! None of the normal peel back both sides of tape cover insertion of IV to skin area with gauze slide out IV and apply pressure business like they are supposed to do! She just ripped the whole thing out! I look down and my blood is all over the bed and my gown and the floor! And then she makes some joke about bloodletting! I got home and cleaned it up and it is all hurty and bruised up my arm and the hole is more like a tear than a hole! At least it was over.

END

PART II:

The Baby Shower

This baby shower was very stressful. I will not go into the details but there were quite a few times I just wanted to say, "Nevermind!!! I don't need this!" But no. I have two children. The oldest is five years old, number three will be here soon and I have never had a baby shower! Dammit I wanted one! I finally had friends! Well I am glad I didn't call it off even after the stress of getting it going, and then about half of the people who I checked with before letting my shower planning sister set the date ended up RSVPing no! I tried so hard to make things work for everyone. Trying to help them figure things out they were all in! And then they weren't! At one point I was pretty sure only two of my friends were going to be able to come! Even my own sister suddenly couldn't come! And she didn't even tell me directly she wasn't going to be there! She did some little dance around the possibility but I honestly thought she would just reschedule things and make it anyways, but nope! My Momma was how I found out she wasn't coming the week of the shower! It was all a bunch of crap I tell you! Buttons and her wonderful self stepped in to save the day by inviting Mama Buttons and her Auntie who I love to come! Then Stitches found a ride with former Hot Toddy Gabby, to my house and rode with me and my Momma and even former-er Hot Toddy Charmers followed us in her car! I am so glad everything turned out so well I had a blast!