Hospital Bed Rest - Days 17,18 and 19

Sorry, I didn't have a lot to post the past few days. Well, here I am, still on hospital bed rest. I am 30 weeks today! I never thought I would make it this far. I was supposed to possibly be going home today but if you know Tim and I, you know nothing ever goes as planned for us....seriously, it doesn't.

I started off the morning getting hooked up to the non-stress test and I was having a lot of contractions. They weren't painful but some of them were noticeable and some I didn't even feel. The doctor decided to manually check my cervix, which by the way, is never fun. She said the cervix was closed/not dilated and is the same as when I was admitted a few weeks ago. She then sent me down for an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that there hasn't been any changes since last week, which is good. The cerclage is still holding in place, the baby looked good and the cervix length was still about 7-8mm. The ultrasound tech said she could see hair on our baby's head. I wonder if she has red hair like Avery??

After I got back from the ultrasound and ate lunch, I was then hooked up to the monitor for 3 hours. I continued to have contractions.  The doctor decided to start me on procardia, 10mg, 3 times a day. I, of course, decided to google procardia and it said that its used to help calm the uterus down and can be used for high blood pressure. I am nervous taking it because my blood pressure always runs low so I am scared it will make it even lower. The doctor wants me to use the medication for a day or two to see if it works and if it does, I will most likely be able to go home and be on bed rest.  She said I was having contractions but wasn't in labor, that my uterus is just irritable. I took one dose of procardia and so far it hasn't made me lightheaded or anything. My next dose isn't until 12:30 am so it sucks I have to get woken up to take it.

Avery and Tim came to visit today :)

YAY, I made it to 30 weeks! Next goal is 32!

Being hooked up to a monitor for close to 3 hours isn't fun

Sorry, for some reason its not letting me turn this pic around. Just tilt your head to the right and you will see the baby with her mouth open a little bit and her hand up.

Avery doing what she does best when she comes to visit..eating all my snacks!

Hospital Bed Rest - Days 8 and 9

There really isn't much to update. I am just posting an update so my sister doesn't yell at me. She came to see me today and brought me a Starbucks and Tim and Avery came to see me today and brought me pizza! We had Avery's IEP meeting with her teachers this morning. I had to call in and be on speaker phone because I couldn't be there in person. It sounded like Avery will be getting all of the same services that she was getting in her old school district. I am happy about that. They are going to try her out with a personal FM system..the teacher wears a little microphone and Avery wears a little receiver connected to her hearing aids. We will see how it goes. Not much else is going on here in the hospital (which is a good thing!) I think tomorrow I am due for more blook work so I will most likely be woken up at 5:45am. Getting closer to 30 weeks. I am now 28+4!

Look, I am actually eating pizza!

Yum, finally some real food!

Feeling my baby sister move

Giving her a kiss

 Family time!

 I have some new decorations in my room. Avery made me an apple with a hand print at school and Eddie colored me a picture!

You Want to Sew What Together?

On August 11 I went to the high risk doctor for a cervical length check up. Two weeks prior, when I was a little over 20 weeks, my cervix measured 39mm (3.9cm) which was normal. The doctor said I didn't have to schedule a follow up because she was happy with the cervix length. I ended up scheduling a follow up for 2 weeks later, just for peace of mind and thank God I did. In two weeks my cervix had shortened to 19mm (1.9cm). The doctor said think of your cervix like a funnel and the end of the funnel was opening up. I did not want to go into labor this early. We decided it was best that I have an emergency cerclage placed the next day.

A cerclage is essentially when they put a few stitches in your cervix to prevent the baby from coming out. Yeah, doesn't sound like fun does it?

They scheduled me for an emergency cerclage the next day at 3:30. I was not allowed to eat anything 8 hours prior to the surgery so that morning I woke up at 6:30am and ate since I knew I would be starving. I arrived at the hospital 2 hours prior and just waited and waited. They started my IV and hooked me up to a BP machine. The alarm kept going off because my BP is so low..has been running around 84/50. They finally turned the alarm off because they were sick of having to come in.

I was very nervous for this surgery.

1.     Because they are sewing my cervix closed. I mean, come on, that doesn’t sound like fun at all, does it?

2.   I never had a spinal before.

I walked down the long hallway(while trying to keep the back of my gown closed) and into the operating room. They had me sit on the side of the bed and hug a pillow while I got the numbing medication for the spinal. They said that was the worst part and that it felt like a bee sting. It did feel like a lot of stinging. I was then given the spinal and slowly (very slowly) I was starting to go numb from the waste down.

The anesthesiologist would take an alcohol wipe, wipe my forehead to show me it was cold and wet and then would wipe my upper thigh to keep check to see how much I could feel. I kept telling them I could still feel everything. There was no way in hell I was going to let them do this surgery if I could still feel something..lol. Then one side started getting numb but the other side wasn’t so they titled the whole operating table and let the medicine run to that side of my body for a few minutes. I was finally fully numb and they began the procedure.

The doctor first did an ultrasound to check my cervix..turns out it was down to 17mm (1.7cm) so it was good I decided to have this procedure. I could feel pressure and pulling but I didn’t feel any pain. The surgery and spinal wasn’t bad but I HATED being awake during the procedure and hearing them talk to each other about what was going on..plus I was spread eagle on the table so that was a little weird. Luckily the anesthesiologist kept talking with me to try to get my mind off everything that was going on. The procedure went fine but I kept shaking the whole time..the anesthesiologist said that was normal so I wasn’t too concerned about it. The whole procedure (once they finally began when I was numb) only took about 20 minutes. I was wheeled back into the recovery room.

During recovery I started to feel some cramping and possibly contractions. I told the nurse and they hooked me up to a monitor and to observe. Turns out I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes. At that point I thought for sure I was going to be delivering a 23 weeker that day. I was given Indocin for the cramps and contractions and luckily that stopped them. I was given a script for Indocin every 6 hours as needed for cramping. When I got home..I took the Indocin round the clock, every 6 hours for the next 2 days because I was so scared I was going to go into labor.

I had a follow up a few days later and they did an ultrasound to check the cervical length…my cervix went back to 37mm(3.7cm) which was awesome. So far, so good..no more contractions/cramping and I am not on bedrest. I have a follow up this Thursday to check cervix length..hopefully I didn’t just jinx myself saying that everything is going good J