After I posted yesterday, the contractions started again. The terbutaline only worked for a little bit. They increased the nifedipine, and now I'm maxed out on that. I had a total of 4 shots of terbutaline last night, and as the night went on they did less and less to stop the contractions. At 2am, one of the doctors was here for a delivery, and he stopped in while the nurse was putting a terbutaline pump in my leg. Theory was that if I had a continuous dose of terbutaline, the contractions would stop.

Not the case. The contractions kept getting stronger all night long.

After almost 24 hours of contractions, they came back in with the magnesium sulfate. FINALLY they're almost stopped. I'm still having a contraction every once in awhile, but it's a lot better than it was before.

Actually just had one as I was typing this. Fun.

They're still going to do what they can to stop everything. We'll see how today goes.

Experimenting with Tocolytics

I'm on a schedule to get medications every 6 hours, at 6 and 12. This morning when I woke up, something just felt wrong. I told the nurse, and she said to let her know if it got worse. It took a while, but I figured out that I was having contractions, and they were getting a lot stronger.

They put me on the monitor at 7, and soon after the doctor came in and decided they would try increasing the Nifedipine I've been taking to help stop any contractions. An hour later, there was no change. I was having contractions about every 10 minutes, but the baby looked okay on the monitor. Since the medication increase didn't help, they came in and gave me a shot of Terbutaline. I hate terbutaline. It increases your heart rate and I got so incredibly antsy, but I couldn't move with the monitor on. Good news is that it stopped the contractions and things have been quiet for a few hours now.

Doc said that even though 29 weeks is a great place to be, they're still going to do everything they can to keep me from having this baby, and they'll put me back on the magnesium if they have to. But things are calmed down now, so we're not going to worry too much right now. Okay, I'm not going to worry too much. I'm sure Jon will worry enough for all of us!

4 straight weeks in the hospital. It's funny to have a doctor tell you, "You go girl!"

No news, really. I don't think there's even plans for anything to write about. Just more laying around. I dropped something last night and decided that I could bend down to get it. I got stuck. I learned that my knees don't work like they used to. That was fun!

Jon brought up some sunflowers he cut out of a field and brought them up here. They're really pretty, and I'd take a picture to put up here, but the camera is at home. I would probably have some pictures of the room, but Jon kept trying to take terrible pictures of me up here and I made him take it home. Maybe sometime I'll be able to trust him with a camera again, but not today...

28 weeks, 3 days

It's always exciting when I can leave this room! We went down the hall this morning to do the weekly ultrasound, and this time we had sort of a crowd in the room. A new resident, two new interns, and a new ultrasound tech were in there with the doctor and the regular ultrasound tech. It was a little crazy.

I think he looks like his dad.

The baby was moving around enough to make the doctor happy, and everything they checked on looked good. It looks like he'll be staying head down, and he definitely looked bigger. The only thing they couldn't check on were how his lungs were doing because he wasn't cooperating. They had the weirdest buzzing stick thing to poke my belly with, trying to get him to move. He did, but not in the direction they were hoping. The fluid level is back up to 16, and they're okay with that. My cervix is still really short... I want to say they said 1cm, but they measured a couple things so I may have gotten them confused. But nothing was pushing through, and the stitch is still doing it's job.

We didn't measure for growth this time around because there wouldn't be a huge measurable change from the last time. The doctor said to add 4-5 oz to the last weight, so maybe 2 lbs 11oz?

Really, I think that's a Connealy nose, not a Bruce nose.

The culture came back from the infection test, and it looks like it was E. Coli. I was a little worried when I heard that, but I guess that it's a pretty common cause, and the antibiotics work in a couple days. It doesn't sound like it should effect the baby at all.

Other than that, just more bed rest!

No News = Good News

I never really thought I would, but I really miss our pets right now. I'm sure they have no clue what's going on, and from what Jon says, they've been digging for China in the backyard. Sometimes Jon will confuse them and put me on speaker phone. Chile talks back, and Jack runs around trying to find me. I feel so bad for them. Queso has taken to sleeping next to Jon's face. She used to sleep at his feet, but I guess she's slowly been taking over his head. She's such a brat.

Oh Chile dog.

Not much going on up here. There's some new med students doing their rotation up here, so different people are waking me up at 5am. I hope we'll do an ultrasound tomorrow since it's been a week since the last one. Otherwise, no contractions, nothing to really worry about for the time being.

Mystery Pain

Yesterday morning, I started having a dull backache, and as the day went on it just got worse. We tried hot packs, massage, Tylenol, stretching, and nothing worked. The thought was maybe I pulled or strained some muscle getting out of bed. I was pretty miserable most of the day, there was no way to be comfortable in bed. Around 10pm, we decided to try a test, and TA DAH! I have an infection from the catheter. AWESOME. So they started me on a different antibiotic, and gave me some Percocet. It was the most amazing thing ever. Slept like a rock.

Baby is good, I'm feeling better. Not much else going on! Everyone is so excited that we got to 28 weeks. Now they want to be greedy, Dr B told me this morning. Greedy is good!

28 weeks!

We made it! The first time I came in and needed the circlage, it didn't seem like we would ever get this far, but I'm still pregnant! AND! AND! The doctor was so happy with the monitoring that this morning she decided to stop the magnesium sulfate and see how I do with contractions!! It's only been about 20 minutes, so we'll have to wait a little longer to see the effects of this change.

28 weeks is a pretty big developmental milestone as far as the survival and complication rates with babies. I found a chart that broke it down pretty well. If you compare this baby to Will, the differences are huge. The risk of respiratory distress drops from 71% to 36%, chronic lung disease drops from 47% to 15%, Inflammation or death of part of the GI tract drops from 11% to 6%, the risk of infection goes from 44% to 17%, survival to 120 days or hospital discharge jumps from 56% to 94% and survival without any of these complications goes from 36% to 79%!

Will had problems with everything on that list and more. He had to have part of his intestines removed due to the death of part of his GI tract, he had respiratory issues, and he was constantly fighting infections. At this point, it looks like this kid could still have problems, but not nearly as many or as severe! We still know that there are all kinds of things that might not work out, but we can't help but be excited that we've gotten as far as this, and that everything looks so stable.

I did ask the doctor this morning about my chances of going home and she said there was a small chance, but we definitely have to make sure that I'll be okay without the mag. We'll take that small chance!

Thanks for checking in today, and I'm so glad I could write up some good news!