On April 28th, at 26 weeks pregnant I was hospitalized for three days due going into pre-term labor. The night before, I instinctively I felt I should not going into work the day it happened but I didn’t exactly feel sick, I felt more like over-taxed and stressed. I had a lot I wanted to accomplish at work so, being the dutiful worker that I am, I went in anyway. My belly was hard most of that day. So, late afternoon, I decided I should check in with my nurse-midwife. I did not expect her to recommend that I go in to triage for observation right away. I tried to talk my way out of going in. I was really wiped out and, Billy and I had just made our daily 20 minute trek to rendevouz at the AC Transit Transbay Terminal. Were just about to board our bus home to the East Bay.
She was firm in her insistance that I go in to be monitored. I decided with tears rolling down my face that I would follow her advice. I was scared and frustrated that we again could not tell for sure if this was pre-term labor. I had already been in to triage a month or so before and was sent home after an hour of oberservation. Then, few weeks later I had another scare with amount of contractions I was having for a few hours but the midwife did not return my call until after it began resolving. That time, they told me that, had they talked with me sooner they would have had me come in for observation but that I should go home, relax and observe for a while longer. Things calmed down and I didn’t have any more issues until April 28th.
On the long, cross-town, bus ride over, I began timing the contractions. They were 2 minutes apart as far as I could tell. Each of the three times I have had one of these scary contracting episodes the sensations were somehow different. That confused me.
When I went into the maternity triage for observation nurses hooked me up to monitors and confirmed that I was indeed contracting every 2 minutes. Alarmed, they tried to stop the contractions with this pink substance in a syringe that gave me the shakes. They described that it would feel like having 5 cups of of very strong coffee.
Trying to entertain and distract me, Billy read to me from a book a co-worker had given him about expectant fathers. I found one bit so funny that I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Then we began laughing at my uncontrolled laughter and that it was affecting the contraction monitor on my belly. I kept trying to stop laughing and to get Billy to stop laughing because we seemed to have a contagious loop of laugher going on. I told him “shhh we’re going to get in trouble!” all the while laughing. A few moments later, in comes this gruff older nurse who said annoyed and concerned “what’s going on in here?!” I tried to tell her right away that everything was ok and what had happened. She wasn’t happy at all and told me that I had to calm down then left in frustration. I felt put in my place. This was not a compassionate nurse.
The contraction calming effects wore off after 20 minutes so they gave me another dose. By this time I had to pee like nobody’s business because water is supposed to help calm uterine contractions, and, I drank a lot. They unplugged me from the monitors, draped the cords around my neck, and asked me to give them a sterile urine sample while I was at it. Giving a sterile urine sample takes quite a few precise steps. First off, trying to open the tightly sealed package the kit was in proved very difficult shaking as I was from the drug, the cold temperature of the hospital, and the sheer amount of urine I was trying to control inside of my pregnant body. First you have to clean carefully 3 times with 3 separate wipes. Then, you have to take the sample “mid-stream” which, let me tell you, was hard to control at this point. While my adventure in the bathroom was going on I heard the gruff old nurse outside wondering out loud what was going on in there and that she had a patient waiting. This made me all the more anxious and frustrated and angry.
I didn’t want any of this to happen to me. I wanted to have a normal full term natural home birth with a midwife and here I was in a sterile hospital with cranky nurse in danger of giving a high-risk birth under the direction of a doctor to a premie. I told her I was sorry, that I had been trying to hurry and that the drugs made it hard for me. When she didn’t ease up I told her I didn’t appreciate the way she was talking to me and I started crying. I made my way back to my room crying and shaking, looking an awful sight in my hospital gown that I was trying to keep closed in the back. The main nurse who was tending to me was in the room when I got back and she asked me what happened. I told her and she said yes, that that woman could be harsh and difficult. She said she was sorry. She was very sweet about it all. I got back into the hospital bed, she plugged me back in and they continued to monitor me.
The second dose of the pink drug wore off too. The doctor came in and told me that the drug was unsuccessful so they were going to admit me to the hospital for a few days. ADMIT ME?! A FEW DAYS?! No, this could not be happening. The doctor explained why I had to do it: the baby is too little to come out. We have to stop the contractions.
With clever (albeit strange) improvisation, she put a bed pan covered in fabric under me to raise me up a bit so that she could check my cervix. Turns out I was dilated 1 centimeter.
The gruff nurse came in and was all apologies. “I’m sorry honey, I’m just a gruff old lady from The South. I didn’t mean you any harm.” She kept touching me, patting me and stroking my arm and gushing all these words. “Can you forgive me?” I told her I appreciated her talking to me about it.
They needed to put me on a magnesium IV drip to stop the contractions as well as antibiotics for the, if I have this correct, the strep that is in some part of my reproductive system. The gruff old nurse asked me if it was alright if she inserted the IV needle into my vein. OH NO! Well… OK. I guess. I really wanted the Super Nice Nurse to do it, but then I wondered if they were doing me a favor by having the best nurse do this tricky and painful part. The other nurse seemed okay with it and I sort of fancied her as my protector. The needle went in, I was wheeled to the hospital room where the could keep me then began administering the initial high dose of magnesium. I got hotter and hotter, began to throw up, then began to pass out, then moaned as I felt the peak of extreme and strange discomfort just then I began to come down. This all happened in about 20 minutes time. This was a strange world I was in. From then for the next 3 days I was dopey. On the second night, they weaned me off of the magnesium and switched me to a different drug in pill form called Nifedipine thats purpose was the same, to block the contractions, but it is less intense.
Billy stayed with me nearly the whole time. I was very thankful for his support and companionship.
[This post is getting long and I have more to say, so I will continute it later... ]