Labor & Delivery

On Sunday, January 5th, I woke up to get ready for church and just felt "off."  There was nothing specific that hurt, I just knew something was wrong.  We decided to stay home from church and I laid down on the couch to rest and see if I felt better.

Soon thereafter I noticed a pain in my lower left side/back that was getting stronger and stronger.  I moved back to our bed to see maybe if I could take a nap.  The pain got so bad I was finally in tears and called my doctor.  By the time the after-hours nurse called me back I could barely talk to her through my sobs.  I remember telling her "something is wrong."  She told us to head to labor and delivery so I could get checked out.

On the way there I clutched to the hand rail on the ceiling and just prayed we could get there quickly.  I kept telling Matt I couldn't make it there; I was in so much pain.  At that point we thought maybe it was appendicitis or kidney stones.

I got up to L&D, into a room, and hooked up to the monitors (difficult with my back pain and twins.)  I kept telling them that I just needed something for the pain...like, NOW! They wanted to see if I was having contractions and do a full work-up before talking to the doctor.  They called for an ultrasound and it was the worst 30 minutes of the entire day.  I had to sit up in a very uncomfortable position while he just pushed right over where my pain was located.  I cried through the entire thing.

Finally I got some pain meds! Turns out I had some fluid building up around my kidney which was causing the pain.  In the meantime the monitor was picking up some "uterine activity" that the nurses were concerned with and wanted to give me some terbutaline to ensure they didn't turn into real contractions.  At this point in my pregnancy I was 26 weeks so the twins were viable but very small.  I knew my body like to contract from my pregnancy with Carter so I didn't argue with them when they suggested the terb.  I was so happy to have my pain meds I would have agreed to anything at that point.

Over the next two hours I got two more doses of terbutaline as my "uterine activity" turned into contractions.  And then got stronger.  I wasn't feeling anything and tried to explain to them that my body just has contractions all throughout my pregnancy.  Of course, they were concerned with the fact that I was pregnant with twins and had a cerclage in place.  If I did start to dilate my cerclage would tear and if it turned into real labor they couldn't support such micro-preemies at our hospital in Katy.  They finally decided to put me on magnesium to really stop any sort of contractions.  Magnesium is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad medication that has awful side effects.  I was so confused as to why we were so concerned with contractions when I originally came in for a pain in my back!

So they started the magnesium and I started burning up and throwing up.  I kept contracting so they upped my dosage.  At this point I was pretty out of it and they started to talk to me about transferring downtown because they couldn't stop my labor.  Matt said they were even debating having me life-flighted downtown instead of waiting for an ambulance.  I ended up signing all of the paperwork for a c-section, in case they needed to deliver the babies.

Finally around midnight they loaded me and Matt into an ambulance and transported us downtown to Children's Memorial Hermann.  I don't remember much at this point since the magnesium really had me loopy, but I do remember all the bumps we hit in the road on our way to the hospital.  My back was still hurting, plus I had an IV and catheter in at this point and was very uncomfortable.

When we got downtown I was placed in triage in the emergency room while they prepped an OR for my c-section.  This was when Matt and I really started to get scared (I'm sure Matt got scared way before this but I was too out of it to worry much.)  I re-signed all the consents for an emergency c-section.  They said while the OR was being prepped they wanted to try a different medication on me to see if it slowed my labor.  Guess what...it did! They moved me to a room on the labor and delivery floor and said they would continue to monitor me.  By 5am my contractions had completely stopped! (I tried to tell them this would happen but no one would listen to me!)

The next day, Monday, Matt stayed with me and we were visited by a ton of different doctors.  I was assigned a Maternal Fetal Medicine team that would come up with a protocol to keep me pregnant as long as possible.  We had an hour-long ultrasound where they measured everything on the babies (that was the first time Matt had seen both babies on ultrasound) and re-checked my kidneys.  By this point my pain was completely gone.  They told me I was on permanent bed rest and would stay in the hospital until the babies were delivered, hopefully around 36 weeks.  A 10 week hospital stay! We spent the rest of the day trying to come up with a plan for what we would do about Carter and Matt's work.  I figured I would leave there on bed rest but I never thought I would have to stay in the hospital that entire time.  That evening Nana and Carter came to see me and take Matt home.

The next day, Tuesday, my MFM team rounded in the morning and said I could go home! What?!? I was just told the day before that I would be staying throughout my pregnancy.  Now they were saying I could go home?!? They explained that everything looked good on ultrasound (my cervix was still long and strong, showing no evidence of dilation or effacement) and my monitoring look good.  My contractions had not come back at all and there was no reason for me to stay.  They even said I didn't have to be on bed rest when I got home, I just needed to be careful not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk.

So PawPaw came to pick me up and I spent the rest of the day in bed.  I followed up with Dr P on Wednesday and she disagreed with their statement that I didn't need to be on bed rest (as did I.)  She placed me on strict bed rest with the possibility of switching to modified bed rest if I could make it to 30 or 32 weeks.

I'm thankful everything ended up being okay, the babies stayed put, and I was at home.  I know Daddy was there looking out for us and made sure the girls kept baking for awhile longer.  I'm also thankful that this didn't happen until January when Matt was done with football and was able to be home more often.  I was terrified something like this would happen during football season and it would have been a disaster for us.  I was put on bed rest at 22 weeks with Carter and I made it to 26 weeks with the twins.