My First Week of “Rest”

So I left of last week with the doctor giving me some meds and strict orders of staying home and resting. And this is exactly what I was planning on doing.
Wednesday went by fine, though I guess a bit boring, as I tried to adjust to doing nothing but sitting and lying down all day. On Thursday though… Now Thursday was quite a bit different.
I woke up as usual, and ate my breakfast as usual. Then about 15 minutes or so later, ran to the bathroom to get rid of that usual breakfast any way possible… and again after another 20 minutes… and again when there was nothing left to get rid of… and again… and again… and again…
After the first few trips to the bathroom, James and I concluded that I most likely caught the virus that our neighbors got hit with last weekend. I tried to drink small sips of water to keep hydrated, but it didn’t stay down long. When I got to bathroom-trip #6 (just on the throw-up side) where all that was coming up was stomach acid for the fourth time, I decided to call my midwife and ask her what we should do. I knew at this point that most likely I’ll end up in the hospital for an IV and some meds, as well as a quick check-up of the baby.
What I didn’t realize is that all that throwing up was stressing out my abdomen muscles, causing them to contract enough to find myself at only 10mm during the cervical exam. That’s all the doctor and my midwife (who came right away to drive us to the hospital with her daughter for translation support) needed to hear and decide that the best course of action was for me to enjoy a nice month-long (until I’m 36 weeks) stay in this hospital, effective immediately.
I got set up in a nice single room, where after some time and paperwork, I changed into my PJs (thank goodness for my foresight) and got hooked up to an IV, which had some meds to prevent contractions and my cervix effacing any more. James went home to pick up things I needed, and I tried to rest, which in my current state was pretty impossible.

Here’s the summary of rest of the week:
I started Friday exhausted, having not slept at all, and weak from lack of food. I was starving and I welcomed breakfast… until it all came back up again. Though I still felt miserable for most of the day, by the evening I started to feel a little better and went to bed at 8pm.
Saturday morning I realized that the reason I wasn’t getting any rest wasn’t because I was sick but because the bed was just waaay too hard to get comfortable on. So I asked one of the nurses if she can do anything, and I got two of these blow up mats that made the bed much more comfortable. I also had a few visitors. First, my supervisor came by to see me and brought me some beautiful flowers. Then my midwife popped in just to check how I was feeling. Finally, our neighbor came by and brought an amazing picture from her 4-year old son. (That’s me and the baby in my tummy… in breech position. lol)
Sunday morning was the first time when I felt somewhat rested. I was getting used to the hospital routine, which is:
-    Wake up around 6-6:30 by a nurse, who’s coming to check the baby’s heartbeat.
-    Breakfast is at 7:30.

-    Doctor comes by around 9AM if it’s a special day (check-ups, etc).
-    External baby monitoring for twenty minutes a little after 10AM.
-    Lunch is at noon.
-    Another check up on baby’s heartbeat around 2PM.
-    Dinner is at 6PM.

-    Final baby heartbeat check-up around 9PM.
-    Lights out at 10PM.
Also, my supervisor’s manager (our mid-level boss I guess), came by to see me and brought me an amazing fruit basket, full of apples, bananas, kiwi, oranges, pear jelly, and on the side, strawberries!!! \(^o^)/ (This last one was gone before picture could be taken.) Deeeeelicious! Our neighbor came by again for a little bit, too, and brought yummy pastries! (Sorry, these were also gone before I remembered to take a picture of them.)On Monday, the doctor checked the baby on the ultrasound. While healthy, our baby is still in the breech position, and because of this, we still don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl. Some good friends came by to visit and kept me company, and that was fun.
Tuesday went by without anything special happening, and then Wednesday I finally had the check-up I was waiting for! Here was the day with some good news! My cervix was back over 16mm, so the doctor decided to lower my medication. She also said that if things continue to improve (goal of 20-25mm), she’ll change me over to oral meds, and then I might be able to go home early and be home for my bed rest! So my “goal,” if it can be called that, is to reach over 20mm by next Wednesday’s check-up.
And there you have it… Ups and downs, but overall with a healthy baby with a strong heartbeat and lots of kicking, and an optimist mommy-to-be, who is really hoping she can coax her baby to turn head-down before the doctors have a stroke… (^.^)v

And then there was 16…

While there was silence here in the blog, things were quite busy during the past couple of weeks.
First, James and I had a plan to sort through, re-organize, and clean up the whole apartment in order to prepare and make room for the baby. This was to be done only one room at a time on Saturdays, so we wouldn’t overwhelm ourselves and so that I can take it slow and rest as we’re doing things. So far the bedroom is done and the living room is about 80% finished and still awaiting completion, because…

Well, we also went to the doctor back on the 21st. It was originally just a regular check-up to compliment seeing my midwife. However, things didn’t go quite as smoothly as we’d hoped.
There were two problems the doctor seemed really concerned about:

1. The baby is currently/still in a complete breech position.
2. My cervix is thinner than normal.

The first concern was really not a surprise (this has been the case all along until now) and also not really a concern to us yet, as I think the baby still has plenty of time to turn around, though I might be mistaken…

The second was more worrisome. For those in the know, this was also not a total surprise, we kind of expected it to happen, but if I must be honest, I guess I started to feel a bit too optimistic that maybe, just maybe, we were lucky enough to avoid this problem all together.

A quick recap… A few years ago, just before JET, I had a procedure called a cone biopsy to remove some close-to-cancerous cells from my cervix. One of the risks of this procedure is that even though the cervix heals fine, there’ll always be a piece missing, leaving it somewhat weaker in the future, so much so that potentially it could be too weak to allow me to carry a baby full term and possibly resulting in second or third trimester miscarriages, or in a premature birth. This condition is called an incompetent cervix. Unfortunately, the likelihood of this is not something the doctors could give me a percentage for; they said we’ll just have to see what happens when we get pregnant. Well, obviously we did, and when I told my doctor-at-the-time about my history, she told me not to worry, it doesn’t happen very often and we’ll keep an eye on it. To up our chances, I tried to take extra good care of myself and the baby, and things were going fine, even back in November, when my newer doctor told me I was good to go on our New York City trip over the holidays.

However, now the picture was somewhat different. The length of a cervix that’s considered normal is anything above 30mm. I was down to 24mm. To try and get a better picture, the doctor asked me to come back a week later for another check up, which we did last Saturday, along with my midwife and an assistant midwife who spoke English and was there to help with any language problems.

During this visit we realized that while just having one or the other problem would probably not cause such a concern, having both together was a bit too much for this doctor and clinic (and of course my midwife too) to handle. They were seriously worried that even though my cervix has not thinned out any further according to the ultrasound, the baby could be born premature with the added complication of being breech, especially if I keep biking, which is a must for work. So in the end everyone agreed the best course of action was to refer me to a bigger hospital that has a NICU for further check ups, and to put me on sick leave as soon as possible, with absolutely no more biking until after delivery, and to stay at home and rest in the meantime.

Sick leave was requested, was approved on Sunday, and appointment to the hospital was made for yesterday (Tuesday). We took a taxi, because it costs only slightly more than public transportation for the two of us combined with the convenience of no walking required for me, and off we went. During this check up, we found out that my cervix was now only 16mm (what happened in those three days, I have no idea…), and was given some sort of medicine to take three times a day after meals, with orders of resting at home (not even short and slow walks outside are permitted at this point), and to come back in a week to see how things changed.

And this is where we are right now. I’m trying not to worry, use my time off productively (YAAY knitting, studying Japanese, and blogging), and bugging James as little as possible. I really hope that on our next check up we won’t get more worrisome news, and that maybe by that time I’ll be able to coax the baby into a head down position with some tricks and tips from various sources. Wish us luck! (^.^)v