Down For The Count

Okay - I'm 34 3/7 today which makes me realize that I'm going to be having a baby, like, really soon. I'm not quite sure that I'm "ready" for that, but I feel relatively "prepared."

I've had some time to think about the prospect of becoming a mother, lots of time, actually...because I got put on bed rest.

Wednesday was like any other day for me - I got up, ate cottage cheese and a piece of peanut butter toast and finished it off with a cold glass of cranberry juice (lately, that's all I want to eat for breakfast; weird). I immediately started into the hustle and bustle of painting more fish on the walls of the nursery; a daunting task but one that I enjoy. I turn on the radio and totally tune out the stresses of life while I stencil brightly colored fish on my son's walls. It's been pretty therapeutic for me amid the other stressors I am dealing with.

At about 1300 I started getting really terrible, sharp pains in my belly. They would last for maybe 30 seconds to a full minute and would then go away. Then they would come back. They weren't predictable, so I cast them aside as me being dehydrated. I filled up my Nalgene bottle with ice water and kept painting. The pains kept coming. I only stencilled three fish (it takes about an hour a fish, then about an hour to clean up...) and I called it a day because I was so uncomfortable. I headed into the kitchen, ran a load of dishes, and stared intently at the browning bananas on the counter wishing that they would magically turn themselves into banana bread, "I'll make it tomorrow," I said to myself. Another pain shot through my abdomen, stopping me mid-walk from the kitchen to the living room; "I need to rest," I said to Lola.

By 1830 the pains were still coming in an unpredictable pattern, but not easing in their intensity. I called my girlfriend Kim, a NICU RN/mother of three, and ran the day's events past her. "Give it an hour and if there's no relief, call your doc." That's exactly what I was going to do, but needed moral support. At 2000 I paged my physician and told him what was up.

"Are you sure they aren't contractions?" he asks me...
"I think they are, but I don't know. I've never done this before. You tell me." I reply. (My doctor and I have a great relationship - I never feel like I have to hold back my true personality with him; I'm pretty blunt).
"Alright, I want you to come on in [to St. Mary's] and get put on the monitor. Let's see what we've got here. I'll tell the girls you're coming."

So, I find Kreat and very casually say, "You might want to get dressed, and I'm going to jump into the shower. We have to go to the hospital." Keep in mind that Kreat has been so nonchalant about this whole "my wife's pregnant/I'm going to be a dad" thing, and for the first time, I saw a little fire in his eyes. He did not flip out or fly into a panic, but it certainly got his attention. I was glad to see that he wasn't a robot.

We got to the hospital and I must admit, it felt a little funny to be a patient. The entire staff that was on that night are very good work-friends of mine, which was great because I know them and I trust their abilities, but it was kind of weird. I got changed into the ever-so-lovely gown, peed in the specimen cup and laid down. Kreat asked me why I didn't just hook myself up to the monitor, which I could have done without problem, but I was there as a patient, not as a nurse.

Rachel came into the room, greeted me with a big smile and was very professional. She asked me what was goin' on and why I came in, what other symptoms I was having, etc. She hooks me up to the monitor and there I laid for about fifteen minutes. The whole time, I'm reading my own strip and making commentary to Kreat, "Baby looks great. My uterus looks like crap." I showed Kreat what I saw and confirmed it when Rachel returned - "You're not dehydrated [they can tell from when they dip my pee] and baby is looking really good, but you have one irritable uterus that is really liking to contract."

She had the small ultrasound machine with her to check placement of the baby. Before she even started, I told her what we already knew, "He's totally breech. His head's right here [I put my hand on my belly under my right breast]. He's been there since I was 21 weeks." We took a quick look and there he sat. Happy and breech. Nothing new for us. She hooked me back up to the monitor and left to call my doctor. I was able to avoid a cervical check - because I begged and pleaded to bypass that at this stage - and here's what was determined after Rachel spoke with my doctor:

I'm not really in preterm labor, but I'm have lots of preterm contractions. The bad thing about that is because baby is breech and these contractions are so frequent (I first noticed them about three weeks ago...) that baby is being wedged into my pelvis in the breech position, which does not bode well for a vaginal birth, or for the fact that we were going to try version (a manual technique to try to turn baby into the vertex position) at 36 weeks. However, these contractions are muddying up the whole thing.

So, because my son is a turd and is already making the rules around here, my version appointment was moved up to Monday 07/28, which is 35 weeks, because the more time I spend contracting with him breech the harder it is going to be to move him. I left the hospital with bedrest and bathroom priviledges only. That sucks.

Another problem we face is that version is not without possible complications. Three things can happen with aversion:
1) my water can break
2) I can abrupt [my placenta can tear away from my uterus]
3) I can go into labor
None of these are very good things to have happen at 35 weeks. And there is no guarantee that my baby will turn around; it's about 50/50.

So, if one of the above mentioned things occurs, I go to emergency C-section and deliver a healthy, but premature, baby who will spend like 3 weeks in the NICU.

If none of the above mentioned things occur, there's still a chance that baby will not turn. In which case, I get scheduled for a C-section, because babies are not meant to be born vaginally when they are breech.

However, there is the chance that none of the above mentioned things will occur, baby will turn, and I will have him vaginally. We shall see what happens.

I don't have to do the version; but by not doing it, I get scheduled for a C-section. Period. I feel like I have to give it a shot. I'm not retarded, I'm aware of risks, but like anything else in pregnancy and child birth, there are TONS of risks, most of which the non-medical population don't even know about.

Anyway. That's what's new with us. I'm on bedrest and I hate it. I'm staring at dirty carpet, fighting the urge to vaccum and the even more brown bananas are calling to me from the kitchen. And there are about ten more fish that need to be painted in the nursery...torture. I just have to sit tight until Monday when we'll actually know how this baby is going to make his big arrival.