Preterm Labor is the Pits!

The day after my last post (Dec. 23) I started having what I thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions.... So I ignored them all day because they didn't hurt.

I woke up on Christmas Eve and got in the shower to get ready for church. In the span of about 10 minutes I had 6 painless contractions - but the frequency made me think these may not be Braxton-Hicks. I decided to page the doctor and sent Aaron on to church by himself (he had to play the angel Gabriel in the Nativity Play -- very important!). When the doctor called back he suggested I come in and be evaluated since it was hard to determine over the phone what was happening.

I drove myself to the hospital and checked in at the Women's Evaluation Unit (WEU). I did the usual pee in a cup, step on a scale, blood pressure, etc. Then they hooked me up to a monitor..... That's when things started happening! The nurses first comments were "I don't like this, I don't like this at all.. You're contracting every 2 minutes! I need to go get some meds." She came back with meds AND a doctor who did all the necessary things doctors do to determine that I was also dilated to 3cm. The doctor informed me that I would be spending Christmas with them!

I received an IV, some medication and a trip straight to the labor & delivery unit. There I was started on a nasty labor-stopping medication, magnesium sulfate. It caused me to be hot, nauseated, have blurred vision, slurred speech, extreme thirst, and weak shaky muscles.

The way I look in the picture below pretty much sums up the way the medications made me feel!
With the help of another labor stopping medication called terbutaline, they were able to get the contractions stopped with no further progression. In the middle of the night I was transferred out of the labor and delivery unit since I wasn't an immediate threat for delivery.

There I spent the next few days, finally getting off the magnesium and starting to feel better. Once I was off the magnesium the contractions came back a bit so they kept me a little longer for monitoring.


I stayed quite busy with visits from my pharmacy friends, Aaron, reading, movies, catching up on some sleep I missed the first few days, and trying not to get bed sores!

I was finally discharged on the 29th of Dec. It felt SO good to sleep in my own bed! I have to take terbutaline 5mg every 4 hours (i.e. set the alarm) and I'm not allowed to work or do much of anything. At least I'm not on strict bed rest so I can move about the house and go out a little bit with Aaron.

Through all of this the baby was just fine, active as ever and in no distress. I have to stay on the medication until I'm 36 weeks (currently 33 & 1/2 weeks).... then we'll see!

I'll do my best to post regularly now.... It's not like I have much else going on!