It wasn't as eventful as it sounded. After the initial 3 minutes of tears in my car, after my OBGYN sent me over here, I was pretty calm and it took hours before we got really looked at and got results and they were all generally good. The only thing that stuck from the OB visit is that my cervix has started to shorten since last week. That lends itself towards preterm labor. So all they can do is make sure the baby is going to thrive once he gets out, so they gave me a steroid shot that matures his lungs and heart quickly and will measure my cervix tomorrow to see if it's a trend or just a one-off thing that will hold still for several weeks if not just a couple.
One theory of why the cervix is shortening is that the fibroid is finally starting to die and as it does, it releases prostaglandine hormones which make the cervix want to shorten. But truth is, it's just a guess. They have NO idea what causes preterm labor and are very helpless to stop it - words of my perinatologist and his colleagues that I've heard repeated. But they are pretty good at helping babies make it through being preemies. If we can keep this bun in the oven until at least 32 weeks, it'd be VERY good.
Basically preterm labor is just a runaway train that you can see coming, but can't do anything to stop. Bed rest is not particularly effective and they truly don't know what causes it. They just see signs toward it, sort of like a Britney Spears meltdown. She's gettting enough sleep, eating well, the paparazzi's been giving her the requisiste attention, has some radio play and boom! Despite all of it, she freaks out. Can't stop it, just be ready to mitigate the damage, huh? So we're all pulling at straws. I've been SO immobile and good about not doing much, knowing that they predicted this to me, that I can't really reduce my activity much more - I've got to breathe. But I wonder if I can eat specific foods to help him fatten up a little quicker. At this point, he's done. He just needs some lung maturation, brain development - that he'll get in or out, and some fat. That's all he's doing for the next 2 months. If they could invent something for that, that'd be the bomb.
It's funny, me and Mark were just about to buy a crib on Thursday and put it off for the weekend and now I'm feeling a little more pressed to get on the ball. In theory, we have 12 weeks. In reality, we have NO clue. We were just buckling down on the baby's room, which now that I look at it, is SO blue that I'm not going to get away with anything sage or tan in it. I think I'll go aqua and more sea-life like. I'm not painting a rental, especially one where things are just only slightly off. The bedroom is a gorgeous buttercreamy mustard, Mark's office is just fine and the baby's room is only slightly overbearing. I think I could get away with just removing the outerspace lightswitches and just conforming to what's there.
I do however, have to get rid of the furniture the owner left behind. A nice cedar chest will be moved to the garage, I think, but the old school dresser's getting given away and there's a little bookshelf that's just going to the curb. I think the rush items are a crib, a changing table - just found the SEXIEST changing table on Babies R Us, where I started another registry after I figured out how much my Target and Amazon registries overlap, that has built in drawers and hamper, so it's not just wasted space underneath, nor is it empty shelves that you then have to buy $60 worth of accessories to actually use. I also want a cosleeper crib that you attach to the side of the bed for the baby to sleep in-room with you for the first few months, since we're anticipating C-section and I can just grab him without getting up.
However, talking to my friend Tina from high school, I wonder if I'll be in the bedroom for the first couple of weeks. Her incision was bad enough that she was sleeping upright in a chair for a week or more before she could get in and out of bed. Apparently, that's the rub. Sleeping - easy. Sitting up - easy. Swinging your legs off the bed to get out of the bed - painful. I've got a fairly high threshold for pain, but if somebody tells me something, I'm not really one of those folks who's got to live through everything personally to believe or learn! Why reinvent the wheel? So if that's true, I might be better off with a bassinet wheeled into the living room, or the likes, where Mark can just bring him to me when he's hungry since I won't be getting up.
Choices, choices, choices. It's finally about time to start making them anyhow. I'd just been given my pre-registration form for the hospital and just left a message yesterday morning with the Babywise Lamaze classes to sign me and Mark up for an intensive one-day crash course for childbirthing. There are only 2 dates left before the baby's supposed to be do.
Not nary a contraction. I'm really happy the baby's fine today - no early birthday presents for Mark. I also hope that he can stay put past my birthday, but one thing is for sure, he's entering the Harris family birthday clump. Mark and his mom are early January, I'm late January and Mark's dad is early February. All Aquarius and Capricorns. Thank God for Aunt Lolo (I gave her that nicknamed already - Mark couldn't say Loretta, I'm assuming neither will his son be able and I'm trying to avoid the 'Ragga' that he called her, so she's Auntie Lolo. Pam rolls off the tongue pretty easy...) Loretta's got a winter b-day and is the only relief among the Harrises. It's basically a spendfest from December to February! Maybe little Miles can hold out til March and give us a breather.
Okay, maybe I'm sleepier. I'm going to try to knock-off again for a couple of hours til they let me out of the klink. I'll update y'all later.
---------
Okay update came today and has put me on complete bedrest. Meaning: no driving, no chores, no walking, nothing! Ugghhh! My cervix was WAY longer on the 26th of Dec, and now it's down to 1.6cm. Not great. Not horrible, but we want it to stay put and not get any shorter. I don't have an incompetent cervix (IC), so they can't do cerclage, like a turkey thing where they sew you up to keep your cervix shut and the baby in. My cervix actually works fine, so it'd open anyhow when it gets the signal and then do damage pulling apart the stitches. Also, they do that way earlier, I'm too late in the game regardless.
So it's just bedrest and trying to stop the fibroid from deteriorating and releasing the prostaglandins, which they can sort of do with a 72 hour course of Motrin, 1 shot thing, that I can take if I feel the fibroid pain again of it deteriorating, which I did feel over the holidays - that's how I knew it'd started to outgrow it's blood supply. Also I'm on iron twice a day now. Just when I got my benefiber act together, I'm stuck here with cheap iron and colace. My good iron is at home still and even it's pretty gross. I belch iron for the next four hours after I take it.
Every day, evey week that the baby stays in equal percentage rates of how well he'll thrive outside. It's already higher than 90% just because he's as far as 28 weeks, but I think in 3 days, it jumps to 95% etc. I think it's something like they're pretty much guaranteed to survive at this point, but there's an additional 90% chance of having no permanent repercussions later in life, which is cool. My brother wasn't a preemie, but wasn't very healthy - asthma, lazy eye, club foot, exzema etc, and I think my mom never got over it which is why he's a 34 year old preemie still, living at home with her and being taken care of, even with HIS pregnant wife having a child on the way.
Some people get traumatized by their baby's illnesses. I, however, think this little kicker is something else. High spirited and strong. He's really thriving for his age, and is going to be fine - I'm just concerned about breastfeeding because if they are too preemie, you can't breastfeed them in an incubator and you've missed your shot if you have to wait too long. And breastfeeding seems SUPER important in getting all the antibodies and with future health stuff.
Miles is a little winner and I'm going to have my hands full trying to chase him - I've heard if they are active in womb, they are active in life. Wow - then he's going to be a hand-full! I love it.
Also, I want him to come home quickly. I hate seeing babies in incubators the same way that Mark can 't stand to go to the pet store. He seems to equate it with the pound. No matter how many times I try to explain that $1000 puppies, no matter how poorly bred, don't end up homeless of dead, he can't stand the sight of dogs in doggie jail, even if it's at the Beverly Center. Too funny. I used to make him go to Just Puppies petstore to get my baby fix, and he couldn't stand it. I stopped asking after I saw how it truly bugged him, even if I think it's funny. :)
My 13 year old male voice student was born at 23 weeks and had/has some lingering speech mouth muscle issues caused by a long time on the ventilator, but she said she met tons of 28 weekers and that you couldn't tell that they'd ever been preemie at all. So hope still abounds, I just want this kid to stay put as long as possible!
Talked to my sister and dad and pieced together more than my mother ever would tell me when I was little and asked that I was way more preemie than I'd thought. My dad thinks I was about 7 months when my mom had me, Pam thinks it was somewhat earlier, although she remembers me not being in the incubator for that long and he thinks it was a week before I could come home. So that's reassuring, cause there's nothing wrong with me - at least not preemie related! LOL!
It's possible they'll keep me one more day here, but I can't take the food much longer. It's hideous and gross fast food that Mark's bringing me is only a smidge better. So, we shall see. Talk to you later.
PS - Today's Mark's birthday and it sucks so far. I asked if we could recelebrate at a better day and his response way, "no, it's better that we learn early to subjugate ourselves for our child." Too funny - he's right. Get used to it now.
No comments:
Post a Comment