Countoff Day 8 & 7 – In the hospital

Day 8:  Well, I was really excited about Day 8 and was going to write all about it.  The weather was gorgeous in Seattle, I had a friend call and invite me out for lunch.  She drove and we had a great time, nice conversation and excellent fried calamari with a site of hummus and pita bread.  We came home and I relaxed laying on the couch for a couple of hours.  I was invited out to dinner at a local pub with 6 friends and since I was feeling fine and given the green light by the docs I went along.

Bad move.

I ate, laughed, and generally felt fine.  I will say that the wooden chair I was sitting on was uncomfortable after a while.  I got up after about an hour to use the bathroom and there it was…pink on the TP.  Dangit.  No problem, I thought, I’ll just call it an evening.  Dinner was over we were all just hanging around and chatting anyway.

So I got my hugs, excused myself and drove the 2 miles home.  No big deal.  When I got in the door, I felt a wetness and headed straight to the bathroom.  More pink, now redder and things were…wet.  Too wet,  Not a lot, not a gush, but something very unusual.  I went straight to bed, lay down on my left side and called my ObDoc’s office.  My doc was on call, I explained what was going on.  I let her know that I didn’t feel any more wetness since the initial event but needed advice.  She told me to get myself to labor and delivery.  MrBeep came home about 20 minutes later and off to the hospital we went.  I could feel my little sweetie monsters squirming around, we got their heartbeats so I knew that for now they were doing fine. My ObDoc was the one to take care of my examination, take a sample and check the slide.  She couldn’t find any conclusive evidence in the sample that there was any amniotic fluid leakage, but she didn’t like the description of the event or how much blood and moisture she saw.  I was monitored for contractions all night and only had one or two after the pelvic.  I was admitted for getting IV anitbiotics and monitoring.  MrBeep stayed with me the whole time, took care of my every need.  He held my hand, kissed my forehead and helped me make it through the night.  I was so scared that a membrane had ruptured, but there was no evidence of any other leakage.  Both my ObDoc and the L&D nurses said that this was a very good sign.

Day 7:  MrBeep slept in the little bed next to me in a labor and delivery suite.  Today I’ve had no additional leakage or watery bizarreness.  I’ve had no contractions all day.  I had barely any spotting.  I’ve received doses of IV antibiotics (just in case) and was supposed to get an ultrasound to check the fluid levels of the babies to see if that would show any evidence of leakage.  Unfortunately, there was some mix up and I will get that scan tomorrow.  I talked with the TopDoc from my MFM clinic.  He apologized for the ultrasound mix up but suggested another day for observation and antibiotics was pretty standard given the fact that I am only at 23 weeks.  He did say that he felt very good that there was no other episodes after the first report, that the sample slide didn’t show anything to indicate amniotic fluid and he felt it would be extraordinarily unusual to rupture a membrane behind a cerclage that was looking good the day before.  After speaking with him, I felt about a thousand percent better.  This entire episode may just be another bizarre result of the previa.  Everyone (ObDoc, TopDoc, L&D nurses, MrBeep) has told me that this unusual thing was not my fault and that I didn’t do anything wrong to cause it, but man…it is very hard to let go of that guilt and worry.

I will be seen on Saturday (day 6) by DrGav who will take a look with ultrasound see if everything is looking good.  If so, then I will be discharged from hospital.  MrBeep needed my computer for work, so I was unable to read or update.  He put several hours of the Olympics we recorded on Tivo to DVD, so we watched them together.  I will try to catch up and update tomorrow.  The most important thing is the babies are fine, I am fine. A couple of more days down and more lessons learned the hard way.