Magnesium sulfate. It seemed to be
the drug of choice in premature labor. It’s either a blessing or a curse.
In my case, it ended up being the latter…
Around 3:00 AM, I had a sudden urge
to use the restroom, so Laurie unhooked my monitor, unplugged my IV and helped
me into the restroom.
I was bleeding.
Dr. Landry had
specifically—repeatedly—instructed me to call him if this should happen.
“I’m bleeding, Laurie. I think we
better call Dr. Landry.” Maybe now he’ll
come, I thought.
But Laurie observed the liquid
somewhat indifferently, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Oh, that’s not much.”
"Dr. Landry told me to call him if I started bleeding. He was adamant about that!”
“I’ll call him and let him know, but
I don’t think he’s going to do anything about that!”
I had to stuff down a scream. I
wanted to tear out the IV and pace around the room to hasten labor. I’d had
enough. I wanted it over! But by the time those thoughts rolled through my
brain, I’d been abruptly deposited back into bed and was lying there alone,
arguing with myself and an absent Dr. Landry, awaiting Laurie’s return with the
verdict.
“No problem,” she pronounced striding
triumphantly into the room, a slight I-told-you-so tone in her voice. “I didn’t
think he’d be concerned.” Another strike out for me.
Every hour after that, Laurie
arrived to check the monitor output, leave to call Dr. Landry, and then return
to elevate the magnesium sulfate levels being pumped through my IV. How much more of that stuff can they pump
into me without killing my baby, or me? I wondered.
Around 5:15 AM, the contractions
worsened, and concern finally registered on Laurie’s face. “Can you feel those
contractions?” she asked in a tone of disbelief.
“Y-e-sss.”
I responded, along with a sarcastic tone and snicker. She shook her head and
quickly padded out of the room. Boy, this
prayer is working great! Nobody can tell how much pain I’m really experiencing.
Now, if the contractions would just stop, or Dr. Landry would appear, I’d be
thrilled!
Instead of thrilled, the urge to
head to the restroom alerted me again, so I punched my nurse call button again.
Once again Laurie went through the ritual of unplugging my appliances and
escorting me to the restroom.
This time the bright red liquid
streamed down my legs and over my hands. “Do you think this is a problem, now?” I asked with unbridled disgust,
fluttering my dribbly fingers in her direction.
Leaning around the restroom door to
take a closer look, she knitted her eyebrows together and admitted that the
blood loss was beginning to be significant. She promised to call Dr. Landry
right away—after I was cleaned up and
ushered back to bed.
“He doesn’t want you to get up
again!” Laurie commanded as she charged into the room after making contact with
Dr. Landry. “He wants you catheterized and confined to bed.” Right behind her
strode the poker-faced young nurse who’d been sent in to deal with me earlier.
Without saying a word, her lips pinched tightly together, she gave me a threatening
“If-you-try-to-get-out-of-that-bed-again-I’m-going-to-strap-you-into-it” look
and quickly threaded the appropriate tube into my body and taped the line to my
leg. Back to my mantra I went as the magnesium sulfate levels were again
cranked up on the IV.
A half-hour later, at 6:00, the
contractions still crushed my pelvis, and I continued to lie in the dark,
gripping my pillow and repeating my prayer more fervently. Even Laurie appeared
to be getting nervous as she evaluated the monitor yet another time and left,
without comment, presumably to call Dr. Landry. Again.
Within minutes, Dr. Landry himself
called me directly on my bedside phone. “I think it’s time to hang this one
up,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “I’m going to have the mag sulfate
stopped. Then, when I get there, I’ll go ahead and cut the stiches and let
whatever happens, happen. I think we’ll be having a baby here within the next
several hours…sometime this morning. When you were admitted last night, I had
pretty much made up my mind that I was going to keep you in the hospital for
the next two weeks. But it’s obvious that we’re not going to stop this now.
I’ll be leaving here in a few minutes. See you soon!”
Finally! Despite the horrendous pain
cranking through my pelvis, all I could do was express my gratitude and glee
that he was finally going to come to the hospital; that this was all going to
be over very soon. Excited and jittery, I called Chris. He groggily answered
the phone and tried to absorb Dr. Landry’s words I reiterated to him. “I think
you should get ready and come to the hospital as soon as you can,” I said.
Having to get Parker up and to
school was going to take some time, but he assured me that he’d be there as
soon as possible.
I put the phone down, looked up at
the wall clock…and smiled at it. That clock was starting to look good to me
now. Time was finally divulging some of its secrets.
Laurie returned with a myriad of mandatory
forms to sign for an epidural, so I could be relatively pain-free during the
birth and have a tubal ligation performed immediately following the delivery. I
wanted to dance around the room when she shut of the mag sulfate. Then she
notified the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that a preemie was to be delivered in
just a few hours. The nurses actually seemed excited, like something
thrilling—and unusual—was about to happen.
I was still awash in pain, but
relief grabbed my soul.
o0o
It all sounded so easy, the way Dr.
Landry described it: Stop the mag sulfate. Cut the cerclage stitches keeping my cervix closed. Administer the
pain-killing epidural. Wait a few hours. Deliver the baby. Have the NICU staff
watch over my newborn for several weeks, to make sure everything was peachy. Return
to normal life with a new baby.
But that’s not how it turned out. Nothing
about it was easy. Those high doses of mag sulfate mixed with those relaxants
were a problem. Especially for the baby.
Within minutes, I was staring into
the face of death. Again.
_____________________________________
NEXT WEEK: Rupturing stitches, chaos, God sends me
an angel, and breathing life into a lifeless baby…
____________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
photo credit:
<a
href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wink/260268486/">juicyrai</a>
via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>
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