January 11, 2006
Change of plan
After 12 days in the hospital, I was resigned to another week at least. Dr. Ribbink had said we'd try to make it to 35 weeks if possible, and it looked good: Linna had plenty of fluid left to float in, I have no signs of infection, and I am clearly not going into labor despite the fact that my water has been broken for 2 weeks. But today I had my weekly ultrasound to check the fluid, and it's down from 14 (on the low end of normal) to 7. That's not good. I'm not totally surprised, as I could tell it was leaking more last night. When Dr. Ribbink came to see me today, she said she'd done some additional research, and discovered a study that indicates the tipping point between the risk of infection, and the benefit of staying inside, is perhaps 34 weeks rather than 35. And today is 34 weeks! She said we could try to get some fluid and test it to see if the baby's lungs are mature, but we failed - she couldn't get enough fluid, and indeed it turned out she'd need way more than she'd be able to get.
So she left it up to me, basically. I was all set to slog through another week of rest and bad food, but it appears I'll be having a baby tomorrow instead.
I called Jeff and he basically freaked out. He hung up rather quickly so he could run out and buy a car seat, although I tried to assure him that we wouldn't actually need the car seat right away, since the baby would be in the NICU for some period of time. But he was determined.
Dane and Chad happened to be visiting when Dr. Ribbink came back after finding out we couldn't test the fluid. So they were the first to find out the news. It was nice of them to visit - Dane brought food from Trader Joe's, and Chad asked to page through the scrapbook stuff Erika and I had been working on.
I called Martha, and Dad was out, so she made flight arrangements for him for tonight. A series of phone calls later, it was decided that Martha would come too, in the morning. I'm glad she's coming.
Anyway, now I'm basically freaking out because tomorrow is Pitocin day. Dr. Ribbink and I have a plan, which involves doing prostaglandin first, and Pitocin after that. The night nurse scared me by saying I'd be starting Pitocin at 6 am, which turned out to be wrong. She's a bit of a martinet - first of all, she wouldn't give on the 11 pm vitals check (some other nurses are willing to do it at 9 or 10 so I can go to sleep), and then she said we'd put in the IV lock at 9 pm. No way! I convinced her to do it in the morning, which means 5:30. Eek! More IV's I don't want.
I was going to let everyone sleep in, but Erika kept insisting she'd come at 6 if I wanted, and I finally took her up on it. That makes me feel better. I ask you, would there be any way to get through this without her? I don't think so.
Posted by ktingey at January 11, 2006 11:30 PM