The Unplanned Event – Part 1

Friday morning arrived after a night of fitful sleep and a pounding headache, leaving me feeling nauseas and exhausted. As I was standing in front of the sink, thinking about brushing my teeth – I felt water running down my legs. Holy shit – water…running down my legs. And, it didn’t stop. Not until much later that day anyway. After determining that my water had ‘broken’ (as if that took a rocket scientist) and calling the doctor – we headed to the hospital to determine our fate.

The monitor showed contractions every 2-3 minutes, which I was not really feeling. Perhaps I wasn’t noticing because I was in a state of shear panic. “OHMYGAWD – I am only 29 weeks 3 days – I CANNOT have babies today” is all that I could think. The doctor showed up and announced that the cerclage needed to be removed. More panic set in. I was worried that the contractions would continue and they wouldn’t be able to stop them. I was hoping for a few weeks at least before they would have to deliver. The doctor said he would be happy if we could get three days, but he wasn’t confident. The room was spinning

They started me on magnesium sulfate (such a bad, bad drug) to calm the labor and removed the cerclage. As soon as the stitch was out the doctor announced that I was 3cm dilated and 70% effaced – and he then said we would wait and see how I did over the next few hours. They gave me another steroid shot to help with the boys’ lung development, and we waited. I contracted. A lot. A whole lot. It started to get fairly intense, and one hour after being checked, the doctor came back and told us that I was now 5cm dilated and 85% effaced, and he was not going to be able to stop labor. “Holy shit, not today – please not today” was all I could think. Which of course did NO good.

From here, things went pretty quickly:

We were told that a C-Section would be done – within the hour.

The Anesthesiologist came in to start the epidural.

The Neonatologist came in to scare the hell out of us prepare us for possible complications with the boys after they were born.

I cried quietly, worried about the boys and angry at myself for not doing a better job of staying pregnant.

My husband became excited and anxious. He decided since we had no choice, that he was going to enjoy the event and became very, very happy about meeting our two new family members. I tried to be excited, but played the role of Scared Mamma much better.

And then, they wheeled me back for surgery.