The Preggo Diaries #4

Starting at 26 weeks, our doctor decided she wanted to start doing growth ultrasounds every month until the baby was born. She reassured us that everything was fine, but that this was standard procedure for women who were pregnant and had fibroids.

We had no problems with the additional ultrasounds. Better safe than sorry after all! Plus, it would be interesting to see our baby grow, and hopefully we'd get more pictures for the baby book since the second trimester screening ones were kinda creepy.

The ultrasound showed that the baby had grown - but that the fibroid had almost doubled in size. At the beginning of the pregnancy it was 10cm. Then it had shrank to about 8 cm. At the second trimester screening it had gone back up to 10cm. Now it was a hefty 16cm in size. 

Ugh.

At the following appointment our doctor asked if I had had any pain because of the fibroid. I explained that I hadn't had any pain aside from the normal round ligament pains. The doc was kinda surprised because something so large should be causing some issues - but despite everything I was fine. She then took my blood to do a gestational diabetes test and sent me on my way.

Two days later the doc called and told me the results of the test. Thankfully I passed the gestational diabetes portion, but it turned out that I was anemic. The doctor had a feeling that this was because if the fibroid. She told me to start taking iron twice a day to help with the anemia. 

Like a good girl, I did what she told me to, but I wasn't really thrilled about it. Constipation is one of those lovely pregnancy side affects that I had suffered from throughout the first and second trimester, and I knew that the additional iron wasn't going to help the situation. Unfortunately there isn't much out there that is safe for pregnant women to take for those issues, but I figured I had time.

On Thursday, my back began to bother me. No matter how I sat in my chair at work, I could not get comfortable. By Friday it was so bad that I left work early. Then during the drive home I had to stop at my Mom's and stretch out on her couch for a little bit in an attempt to get some relief. That evening I could barely sleep. No matter how I shifted, there was just no escaping the pain.

Saturday wasn't much better. By then the iron had kicked in - so now I was constipated in addition to having a sore back. I chowed down on cereal and salad, and tried some prunes in the hopes that I would find some relief but it was a no go. 

Early Sunday morning things took a change for the worse. The back pain I had been experiencing suddenly developed a rhythm. Every ten minutes it would get really bad, and then it would eventually ease. At first I thought it was Braxton Hicks contractions, so I drank more water and tried to get some rest. 

It didn't help.

I finally woke my husband up and explained what was going on. I felt that we needed to go to the hospital, but he wanted me to talk to his mother first. He figured that I was just exhausted and imagining things. She prayed over me, and then we drove to the closest ER at Downey Regional.

They immediately wheeled me over to Labor and Delivery where our reception was horrible. The nurse on duty scolded us for not going to the hospital we were supposed to deliver at multiple times and demanded to know why we didn't call my doctor. I explained we had been unable to reach my doctor because it was 6 in the morning on a Sunday. And her advice in emergencies was to go to an ER. She had never said anything about how we needed to go to her hospital, and nothing online said anything about that either, so we had just gone to the closest ER available.

After monitoring me for 30 minutes, she told us that the doctor on call thought I was too high risk to treat. They released us and told me to take some Tylenol, drink more water, and call my doctor later in the day. 

Only problem - even though the hour was more reasonable my doctor was still unavailable. We tried to reach her back up instead, but he did not respond to our messages or pages either.

By then the Tylenol had kicked in and the pain was beginning to fade a little. Thinking that we were in the clear, I curled up on the couch and tried to catch up on sleep. My awesome in laws brought me oatmeal for breakfast, and my husband fixed a ginormous fruit salad for lunch. 

As the day passed it began to seem like maybe, just maybe my woes were finally over. 

And then the back pain began again. 

Once more it fell into a rhythm. Every ten minutes or so it'd get really intense, and then it would fade. Tylenol was no longer working. I remember reading somewhere that vicodin was safe for pregnant women. A friend who was a nurse confirmed it, so I tried that, but it didn't help either. 

I told my husband we needed to go to a hospital again since there was something seriously not right about this. He had his mother come in and pray for me again. When I repeated that we needed to go, he suggested that I call the hospital that we would be delivering at and tell them what was going on since we weren't able to get in contact with either my doctor or her back up. I think he probably thought nothing was wrong. After all, Downey Regional would have said something if there was - wouldn't they?

I called Orange Coast and explained what was going on. They told us to come down so they could admit me for observation and monitoring.

We had moved recently, so we were a bit farther away from Orange Coast Memorial than before (which is why we had gone to Downey Regional earlier that morning) but, since it was Sunday evening, there wasn't any traffic and we reached the hospital in 20 minutes. The entrance to the Birthing Center was closed, but when we found the main entrance and explained to the receptionist what was going on, he quickly checked us in and escorted us to Labor and Delivery. 

The nurses there were a heck of a lot friendlier than the ones at Downey Regional. They set us up in a room, took a urine sample, blood sample, and did a fetal fibronectin test - which was way more than the other ER had done earlier. Then they hooked me up to be monitored for contractions and to watch the baby's heartbeat. 

The urine sample showed that I was dehydrated, so I was hooked up to an IV and quickly pumped full of liquids. The blood sample showed that my white blood count was off, which led them to think that I might have an infection of some sort developing so they added a universal antibiotic to the IV to fight that. Unfortunately the fetal fibronectin came back inconclusive, but an ultrasound showed that my cervix was fine, so I wasn't in labor. However, the monitor showed that I was having contractions, so I was given Indocin to stop those. 

After a couple of hours of observation, the doctors were positive that I was stable enough to be discharged. They had just started the paperwork and then the baby's heartbeat dropped.