Wednesday, February 27, 2008

WB's Adventures In Preemie Land Part 2

When we last left our heroes, I was in distress at the hospital trying to get a hold of a live human being to express my distress with. I finally get a hold of Hubs.

A sigh of relief set in after hubs had reassured me that GB was fine at the babysitter and thankfully she had extra supplies of formula. He was smart and had her number in his cell. That hubs is a keeper

The doc was puzzled as to what to do with me. A procedure called a Cerclauge can be done when a woman is between 10-13 weeks pregnant. It involves sewing up the cervix similar to a drawstring purse to close it up. The risks were a lot higher to sew me up at 16 weeks, due to possible injury to the baby and infection. They decided to tilt the bed where my feet where as high as they could go. I was literally standing on my head laying down. This was an attempt to relieve pressure off my cervix and hopefully draw everything up to allow them to sew me up easier. Fun times! I stayed in this position for a good 3 days.

Meanwhile my father got in touch with my mother. If you knew my mother you would know that she is quite the worrier. Probably more than the normal mother, maybe not. Lets just say when I got my braces on in the 6th grade she called the orthadontist office from work to check on me. I really think she hated not being there more than anything. Needless to say my parents literally dropped everything and drove the 300 plus miles up to the hospital.

Though the risks were pretty high, Dr Staples (yes his real name) felt pretty darn confident all would be well. He'd done gazillions of these cerclauges and the latest term he had done one was 18 weeks. The main concern is infection and preterm labor. One does not want to be dialating when sewn up. Just the thought of it still makes my hienie cringe.
I admit I was nervous as a cat in a dog pound. The doc decided that I should just have a spinal block when doing this procedure, since he was all cocky and confident. I'm the type of person that does not like to deal with stressful situations first hand, kind of a see no evil hear no evil type. In other words I really didn't like the thought of being awake during the procedure. If God forbid something do go wrong, I kind of wanted to awake to the fact instead of experiencing it first hand. Nevertheless Dr. Cocky was well.. cocky, so I agreed to the spinal block.

I can say it was probably the scariest thing I'd ever experienced up to that point in my life. During the whole procudure, which seemed like hours and hours, I lay there with my eyes closed praying and just trying to take myself somewhere else. I felt as if I was doing back flips over and over. I'm not sure what the deal with that was but that's how I felt. It was very intense. The doctor was stone silent the entire time, not a single peep. I didn't know what to think or what was going on. I kept thinking something is wrong for him to be so quiet. I guess he was really focused.

Finally after a good two hours, he finally finished up and said "Ok all went well." Whew! That's really all he had to say about that. That night during recovery was miserable. My legs were still dead as door nails even after several hours of the surgery. As if I didn't have enough things to worry about like hienie cringes, pre term labor and infection now I was worried I would be paralyzed for the rest of my life. There's nothing more uncomfortable then not being able to move at all and trying to sleep. The nurse finally gave me some pain meds and I was able to sleep. Yes I fully recovered by morning.

After a about a week in the hospital, I was able to go home under strict bed rest. Which is great fun when your husband travels for work and your family is 300 plus miles away and you have a 10 month old.

You surely didn't think that would be the end of the drama did you? Part 3 to come later.

2 comments:

MP said...

GRRRR...
I never heard of such a procedure..How freaky scary!!

Anonymous said...

"I admit I was nervous as a cat in a dog pound." Jeanie...that has to be the funniest expression that I have ever heard! We are so lucky to have such miricle babies!
laura

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