Part IV Time For Some Preemieland Drama

Part IV

The docs told me that I was on total lockdown in the hospital bed for the rest of my pregnancy. Don’t pass go don’t collect $200. This could mean I hold this kid in for the rest of the 40 weeks or I could go into labor tomorrow. It was just hard to tell. They kept me on the anti labor drugs in hopes things would stick.

The next day or so hubs and my parents came through bringing me things to keep me occupied like lotto scratch offs and crosswords. Early one morning hubs was gone somewhere, and I was alone. The meds were starting to kick in and I felt the ominous nausea coming on. I looked everywhere that my arms could reach for something, anything. I like to acknowledge my MacGyver like skills to motherhood. Us moms have to be creative in finding any kind of a barf bucket when nothing with in a 3 foot reach is near. This skill came in great handy as I called the nurse requesting assistance. In other words “IM GONNA BLOW, and there’s not a darn thing I can do about it!” Instinctively I grabbed the little bag that held my lotto scratch offs; it was about the size of a bag you would hold greeting cards in and filled it to the brim just as the nurse came running in with a bucket. Convenient I say. I think the nurse was as relieved as I was that I didn’t Ralph all over myself, because home girl knew she would have had to clean me up.




During this week in the hospital, hubs was torn and wished they would get right on that human cloning thing. C’s dad was terminally ill with cancer and was fading away quickly. His dad had requested that C come up and see him. Things had fairly well calmed down as far as my drama goes and there wasn’t a whole lot to do but sit around and wait. It was a Saturday evening and hubs and I were discussing when he should leave to see his dad. He was adamant on leaving that night and thought all would be well and he would be back in time to get to me by Monday. I must have had some kind of psychic powers going because I sternly suggested that he leave early in the morning. I, for some reason had issues with him leaving, as it seemed every time he was gone something happened. I know he absolutely did not want to leave me but knew he also had to attend to his father. He decided to stay. I can’t imagine having to make that kind of decision.




That next morning, I started feeling crampy. I woke hubs up and told I him I thought I was in labor. Since the nurses were monitoring my every move, they were already on top of things. No medicine would stop me now, it was time to go.



They wheeled me down to the prep room in no big hurry at first. They got me in there and started getting things going. My guess is they were planning for me to deliver naturally even at 28 weeks. Then the madness began. They weren't getting a reading on the fetal monitor. They brought in the ultra sound machine trying desperatly to get a heart beat and waiting on the anstesiologist to put in my epidural. Even though they were scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off, it still seemed as if a whole heck of a lot was not getting done. I was so overwhelmed with what was going on that I didn't really have time to grasp the reality of what was happening. I just knew that something had to happen fast and I was thinking to myself, they just need to knock me out and skip this whole epidural business. At that moment, I could hear the doctor yelling from the operating room; "We don't have time for an Epi, get her in here now!"



They got me into the OR STAT and I have never been knocked out so fast in my life. From the time I got into the exam room to the OR was probably about 5 minutes, though it seemed like hours. During some point in this time frame, they handed hubs his scrubs to go change. He came back from the bathroom and I was already gone. He had no idea what was going on. Things had gone to relatively calm to urgent all in that 5 minutes he was in the dressing room. He tried finding a nurse to find out where I had gone and what the deal was and found no one. He sat in that little exam room by himself and the first thing he did was call his father...