The best Mother’s Day ever!

I know I promised a post last Wednesday and I have a perfectly good reason for not posting…or maybe I have a few good reasons!

Our appointment last Wednesday was great!  Cullen weighed in at 5 lbs 4 oz!  No cervical change and my Ffn was negative on Tuesday.  So, after the meeting with the peri and hearing his professional opinion that “It is possible to make it to 36 weeks” we met with the OB. 

She and I have come a long way in our relationship…basically, because she trusts me now!  She came in and we talked about all of the data and what it meant together.  Basically, the ONE major concern both doctors have is my water breaking prematurely because of my contractions.  She decided that 8 days of Mag probably washed out the terb receptors and I would be okay to start back on the pump and add procardia as I needed.  She said she trusted me to let her know when my contractions became unmanageable and we would make our next move based on my symptoms.  So, I got the green light to go home!!!   My poor husband rushed back up to the hospital in order to bring me home and he had my FAVORITE chocolate chip cookies waiting in the front seat for me!  What a sweetie!  I came  home on the terb pump set at .2 MG/4 hours and .07 ML/hour…these settings were dramatically lower than the ones I entered the hospital on.

I came home Wednesday evening as a TOTAL surprise to Ellie (we didn’t tell her at all!).  She heard the door open and screamed, “Daddy” only to see me coming in!  She ran up to me and buried her head in my leg and held on all the way to the bedroom.  She didn’t leave my side the rest of the night.  She did wake up 5 times throughout the night and kiss my skin every single time ~ it was adorable!

The next 3 days I spent in my dark bedroom with the fan on high and total silence.  My body did not adjust back to the terb well AT ALL.  I was dealing with a migraine headache daily as well as stomach issues.  It was horrible! 

Saturday, I was feeling 50% better and broke all of the rules to go to Babies.r.us in order to buy all of our last minute baby essentials.  Yes, I probably could have sent my husband, but he would have NEVER found all of the things we needed.  This was one trip I knew I would have to make eventually and no day would be perfect, so we decided to risk it at 33 weeks.  I rode in the wheelchair and lasted about 1 hour before my contractions were 10 minutes apart.  We got everything purchased and loaded and it was back to bed for me. 

Sunday, tied as the best Mother’s Day ever for me!  (the first was my Mother’s Day with Ellie and Bennett three years ago)  My husband started by delivering the most beautiful bouquet of all my favorite flowers to me on Friday.  Then breakfast in bed on Saturday (kolaches and doughnuts).  Then I woke him up at 3:45am on Sunday with contractions 4 minutes apart…bad ones!  I ate and took some medicine and fell back to sleep until about 9am.  Contractions were still constant going from 4-8-10-4 minutes apart.  He told me he was going to go along with the day as normal and if my water broke we would go from there.  So, he brought my favorite candy home from the grocery store along with a magazine.  A few hours later he made the bed with a new memory foam topper for my side…b/c I am so uncomfortable in our bed 24 hours a day.  Then a few hours after that he  and Ellie surprised me with a Mother and Child charm with a beautiful diamond in the center.  UGH!  If I wasn’t trying to control my emotions for the sake of contractions I would have bawled my eyes out!  He then went on to make my favorite dinner of beef tenderloin, baked potatoes, fresh asparagus and homemade lemon cake!  It’s not the gifts that made the day so wonderful…it is that my kids mean the world to me and my husband is so unbelievably thoughtful.  I am spoiled, but in all fairness I think he is pretty spoiled when I am mobile!  We are blessed beyond belief and truthfully, I feel like every single day is Mother’s Day for me.  My greatest blessing in this entire world has been my children…my life is complete because of them. 

Unfortunately, by evening time my contractions were constant.  I spent 3 hours monitoring during the day and had taken 3 demand doses of terb that hadn’t touched the contractions.  We didn’t panic and head for the hospital b/c these are our options:

- Be admitted and stay there on Mag until Cullen is born

- Suffer through these strong labor contractions and wait for my water to break

I think we made a decision to suffer through (as long as I can) and wait for my water to break.  It is completely exhausting to keep going back and forth to the hospital hoping for a different outcome.  However, I had to have some relief from the contractions b/c they are just physically impossible to deal with every 3 minutes when they come all day long.  Plus, by that time I was feeling like Cullen was going to just fall out due to pressure in my pelvis.  I made the decision to start back on the procardia to get some relief (my doc told me to hold out as long as I could without going back on it…I just couldn’t wait any longer).  Side note: Procardia is a calcium beta blocker that basically works to relax the large muscle that is the uterus.  It is a typically a blood pressure medication and causes drastic drops in blood pressure…it is not really a fun medication when you are first starting it! 

One of the horrible side effects of procardia is headache.  About 20 minutes after taking it I had the most violent, throbbing headache I have ever had in my life…like, unbearable pain that I didn’t think I was going to live through.  I was holding my head and crying to B that I would do anything for my kids, but I just couldn’t do it any longer.  I am a strong person and I am proud that I have been able to withstand labor this long without delivering Cullen.  However, there just comes a point when your body is tired and your mind is weak…that was how I felt at that moment.  I cried for a few minutes (until B told me it wasn’t going to help my headache!) and decided to suck it up, take 2 ty.lenol and go to bed! 

Monday, I was still experiencing the headache, but my contractions seemed so much more manageable thanks to the meds.  I even laid outside (in a lounge chair) with Ellie for an hour as we had a fruit picnic and chocolate popsicles!  She let me squirt her with the water hose…it was a fun time had by all!  After our 55 minute excursion I was totally fried!  I guess not seeing the sun in months will do that to you!  Now I am trying to figure out how I am going to explain to my doctors tomorrow how I got sunburned while on complete bed rest…I have thought of telling them we have skylights in our bedroom!!!  Hahaha…

Today has been the best day in a few weeks as far as contractions are concerned (I am knocking on wood!!!).  I have had my normal amount, but nothing out of control.  I go to see both of our doctors tomorrow and I don’t really expect any changes.  We will get to see how big our BIG GUY is this week and that is always exciting for us. 

I will update tomorrow with the news and promise to keep better track of updates.  If I hadn’t been dealing with the violent headaches (and if B actually had 5 extra minutes in his day) we would have updated last week.

Thanks for the concerned emails and thank you to Heather for updating my status on her blog…I am so sorry you had to do that!!!  I really did worry daily about not being well enough to update, but that is just my reality these days.  We are so thankful for all of your prayers and kind, encouraging words.  Thank you for taking this journey with us! 

33 weeks 4 days tomorrow!!!  What an enormous blessing!!!

Blessings,

Angie