Can't go there yet

30 weeks + 3 days, 13 weeks + 5 days post rupture, day 5 in hospital (again).

Thank you for all your lovely comments urging me to have a 'donate' button. I will take your opinions under advisement and will let you know what we decide.

In other news, I saw the Neonatologist today. He didn't say anything that I didn't already know, except he informed me that the initial septic work up for Acorn will include a lumbar puncture. I knew they would draw blood initially to test for infection, but I didn't expect they would do a 'complete' septic work up which includes blood, urine and an lumbar puncture (spinal tap). I'm a little saddened by this info...poor guy, having to get poked in the back on his first day of life...but my mom and my husband were very upset hearing this.

I keep having to remind myself that they aren't used to the NICU. They don't know what happens there. While a complete septic work up isn't fun and it can be kind of painful, it might not be the worst thing Acorn faces. Yes, we are hoping with all we have that Acorn has a fairly easy course once he arrives on 'this side' of the world. But what if he doesn't? What if it's worse...much worse? I'm a little nervous I'm going to have to be the 'strong nurse' and reassure everyone that while the care Acorn is getting might look barbaric, it's for his own good. I might have to do this while also crying inside about how sad I am that it's MY baby having those things done.

This is all assuming Acorn lives of course. I still haven't cleared that hurdle in my mind. As much as you guys are urging me to look at baby stuff in my acres of spare time here (and I do have acres of it), I just can't. I checked out a few car seats today...and I couldn't look anymore. The hurdles we still have to face seem so HUGE. I feel like a fraud checking out baby items as if I might get to use them. I actually still feel a bit like a fraud calling myself 'pregnant', which I know is stupid because I'm over 40 inches around at the middle, I can feel Acorn kicking as I type this, and I can't see my feet when I stand up. But in my mind, pregnant people have every right to assume they will be bringing a baby home and don't have all the scary acronyms attached to their file like I do. I can't go there yet...I don't think I will let myself really believe Acorn's real until he or she arrives and cries and does well.

It's hard and I'm tired. I'm more tired and it's harder being at the hospital. I can't pretend things are 'normal' while I'm here. I can't fake it as well. I hope the time passes quickly. I hope we're heading to a rainbow instead of another storm cloud.

If you've had a pregnancy after loss, did you find it hard to imagine bringing home a baby (even if things were normal and progressing well?) When did it finally feel 'real'?

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? (The Clash)

Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I’ll be here ’til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An’ if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know!

Should I stay or should I go?

*Sigh*

So I'm still at the hospital. I'm lonely and it's boring and I actually really miss TV, just for the company (the TV costs money here too so I'm trying to do without it).

Fluid level is at 3.8, so slightly up from Thursday, but I continue to leak just as heavily and Dr. S. came in and said that while my NSTs have looked normal over the weekend and he was fine with me going home, he wanted to warn me about the 'small possibility of cord prolapse'. How if I was here and the cord prolapsed there is a possibility they would be able to save the baby...but Acorn would almost certainly die if it happened at home. Ah, yes, thanks Dr. S. I know I can always count on you for 'keeping it real' and scaring the shit out of me. I know you have to give me ALL of the terrible scenarios but when you phrase it like "at least if you're here you'd know you did everything you could"...it makes me feel really bad about even considering being anywhere else.

Of course if I'm here and I get an infection, I might always wonder if it was some nasty hospital bug I contracted and maybe I would have avoided it if I'd stayed at home? Can't really control that one. I could get infected in either place. It just bugs me (ha! a pun) more here.

So I figure I'll at least suck it up until our scan on Thursday and see what that shows. Hopefully all looks well and we continue on. If I happen to have lots more fluid I might consider going home again. If it's about the same I suppose we continue on (spending money) in the hospital, until at least 32 weeks, when if everyone is on board, I will be rolled into a sterile cold operating room where I will receive a nicely planned epidural and a calm and controlled C-section resulting in a perfectly healthy (premature) baby who screams his frigging head off for being so rudely lifted from his warm cramped quarters. This will of course happen mid-morning, after a good night's sleep with Brian standing at the ready, armed with his camera.

I suppose I do feel somewhat 'safer' here, especially since I'm in my own room and have my own bathroom and do not have to worry that my room mate is going to sneeze and contaminate the air with a virus, or her family might not wash their hands and coat the door knob with e-coli. I will also admit it was scary sometimes at night at home when I'd get a (perfectly normal?) back cramp and wonder "should I be rushing to the hospital now?" At least here, help is only a push button away. If anything else changes, it won't just be my own nursing skills I'm relying on to decide "is this something to stress about?"

However, the money aspect really bothers me, and my line of thinking goes: it's so much MONEY to just sit here, bored and alone. (Possibly for nothing!) How are we going to pay for all of that AND a new baby? I hope people are really generous if we have a shower and will help pay for some of the most needed and expensive items. I know people LOVE buying adorable outfits but I could do without a million of those. Instead I'm really going to need a crib and a stroller and a car seat and diapers and probably a breast pump because we currently have NOTHING. Not even paint for the kid's room. And what if the absolute WORST happens and the baby dies? Can I have a 'pity shower' where people just throw money at me because it will literally gut me to pay a $x000 hospital bill with nothing to show for it. I worked it out today that if I could make it 32 weeks it would be north of $1400 to continue to stay in a private room. If I make it to 34 weeks, it would be upwards of $2800. And that doesn't include parking, or meals for Brian when he is here staying with me (he buys much tastier meals than what arrives on my tray I might add).

I know I could avoid most of the cost by moving into a shared room...but that might just kill me too.

So...here I sit. Acorn better damn well grow up to appreciate it.

(please baby, I'm only kidding, pleasepleaseplease just be okay and don't die).

Half a year

30 weeks + 1 day, 13 weeks + 3 days post rupture, day 3 in hospital (again).

When I was in high school I took art classes. I started in Grade 9 and continued right up until I graduated. I loved those classes. I got pretty good at drawing faces especially (if I do say so myself) and in my last year of high school I even won the Grade 12 Art Award.

One thing about art that was always lots of fun were the teachers. They were generally warmer, creative type people who were kind of 'quirky'. One of the 'quirkiest' art teachers I ever had was in Grade 11. He was short, with beautifully groomed grey hair, wore pastel coloured pants, had very strong opinions on art (and everything else), was totally gay, and had the most appropriate name: Mr. Flowers. I kid you not.

Art teachers just seemed funnier, cooler and usually more 'with it' than say, my Grade 10 Geography teacher who reused the same jokes every semester. Kids who had already taken Geography would ask "so has he told the radioactive rock joke yet?" and sure enough, during the exact same lesson they warned you about, out came the radioactive rock joke. It wasn't funny the first 20 times he used it, so I'm not sure why he kept it up.

One of my favourite art teachers was Mr. Ludlow. He was middle aged and pudgy around the middle. When not smiling his face kind of had a hound dog appearance, and he always looked sort of mildly unkempt, like he was in his Saturday afternoon lounge clothes all week long. He was one of those types of teachers who 'got it'. He knew some kids took his class because he wasn't a hard ass and didn't get all bent out of shape when kids didn't show up on time. He treated his class more like a college class in that each student was responsible for his or her own work, and he would fairly grade anything that was turned in...but he wasn't going to chase teens down (some of whom were already 18), to do their school work. You either showed up and worked, or you didn't. It was no skin off his nose.

Anyway, I'm getting to the point of this whole story now. Mr. Ludlow lived with his wife and I think he had a kid or two, maybe school aged at the time. But one day he told us about how he had decorated his living room (we might have been working on furniture or housing designs that day?). He said that in his living room he had painted a phrase on the wall. I thought this was so original...words on one's wall??!! That was interesting to me (and unheard of in my white bread little city). And the phrase he chose?

This too shall pass.

This obviously struck me as very bold, original and somewhat contemplative since I remember it even now almost 14 years later. I liked that it wasn't a happy statement about "home is where the heart is" or "bless this mess" or some equally kitschy or cute. It spoke to the fact that nothing is stable. Not even in one's own home. Nothing is for sure. Nothing lasts. Not sadness. Not happiness. Your only sure bet is that things will change (and death and taxes of course).

I remember on the evening after we first found out that Aidan was not likely to be okay, after both Brian and I threw up because we were crying so hard...I remember thinking about my Grade 10 art teacher and the writing on his wall. I tried to imagine us being happy again one day, because I knew we could not go on living in such a pit of despair. Things must get better. They must change. They could not stay the same. We could not bear it. And we wouldn't have to. We could count on the fact that "this too shall pass". And from that point on, until a few months after Aidan died, things were pretty shitty...until they got a little better...and a little better again...and hope for a new baby arrived and things were looking up....until they weren't (again). And then weeks and weeks and weeks passed and things still looked grim, and then they looked a little better, and now things still aren't great or perfect or even a sure thing...but they have changed (sort of).

I write this post tonight in honour of my (HOLY SHIT), HALF A YEAR (26 weeks), of bed rest in LESS THAN A YEAR AND A HALF. I write to remind myself that while I sometimes feel like I have been doing this forever, and that things have felt so wrong, so sad and so depressing for so long...it won't always be like this. Hopefully things will be much better (soon? pleaseohpleaseohplease), but they could also be much worse (*sob*).

But this too shall pass. Nothing stays the same forever. Even when you're on bed rest.

Did I ever mention how much I hate the hospital?

30 weeks, 13 weeks + 2 days post rupture, day 2 in hospital (again)

Did I? I can't remember if somewhere in my blog I might have mentioned how much I hate being in hospital. So let me say it again in case it got missed the first time: I FUCKING HATE BEING IN HOSPITAL.

The hospital is the most crappy place on earth to be and these are only a few of the reasons:

1. Nurses who unplug your ELECTRIC bed to plug in their automatic blood pressure machine. Then they either a) don't plug your bed back in so it will no longer go up and down or raise your head or your feet making it impossible to sit up and eat breakfast while reclining like you're SUPPOSED TO BE DOING because OH YEAH YOU'RE ON BED REST or b) they remember to plug the bed back in...to an outlet that doesn't have power...causing similar results as above.

2. Nurses who repeatedly kick your (admittedly ugly) crocs out of the way when doing your monitoring. This makes it next to impossible to either a) find your ugly shoes under your bed without bending over (hello, pregnant and leaking = gushing while bending) and/or b) make it impossible to reach the same ugly shoes without stepping on the dirty hospital floor, making shoes kind of besides the point.

3. Having to explain to every Tom, Dick and Harry your ENTIRE (lengthy) medical history, dead son and all. Then having to listen to your mother explain nicely to the same person "no, this is not my first grandchild...my daughter's first child Aidan was our first grandchild". Duh?

4. Answering the same questions over and over and over again. Any cramping? No. Any bleeding? No. Any leaking? Yes (what the fuck do you think I'm here for?) Does the leaking have an odour? No. (Actually it does, funny enough, it smells like amniotic fluid). Any palpitations? No. Chest pain? No. Shortness of breath? No. (If I was having cardiac symptoms I'd be calling a frigging code on myself...trust me).

5. Them wanting me to HAND OVER ALL MY medications so they can dole them out. Um...I HAVE been taking these medications every day, forever...I think I can manage just fine without your help. Plus last time I was here I actually had to REMIND you when my meds were due...not a huge vote of confidence in your favour. Why don't I just TELL you when I take them and you can mark it on my chart. K?

Oh and the BIGGEST piss off of all?

Although I spend 24 hours a day in a hospital, in an uncomfortable bed, FOR WHICH WE ARE PAYING $100 A DAY OUT OF POCKET for a private room so I don't lose my shit anymore than I already am...the doctors only see a need to have me on the fetal cardiac monitor for TWENTY MINUTES A DAY. In total. That's all. Never mind the other 23 hours and 40 minutes. Nothing will happen in those hours.

That's right folks. Although Dr. S. poo pooed my idea to do a doppler check from home either multiple times per day, or for longer periods of time (for let's say, oh, I don't know, 20 minute stretches)...instead I get to be here. Increasing my risk of infection. Decreasing my satisfaction. Increasing my stress. All for the pleasure of a 20 minute strip per day. At the low low cost of $100/day.

Awesome.

At least today is 30 weeks!!!! Can I get a holla' from the crowd??!!!

Boo

29 weeks + 5 days, 13 weeks post rupture, day 44 at my parent's place.

So my fluid levels are low at 2.5cm.

Damn.

I've been leaking pretty heavily and consistently all week, and although I still feel movement it's more of a tight rolling feeling (which I equate with low fluid), rather than quick pops so I'm not surprised. Still it's disappointing and worrisome. All other parameters are the same. Acorn still has good movements, still has breathing motions, bladder was full and cord flow is normal. Cervix is 4cm long (this measurement changes so much I have no idea how accurate it is, but I guess bigger is better). They didn't do the measurements of the baby today, which makes me sad because weekly growth is nice to see, even if it's only an estimate.

Dr. S.'s instinct at this point is not to deliver, HOWEVER...with fluid levels that low he's concerned about cord compression, so he would like to admit me to hospital for twice daily NSTs. Boo.

The plan is to go to hospital tomorrow and monitor Acorn's heart rate over the weekend. If Acorn starts having decels then we might be looking at delivery sooner rather than later. If my low fluid levels are just a 'blip' and an ultrasound next week shows increased levels, then he would be happy for me to continue to be at home. My concern is, what if on Monday Acorn has shown a good heart rate over the weekend and looks just fine on the monitors, but continues to have low fluid levels? My bet is that they will want to keep me. And while I'm all for doing everything in Acorn's best interest, I'm loathe to spend anymore time in hospital than I absolutely have to. Infection causing bugs, crappy beds, awful food, expensive parking and astronomical costs for a private room are what lies at the hospital...not a place I want to be if I can help it.

Dr. S. did say that his 'secret suspicion' is that Acorn's lungs are going to be okay, as he or she has had adequate amounts of amniotic fluid for the weeks that were very important for lung development. He can't 'guarantee' that of course, but it's nice to hear him say it. It still doesn't completely alleviate our worry over Acorn's lungs...but it helps a bit. Our goal right now is to build up fluid (come on hole, seal up!), avoid infection, avoid cord compression and make it as long as possible in order to avoid 'preemie' problems. It still feels like an up hill battle. Just keep going. One foot in front of the other.

We also discussed his impending vacation from weeks 31 to 34 of my pregnancy. He told me that one of two doctors would be taking over my case. Neither of them are Dr. K. However, one of them I have met and liked and (bonus!) she's a woman. As I've previously mentioned, I would have chosen a female OB from the start if I had any choice in the matter, so I might just get this one tiny, now insignificant, wish granted. Joy.

So, my next update will be from my hospital bed. Let's hope it's a good one.

Summer

29 weeks + 3 days, 12 weeks + 5 days post rupture, day 42 at my parent's place.

I have always loved summer. It's my favourite season. I love being able to walk outside and not worry about gloves, boots or jackets...heck I often walk around my yard without shoes. Bare feet tickled by grass, sun warm on my skin. I love swimming. I love going for long evening walks. I love sitting in the sun. As a kid, I loved being off school. Long days to read, relax and play with friends. Things always seemed possible in the summer.

Today is the first day of summer.

Aidan was due in mid to late summer, but arrived only a month into spring. On his due date I looked around and saw a day so different than the one he was born on. On August 15th the trees were in full bloom, the plants and bushes were over grown, the day was hot and muggy with summer storms brewing. It didn't resemble April 21st at all. We should have just been starting out our lives together, but Aidan was already almost 4 months gone...a whole season away.

But Acorn, no matter what happens, will be a summer baby...just like he or she is suppose to be. Hopefully a healthy, happy July baby instead of a late August, early September one. A Cancer instead of a Leo or a Virgo. Early...but not too early to make life improbable, like it was for Aidan.

Hopefully all good things are possible this summer.

Decisions, Decisions

29 weeks + 1 day, 12 weeks + 3 days post rupture, day 40 at my parent's place.

As a mentioned in my Thursday post we are starting to get to a 'decision making' point in this pregnancy. Dr. Eeyore (who I will now start referring to again as Dr. S. as he is no longer such a downer) actually left the room at one point on Thursday to discuss my case with other OBs in his practice. His question for them was "when should I deliver this patient?"

Their answers were the standard "let her go to 34 or 36 weeks if she's stable...and by the way why if she's a pPROM isn't she in hospital?"

The answers these other OBs gave made me kind of nervous. They were using the textbook 'standard of care' model to answer his questions, but as we know, I'm not the standard.

At all. Ever.

And it wouldn't matter so much what those other OBs think as long as Dr. Eeyore (whoops, Dr. S.) and Brian and I are all on the same page. If he thinks it's best to deliver at 32 weeks and the NICU team agrees, I'm all for it. I recognize that every day I stay pregnant I'm helping Acorn to avoid 'preemie' problems, but I also recognize that each day is another day I could get infected which would drop Acorn's chances of survival significantly. So maybe it would be better if I hit 32 weeks and baby still looks good, we call it a day and say "ok, Acorn you're coming out!" I especially liked that Dr. S. is leaning towards 32 weeks because he doesn't want to push our luck. He's conscious of our prior loss and this past Thursday was the first time he ever referred to 'what we've been through'. He wants us to have the best shot possible at a healthy baby, and that means the world to us.

So Brian and I figured we take it a week at a time. Each time we see Dr. S. we'll make a decision regarding Acorn: take him this week or leave him?

Then we found out Dr. S. GOES ON VACATION FOR FIRST THREE WEEKS OF JULY!!!! (Weeks 31 through 34 of my pregnancy, assuming I get that far).

Crap.

Now I know, everyone deserves a vacation, and July and August are big vacation times here in Canada so I shouldn't really be surprised. Plus, we still have two more appointments with Dr. S. (June 23 and 30th) where I hope we can devise a plan...but after that, some other OB will be 'managing' my case. Now it won't be so bad if it's say, Dr. K. I trust him and he knows about our 'case', but it could be some doctor we've never met before! This doctor might not be as willing to do a C-section on a woman whose 'doing well' at 32 weeks and might want to 'push it'. That might be a good call, or it might not be. But I would hate to leave that decision with a doctor who we might have just met.

I feel like if Dr. S. goes away and I'm still pregnant, Brian and I might have to be more forceful in terms of advocating for ourselves with a new doctor on board, and might be more responsible for decision making. Taking Acorn out at 32 weeks (or 30, or 31?) might be a good call. But what if Acorn suffers from more preemie problems due to us 'rushing' in, like NEC or IVHs or a PDA or even less serious ones like GERD. And what if his or her lungs are 'worse off' then they would have been at 34 weeks? But what if we delay hoping for a bigger, stronger, more mature preemie, but then infection sets in. An infected baby at any age is bad news.

And don't get me started on the lungs...the state of Acorn's lungs keeps me awake at night.

Who knew this 'parenting' thing would be so HARD? Of course, the up side of having to make the decision of when to 'start' our premature baby's life, is that it will hopefully make any other normal parenting decision we have to make seem easy by comparison. When should we start solids? Who should babysit our child? What school should Acorn attend? Can Acorn walk to school alone at age 12? Should we allow Acorn to go on an overnight camping trip with friends at 15? Should we be upset if Acorn gets a tattoo at 17?

Those will be cake by comparison. Now if we could only be assured we'd get there.

Have you ever had to make any life or death decisions for your child, either the living or the dead? Did you feel afterwards that you made the right call? Why or why not?