I guarantee this retelling of our experience yesterday will be all over the place but bare with me... its 4 AM and I can't sleep (which NEVER happens to me)!
So we went in for our weekly check up (I'm was 35 weeks along on Monday) and an ultrasound yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock. We started the appointments with our doctor where we completed a normal check up and were then ushered upstairs for the ultrasound portion. A reminder to everyone- I have been having to have pretty regularly scheduled ultrasounds because they had been needing to keep their eye on my placenta because I had been diagnosis with placenta previa early on in my pregnancy as well as low-normal levels of amniotic fluid levels. This ultrasound was scheduled to determine how far my placenta had moved away from my cervix. We had only been able to get one firm measurement early on of 1.7 cm (A normal pregnancy, the cervix is at least 3 cm away) so this appointment was to try and determine if we could get a firm measure as to where the placenta was currently located.
So in order to try and get this measurement we headed upstairs to radiology for another ultrasound. Now around this time Tice had a meeting that he needed to run off to so once he walked me to the ultrasound area he kissed me goodbye and headed off. I then was left in the waiting room by myself- thankfully the ultrasound process was old hat by that point so I patiently waited for the tech to come and get me. Once she did we headed back to the room and began the ultrasound. She was very nice, keeping us both entertained by talking about how she too was originally from Colorado and loved the sunshine as much as I do. She flew through the appointment, taking tons of pictures of the baby and then finally said "I'm going to put these measurements into the system and see if I can catch someone at your doctor's office." I laid there thinking that is kind of odd that she wanted to try and catch my doctor but tried not to read to much into it and then worry myself. I waiting around for about three minutes before she reappeared in the room with a phone and said "your doctor would like to talk to you" and handed me the phone. The words I hear come through on the other line where not at all what I was expecting to hear...there was both good and bad news that she wanted to share with me. First the good news, my placenta without a doubt had moved far enough away from my cervix that we were going to be able to move forward with a vagina birth!!! YES! The news we had been waiting for had finally been received! And then she told me the bad news, I was going to be admitted upstairs into the labor and delivery ward immediately and be pumped with fluids because my amniotic fluid levels were extremely low, a 6 out of 10...that would be an F people... so they ushered me into the elevator and sent me up immediately to begin the process.
The entire time that this was happening I was actually pretty calm, I didn't start crying, I wasn't even teary eyed because I think a feeling/realization ran over me that reminded me that what was about to happen was necessary and for a wonderful cause- we needed Sawyer to remain healthy! They checked me into a room and then started the process. Now remember- during this whole time I was all by myself- I didn't want to interrupt the meeting that Tice was in but this was no longer just an ordinary ultrasound that was common place so I decided to call him and let him know what had happened. He immediately wrapped up the meeting and said he would be there in about 45 minutes. During the time that I was all alone I was hooked up to an IV and fetal monitors and then asked to starting loading myself up with water. By the time that the first bag of fluid was about 3/4 complete Tice arrived with some Taco Bell for us to munch on. So we hung out and talked to the nurse while she waited for the first bag to complete and then started the second. She also informed me that I was having pretty regular contractions, anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes apart all over 30 second long but that they hoped that the additional fluids would help and that they would stop. Interesting little fact- I had NO idea that I was having contractions but soon realized that what she was describing was something that I had been having since Saturday! Once the final bag of fluid was pumped in she came back and informed us that we would have to come back tomorrow to complete the same process again- a 3:30 PM ultrasound followed by more fluid pumping in the labor and delivery ward.
If the additional fluids and my increase in water intake doesn't help we will be discussing inducing- most likely this week. They have also ordered me on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. It sounded like that won't be changing unless my body decided to do some crazy 180. So that's the update on us right now and it really was like a flash and made me think "did this really just happen?" I'll keep you all updated as to what happens after our 3 o'clock appointment tomorrow. Hope everything goes well- I keep trying to tell myself that maybe Sawyer is as impatience as his mommy and just can't wait to meet us so he wants to arrive early!
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