Confinement

After I left the hospital, I was on strict orders to remain on the sofa except for the toilet and shower. I could only leave the house if I went into labour.

I was still taking medication for the hypertension I was experiencing during pregnancy and was also still on antibiotics.

My family came to visit and fussed over me, which was very nice. My mum (a nurse and ex-midwife) urged me to use my abdominal muscles as little as possible, and I dismissed it as nagging. That was not very smart on my part.

I was waited on by my husband and my family. I watched movies, read books, and even called the boss to pick up some work. She must have thought I was mad! But I needed the distraction and mental occupation desperately. I was only mildly concerned about the baby at this stage. I was more anxious about lying down in the same position hour after hour, day after day, potentially for ten more weeks. I was beginning to get serious cabin fever.

I began thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the baby were to come out soon. Of course, I knew on some level that it was not good for the baby to come out too soon, but nobody had explained the situation to me completely. In fact, many nurses went out of their way to reassure me that if the baby did come out, he would be absolutely fine in the NICU. I’m sure this was just so that I wouldn’t completely freak out, because in reality, I had very little control over the situation.

So I continued to think that in some ways (meaning, in ways that would suit me!) it would be better if the baby came out. In my head, I imagined a miniature baby cooing in a humidicrib for a few weeks.

One week after my waters first broke, my husband was preparing a dinner of minestrone using one of my favourite recipes. We were just about to sit down for dinner when I went to the bathroom. There was blood – it was a show. I felt a wave of panic, and called out ‘We have to go to the hospital, now!’ We immediately left for the hospital, and went straight to the maternity ward.

Again, I felt a rush of panic and excitement, but this time I also felt some fear.

Broken waters

On 16 July 2009 I went to bed a pregnant lady of 30 weeks, expecting to have a night of bad sleep and frequent toilet trips.

On 17 July 2009, I woke up in bed, felt a pop between my legs, and a rush of warm water. For a second or two I thought I had wet the bed, but soon realised that was not what had happened.

I immediately went into robot mode. I got J out of bed, got dressed myself, dropped him off at the neighbours and fully intended to walk to the hospital. I realise now that was incredibly stupid.

I called T, and he said he was coming straight home. He told me to go next door and tell them what happened.

My very kind neighbour insisted on driving me to emergency. He dropped me off with a very worried look, and I remember thinking: “He’s over reacting slightly”.

I walked up to the ward, and they got me straight into a room. They told me they expected me to go into labour at any minute, so they gave me some drugs to stop contractions. They also gave me an injection of steroids, which was to help C strengthen his lungs in the womb. They didn’t explain this to me at the time (probably because they didn’t want to frighten me), but a lack of fluids in the womb means that the baby’s lungs won’t develop any strength, and may fail when the baby is born. The steroids help to make the baby’s lungs strong enough to take his first breath and keep breathing.

At this point, I still was not really scared. I didn’t understand the real impact of what had happened. The nurses were all very upbeat, and casual about things, so I went with the flow.

T arrived, which made me feel a whole lot better. We spent the whole day in a delivery room, nervous and scared. I had a weird kind of excitement as well, which seems bizarre to me now.

We spent the day making calls to family, friends and work, without knowing really what to say, except that all the staff expected me to go into labour at any moment. I even remember asking my boss for some work to do because I was getting a bit bored of lying around.

By evening, it was clear that I was not going to go into labour, so they moved me to another room to spend the night under observation. T stayed with me for a restless night of anticipation.

In the morning, my obstetrician was there to greet me. He said it was excellent that I had not gone into labour, and that it would be ideal to keep bub in for another two weeks at least. He said if I did go into labour any sooner, I would have to be transferred to another hospital that could handle babies that need acute care. He prescribed antibiotics to prevent an infection in the womb (a very real risk that I did not understand at the time), and also gave me another shot of steroids.

Then he sent me home, on strict bed rest. If I had been bored at the hospital, I had no idea what I was in for. I was strictly to rise only for the toilet and a shower, a special kind of torture that I was dreading when we finally left the hospital.

One long year

For many reasons, this has been a very long year. I plan to recount some of it here in the next few posts.

My last post of 24 July 2009 was naive in the extreme. I had no understanding of what was about to happen to me, or my family, when I wrote it. In some ways, I’m still reeling from it all.

But we have come out of it on the other side, unscathed, and stronger than before. When things were their most awful, I didn’t think that was possible. And now I know different!