From: larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu (Tracy Larrabee)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: My labor story, part 1: trying to stop it
Date: 21 Dec 92 19:13:52 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
NNTP-Posting-Host: arapaho.ucsc.edu

On Sunday, December 6 my friends threw me a baby shower in my bedroom.
It was a lot of fun (and, in a more mercenary vein, I got some great
stuff), but I didn't get out of bed or get too excited or anything.
Honest.  After the shower my mother, who was now staying with us to
help out, and Dan (my husband) both worried about leaving me alone on
Monday evening.  My husband had the very last of our once joint
Bradley classes (which he taped for me to listen to later), and my
Mother was to take my sister out to dinner for her birthday.  I
thought their concerns were somewhat paranoid, and I reminded both of
them that my husband had a beeper and would only be 30 minutes away.
Besides, there was some chance that I would get a visitor in the form
of a friend who was going to bring my workstation up from campus so I
could have an easier home-computing set-up.

Monday came, and my visiting nurse examined me and said everything
looked great: no change and no sign of impending change.  I began to
feel once again that I was just in for a long, tedious wait until
Christmas. (For those of you following my story, that feeling should
have immediately placed me on alert because the last time I felt that
way I went into hard labor and the phones were out all around our
area.)  My husband checked in regularly and my Mom left me with a
wealth of treats before heading out to see my sister.  My friend
called up and said he would be able to come up with my workstation: oh
happy day!

My friend Darrell arrived and started toting around heavy computing
modules while I lay on the bed and felt ineffectual and beholding (but
did absolutely nothing physical to help).  After he had everything set
up and was telling me how to use my new modem I started getting some 
contractions more regular and more painful than any since the last
hospital visit.  I didn't want to alarm Darrell, but I was writing all
the contractions down.  At one point I asked him if he could drop me
off at the hospital on his way back to Santa Cruz.  I think he thought
I was joking.

Darrell left, and I turned my light off and tried to make my
contractions go away by studiously relaxing.  (This isn't as stupid as
it sounds because the technique had worked before.)  I just didn't
want to go to the hospital again unless I really needed to.  At the
hospital they had basically kept me for three or four days and did
little else other than up my medication and watch me carefully.  My
mom came home, and I was still counting and relaxing.  Dan came home
10 minutes later and walked in cheerily asking if I was OK.  My
response was "I think we better pack." (And no, we hadn't packed yet.
Denial, I guess.)

Dan packed and I timed, and then we called my doctor.  I told her I
really didn't want to come in unnecessarily, and was there anything we
could try at home.  So we basically got permission to up my
terbutaline dosage even further and to give me a stiff alcoholic
drink and wait an hour.  No change.  So off we went to the hospital.
We still thought they would magically stop my labor once again and
that this wasn't really "it" (though we did bring our birthing
supplies).

When we got to the hospital we knew the routine: urine sample, IV
hookup (why does it always take exactly 3 sticks?), fetal monitor, and
vaginal exam.  I was only dilated a bit more than I was last hospital
visit--maybe 2.5 centimeters.  So I wasn't crazy, but things still
looked stoppable (in general, they think everything up to 4
centimeters dilation is stoppable).  Except that I was still having
contractions on astronomically high dosages of terbutaline.  It turns
out that people develop a tolerance to terbutaline, and my system was
no longer impressed by this particular tocolytic.

So they decided to put me on magnesium sulfate, which I had heard was
pretty unpleasant.  They apologized but said that after 24 to 48 hours
of "mag" I would be de-toxed for terbutaline and I could go back to a
lower dosage.  They hooked me up, and it really didn't feel so bad.
I felt flushed and slow and sort of like I was getting the flu, but
after the terbutaline it was almost a pleasant change (but I still
couldn't sleep).  When the OB on call saw me the next morning and I
said the magnesium sulfate wasn't so bad, he said my doctor had told
him I would say that because I was such a motivated patient, but he
hadn't believed her.  Unfortunately, I was still having plenty of
contractions, and my dilation had increased, so they upped my mag
dosage.  Now I found out why I had heard that magnesium sulfate was
unpleasant.

I couldn't control my muscles.  I couldn't focus my eyes (there were
two of everything).  My blood pressure dropped to 78 over 45 and I had
a hard time not fainting on the way to the toilet (so they put a
porta-pottie right by my bed: oh joy).  I vomited and vomited and
vomited and vomited.  I have no idea how I could possibly have had
that much in my stomach.  Through all this my husband was fantastic.
He swapped "emesis basins" as fast as I filled them while sitting with
his face about five inches from my face (and he normally can't stand
to even have people talk about vomiting).  He helped me through the
contractions and back and forth to the toilet.  My contractions were
pretty painful by now, and the drug was keeping me so wacked out that
I had a lot of trouble handling them (later I had much worse pains
that I handled much better).  I was exhausted and sick and in pain and
very, very miserable.  The next vaginal exam showed me at 3.5
centimeters, so at 2:00 pm on Tuesday they decided to just let me go
ahead and have the baby.

Since Dan and I had figured out a while ago that nothing was working
to stop the contractions, the actual decision to take me off of the
mag was a tremendous relief.  It also caused a distinct change of
attitude and behavior for the nursing staff.  They took me off the
monitor, they unhooked the IV (though they left in the heparin lock,
which didn't bother me at all--I had been scared they would want to
keep in the full IV for labor proper), and they told me to do whatever
I wanted.  

This is getting long, so I think I will post it in pieces.

--
Tracy Larrabee		larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu