This story began yesterday with Part 1.
For Part 2, I must write a few things that I had forgotten to put in up to this point.
Within the first hour of my trip to the hospital, I was given a shot of Morphine. The amount of pain I was in was unbearable, and they needed me to relax in order to find out if the contractions were going to slow down. A few hours later, the Morphine had worn off, and I was given a second shot. The Morphine masked the pain, but it wore off too quickly, and the pain came back just as it was before. Also, all night long my nurse would come in and check my reflexes and bend my legs, every hour, to make sure the Magnesium wasn’t causing any adverse reactions. Even though I was almost completely out of it, I didn’t get any sleep. One of the many times she came to check on me, she shook her head at the IV pump. “What’s wrong?” I asked. She said, “I can’t believe the dosage you’re on. 4mg of Magnesium is the dose for someone four times your size. But every time I try to wean you down, your contractions start again. I’m sorry.” I had been telling her all night that Dr. Shaver wouldn’t want me to be on Magnesium, and he’d make them take out the foley catheter. I said my doctors wouldn’t keep me like this. She just nodded and went about her work.
After the second shot of Morphine wore off, and the pain was ramping back up again, they told me they couldn’t safely give me any more of that drug. Instead, they gave Nubane. I’d never heard of it before, but I was told it causes nausea. They gave me a dose of Zofran in my IV to help prevent the nausea, and I remember it burning all the way up my arm, and feeling it go down into my heart. Then they gave me the Nubane. I’ve never had such an immediate, violent reaction to a drug before. Within 10 seconds, I sat up and said, “I’m going to be sick.” I had an extra second to catch a clear container that the nurse handed me before I spilled my cookies over and over. Once the wretching stopped, I laid back down, exhausted, and fell asleep. When the Nubane wore off, they came with more, and I cried. My stomach was empty now, and they weren’t getting my pain under control, they were just covering it with narcotics, all of which were probably harmful to my baby. They dosed me again, and I dry-heaved until I was crying with pain and fatigue.
Brock was sleeping on the pull-out, convertible recliner-slash-bed. And by sleeping, of course, I mean sitting by, feeling useless and wishing he could take all of the pain away. He was getting angry with the frustration of being unable to do anything to help. I didn’t want him to touch me or try to make me feel better. And I kept telling everyone it was “too hot in here,” so poor Brock froze all night while I roasted away on drugs.
Around this time, near morning, I figured out that my water hadn’t been broken or I would probably have kept leaking. When the doctor checked my cervix in the Triage room, he used a large amount of lubricating jelly that melts when it raises to body temperature. The gush I felt was all of the extra jelly exiting my body. It was the first breath of relief I’d had in what felt like forever.
My next breath of relief came at 7am. My doctors, all three of them, came in to check on me. Even though I was still quite out of it, they managed to make me smile. They asked the nurses a few questions, check my contraction strips, and Dr. Shaver told the nurse to take me off of the Magnesium. He also said that I didn’t need a catheter. I almost cried with gratitude. Another nurse came in, and I heard her say to Dr. Imseis, “She refused the steroids! She wouldn’t let us give them to her!”
“Good,” was his reply, “She didn’t need them.”
As Dr. Imseis was the hospital physician that day, he was the one that performed my actual consult. I had an ultrasound done that confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my pregnancy or placenta, and that my cervix was still long and closed. Despite the significant contractions I’d been having all night, my baby was not in danger of coming too early – or at least not yet.
However, the problem of my pain had still not been addressed. Dr. Imseis prescribed an anti-spasmodic, which assumed that there was some problem with my bowels. After the first two doses, my pain had gone away and they felt comfortable letting me go home on bed rest.
I would return to the hospital in less than 24 hours. This story will conclude tomorrow with Part 3.
