*Brittany Jade*

This is the story of my birth

My pregnancy with Brittany was quite a bit
different than with Salina. I had pretty bad
morning sickness from about week 6 to week 14.
I ended up losing about 8 pounds. Of course,
I quickly gained that back after the first trimester.

Because of what happened with Salina, I declined
taking the AFP test. At 20 weeks, we had
an ultrasound which showed everything to be
normal and that the baby was most likely a girl.
(I knew it!)

When I first met with my OB for this pregnancy,
we discussed the possiblity of a reoccurance
of what happend with Salina.
PROM (premature rupture of the membranes)
apparently has a low case of reoccurance and
when it does, studies show it tends to take place
2 weeks later in gestation. This would put me in
the clear at 36 weeks, at which point most often
the lungs have matured.

Around 24 weeks, I began having back pain and frequent
braxton-hicks contractions from time to time.
I payed close attention to these as I knew they
could be precursers to preterm labor. I continued
to exercise and everything went along quite well.
At 32 weeks, I slipped walking down the stairs
and twisted my ankle. I couldn't walk for a
couple of days and ended up down for almost a week.

At 34 weeks and a couple of days, I began
my normal Monday routine of housecleaning with
washing floors and exercise. I felt throughout
the day as if I was having contractions and the
back pain was pretty bad. I ended up
stopping exercising and resting for the rest of the day.
I continued to feel this way throughout the evening,
but decided to just rest and go to bed early.
At around 2 in the morning, I woke up feeling the
back pain was really bad. I went upstairs
and for the next hour, timed contractions
and applied heat.

I finally gave in and called the OB on call.
He decided that, especially with my history,
I should go in to the labor and delivery
and get on the monitor. We got to
L&D around 4 am. Salina was with us too as
I didn't want to wake anyone up yet. They put me
on the monitor and contractions immediatley began
to register. I ended up staying there the
rest of the day. They gave me 3 shots
to stop the contractions and I was released
with orders to take 2.5 mg. of Brethine every 4-6 hours.
I was put on semi-bedrest with orders to use
my own best judgement, but not leave the house.
This was to last until 36 weeks, which was
2 days after Christmas. Depressing!! Especially
since our families were so far away!

Stuart took time off from work and we
received help by way of meals and childcare
help from members of our church.

After abour 3 days on the medicine and rest,
I began having backpain and contractions again.
We went back to L&D to be monitored. I
had the 3 shots again and was relaeased with a
prescription of 5 mg. of brethine every 4 hours.
This seemed to do the trick as, while I
continued to have contractions and pain, it was
not enough to worry me.

I got up off bedrest and meds. at 36 weeks
officially. However, I chose to wait to resume
normal activity for an additonal week as 37
weeks is considered "term". At 37 weeks and a
couple days, I returned to nomral activity with
house cleaning and exercising. This lasted two
days.

On Jan. 6th, 1998, I went to bed a few minutes
before midnight. While laying in bed, I felt as
if something inside of me went "pop". My first
thought was "my water broke", but nothing
gushed out, so I figured I was wrong. I went
to the bathroom, but there was nothing notable.
I decided to put on a pad just in case
and returned to bed and went to sleep.

I woke up 40 minutes later with my pad soaked.
I went into the bathroom and had a gush of
fluid. So, I called to Stuart that my water
had broke. He mumbled something and went back
to sleep. After a few tries, I managed
to get him to wake up and he took Salina over to a
friends house. When he came back, we went
to the hospital and got there at 1:30 am.. I was
checked and was around 3 cms. dialated.

Stuart went back to sleep on a chair in my
room while I spent the next 3 hours checking in,
monitoring the baby, and walking
around to help labor progress.
I was determined to have this baby drug free,
so I wanted to get things moving. I began to
have more difficult contracions, so I
woke Stuart up and I got in the shower. After
20 minutes,The nurse checked me andI was
at 5cms.. Twenty minutes later I was at 5 and a half,
so the nurse called the OB on call. As my previous
labor progressed from 3-10 cms. in a hour
or less, they wanted to be prepared. Things
got real intense from that point on and it's all
a haze of pain. At one point, the ER doctor
was called in just in case my OB didn't get there
in time. He made it though. The baby's
heartrate started dropping, so they used the vacuum
extractor to help her out.

Brittany Jade was born at 6:21 am on 1-7-98.
She weighed 7 pounds 5 and a half ounces and
was 19 and 1/4 inches long. Her head
circumference was 13 and 1/2 inches.
Her apgars were 6 and 9.
She was and is, perfect and beautiful.

Visit Susan's World to find out more about Brittany

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