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 backpain 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 backpain was really bad. I went upstairs and for the next hour, time 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 relaeased 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.
This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here.