Randy's story-Part 1

The last few weeks have been really strange. It started February 26th of this year and I blurted to a co-worker "This is was the date that I was taken off work last year". I was 22 weeks and 6 days. SInce then, I feel myself remembering very vividly what happened each day after the day when the doctors said "Your cervix is short. Go to the hospital." For the next three weeks, I laid in the bed. I prayed. I checked emails and answered phone calls. I tried to mother my daughter from a hospital bed. I tried to love my husband from a hospital bed. But my most important job was to keep my son inside.

On Saturday, March 15, 2008 things headed downhill. I began having regular contractions again. All night I told the nurses I was contracting; but the monitor told a different story-no contractions. All night I tossed and turned. I was given pain medicine. Well, that lasted about an hour. The nurse became concerned. Put me back on the monitor-no contractions. In the wee hours of the morning, I found a pen and paper and used my cell phone to write down the times. I did this for an hour. The contractions were six minutes apart. I called the nurse again and she tried the monitor again-no contractions. She was concerned. She had been my nusrse several times during my two and a half week stay and knew I was not a whiner. She said she was going to manually check for contractions (she was an experienced nurse who had been working for a long time). Sure enough, I was contracting. She began to tell me when the contractions were coming.

Things began moving fast. I was given an IV and given a shot of a med called tuberteline (sp?). This was to stop labor. The side effect is that it makes your heart race. Ten minutes or so later, she was to give me a second dose, but my heart was beating too fast.

I was wisked away to ICU and they began giving me this drug called magnesium sulfate. If I live to be 100, I'll never forget how it makes you feel. You are hot, and disoriented, and weak, and high, and confused; shall I go on? I stayed on this drug for two days. It was not working. I dilated to three centimeters inthe process. They then tried Idocin again (it had worked when I was first admitted). It worked! They began to wean me off of the mag, and they almost got me off and BAM! contractions started again and I am now five centimeters. Back to the magnesium sulfate.

It's Tuesday. They know the baby is breech and he is in the birth canal. They turn my bed almost upside down. My feet are higher than my head. It's called Trundelberg or something like that. The purpose is to use gravity to your advantage. At this point the doctor suggests that my husband stay at the hospital. We know it's not long now. I pray harder than I can ever remember praying. My husband and mom tour the NICU (I did this about a week ago while he was at work).

The next morning I wake up VERY early to a little foot kicking me; it was my son's foot. The nurse checks me; she feels his foot hanging. He has to come out now by c-section. She goes to my white board, erases the number that was there and writes "26 weeks, 0 days". I was in bad shape. I had not had anything but liquids since Saturday, I was getting fluid in my lungs from the bed rest, I was having contractions, I was nauesous, my bones ached, and I was hanging upside down; but I longed to carry my son one more month, one more week, even one more day. I whispered to the nurse, "I can hang on another day." She shook her head no and said, "It's time."

Randy entered the world on March 19, 2008 weighing 1lbs 10oz and 13 inches long.