Thursday's 5 hour stay at L&D left me with instructions to return on Sunday for more monitoring. From Thursday night until Saturday morning I was having frequent, but not regular contractions. I had what I thought was some 'show' and I really thought that if I didn't go into labor on my own, by the time I got to L&D on Sunday, they're examine me and tell me I was 4 cm dilated or something.
Saturday afternoon the sinus infection went into overdrive and by evening I was in agony. I managed to sleep from 1 a.m. until 2 a.m., NS woke up for a snuggle and then I slept from 2:30 until 5 and then I gave up trying to sleep with the pain.
At 8 a.m. Zach and I were on a bus and we were at hospital by 9. I gave reception the paperwork I received at discharge Thursday and she asks me where the HMO approval (Tofes 17) is.
Um.. no... I'm following doctor's order. She tells me that I have 2 options. Pay 600NIS and hope to be reimbursed by the HMO, call the HMO and have them fax over the T17. She does not have their number. Neither do we. But their offices are about 10 minutes away by cab. And thanks to past experience with NS, calling and waiting for a fax can be a most-of-the-day thing.
So we decide on option 3. Head over to the office and get it in person. We get there, I tell the receptionist what I want and she tells me... "No need for you to go to the hospital for this. We can do it ourselves. Do you want to go to the women's emergency day clinic in Ra'anana, Tel Aviv or Bnei Brak?"
(Here is a map of where we were. And where they wanted us to go.. although I have no idea which clinic in Tel Aviv they were talking about since none of them have the women's emergency day clinic).
We opted for Bnei Brak since it was closest.
We get there at 10:30. Urine is fine, no more protein. BP is high though and won't go below 140/90. Ultrasound for measurements - plenty of amniotic fluid, baby is measuring fine. Weighing in at about 3.5 kilo (7lbs 12 oz)... my biggest yet!!! Then it's wait an hour for a fetal monitor to become available. Sit on the monitor for 45 minutes. Wait 45 minutes to see the doctor. Who looks everything over, sees there are two rather alarming decelerations in the baby's heartbeat (one during a contraction, one very much NOT during a contraction). He circles these two points, taps on his keyboard for 5 minutes, prints it up in triplicate, stamps and signs it, hands it to me and says get to the hospital with this ASAP. He also said I should get my family doctor to give me a prescription for antibiotics and anti-histamin for the sinus infection.
It's now 2 p.m. And we're heading BACK to the hospital, where we were at 9 a.m. I was ready to cry.
We took a cab back to the hospital and the driver had a great CD playing... Moody Blues... so we talked music. At least that was nice.
So we're back at the hospital, urine is still clear, they finally get a BP reading that's below 140/90 and they hook me up to the monitor for 20 minutes. Some nice contractions, nothing alarming from the baby. Then it's wait to see doctor 1 so she can take a history and then wait even long to see doctor 2 and his student for an exam and a discussion.
The exam shows... I have apparently de-dilated... un-dilated... I went from being 1 cm and 30% effaced on Thursday to being closed with a 'long' cervix. And this is WITH having contractions Friday and Saturday. I'm telling you, my body just doesn't know what to do any more. I have a senile uterus... So there go all my hopes of going into labor then and there or of them sweeping my membranes to get things moving.
More ultrasound stuff... baby's head is rather low in my pelvis, which explains why there's so much pressure when I blow my nose... but being low doesn't seem to be doing much for labor...
Then the discussion... due to the previous c-section, they will NOT induce me due to a greater risk of uterine rupture. I was expecting them to say that. Basically it's more of the same... I need to be monitored every 3 days and if the baby hasn't come by next week (not sure exactly WHEN the actual deadline is), I'm looking at a repeat c-section.
Honestly, at this point, my personal deadline is when this sinus infection clears up... I'm not stupid enough to want to risk my health or the baby's health and go 'for as long as possible' just to have a natural delivery. I'd just like to be able to be as pain free as possible... coughing and blowing one's nose after abdominal surgery hurts like a bitch.
Tuesday morning I'll be seeing the nurses here at the local clinic (couldn't get an appointment until late Wednesday afternoon, AFTER the OB). Maybe I can convince them to let me do the monitoring here and on Wednesday I see my OB.. even though I think he's an incompetent ass. Worse comes to worse I will BEG the local office to give me the T17 approval so I can do the monitoring at the hospital.
Oh, and the OB at the hospital took pity on me and gave me a prescription for antibiotics...
1 comment:
You do still have my number, right? Call me if you like.
Post a Comment