Tuesday was a tough one.
At 6:00am they took blood, changed my bed and my gown and I got a little sponge down. By 6:45 I was being wheeled to the operating room. Matt wasn't able to come and I was so scared. Once I got in the room the anesthesiologist came in and told me we would be doing a spinal tap. A spinal tap is different from an epidural, it is a massive dose of medicine that will take away all feeling from the boobs down, where an epidural stills leaves it so you can feel pressure. I was past the point of fear for myself and just wanted to get going to they could fix me up and I could go home! After they did the spinal tap they positioned me, I was able to stay awake and they went to work immediately.
About 1 minute into the procedure I knew something was wrong. All of the doctors stepped away and my main doctor came over to my head. He said "it's worse then we thought, you are 4 centimeters dilated the baby's arm and top of the head are visible past the cervix." He said this baby was coming today, that if I wanted we could continue to try the cerclage but to know that the chance of it working was low but he would do everything he could, his recommendation was to go forward and hope it gave me some more time. I gave them the go ahead then I cried the rest of the surgery, the room as silent, it was as if the entire hospital was holding their breathe for us. The whole thing took about 30 minutes and when I saw the doctor again, he said he was able to push in the baby and the water and complete the cerclage. We were not out of the woods, it would take 24 hours to see if my body would accept or reject the change.
I was wheeled back to my room and I was doped up and dozed in and out of sleep for the entire day. Then around 6pm I knew something was different, I felt something down below. I called the nurse and she said it looked like I was bleeding from the surgery and that it was normal. I knew it wasn't normal, I am now fully in tune with my body. About 5 minutes later I felt the famous gush, I called the nurse back and let her know that my water broke. Now we had a new problem, I had a cerclage and a broken water. The room was filled with nurses and doctors yet again and before I knew it the anesthesiologist was back and I had a new epidural in, this is 3 total needles in my back in the last 4 days. The doctor told me that I had to have my cerclage removed before it was ripped out, the surgery was both a success and failure. I was back in the syrups and they were cutting about down there, it only took 15 minutes for this mornings work to be undone.
When it was all said and done, with my family in the room the doctor came to my bed side and said "You have 24 hours or less left in your pregnancy" I was given steroids and magnesium to try and help Henry's lungs and brain stay strong for his grand entrance. I was so scared, I did everything I could to keep him in, but I just wasn't strong enough to do it much longer.
I went to bed knowing that I would meet our baby tomorrow and terrified that he wouldn't be ready enough to stay with us. They gave me sleeping medicine and a pain killer, the epidural was off, but still in my back, ready to go for the big day.
We didn't meet you today Henry..... but I'll see you tomorrow...
Nikki