HAPPY VIABILITY DAY TO ME!!!

Yaay!!!!

I've missed the back history. Would you mind re-sharing what it is that made you so high risk? I'm just curious. Thanks.

I have four children, all of which were early or fought to keep to 37 weeks.  I started having preterm labor at 16 weeks and was in the hospital weekly trying to stop it for three weeks.  Then at 19 weeks I was put on Procardia which gave me great relief from the contractions.  My insurance has refused to approve the P17 shots because it has not been tested on triplets.  They refused to approve at home monitoring also because it has not been shown to prolong pregnancy.  At the big ultrasound at 20 weeks I was 3.13 cm long in the cervix.  When I went into preterm labor again 8 days later they were unable to stop the contractions with terbutaline or morphine or ambien.  I went through 3 days of contractions and my cervix went down to 2 cm in length.  Then they upped my dosage of procardia and sent me home.  Basically I was told that since they would not use any extreme measures to prevent delivery, such as mag sulfate, and they would do nothing to resuscitate the babies there was no point in me being in the hospital.  I was home a little over a day when I started spotting.  I went to take a shower and heard a popping noise and thought my water had broken.  I stood up and there was a little pool of blood where I had been sitting on my stool.  So we called the 24 hour nurse and asked what to do, they sent us back to the hospital.  The bleeding stopped but my cervix is down to 1.3 cm.  So I am now hospitalized until delivery.  Every three to four days I was having contractions that they had difficulties stopping even on the Procardia.  Saturday I started becoming really sick, light headed, nauseated and horrible headaches.  By Sunday I was passing out so they took me off the Procardia.  The side effects went away but now I have contractions for hours on end about every other day.  They will not give me terbutaline because of a risk of heart problems in women pregnant with multiples since I have passed the 24 week mark and they do not seem to work anyway.  I am receiving fluids when they think I might be dehydrated and some small doses of Procardia but it seems that most of the time I just have to let them stop on their own.  Last night they gave me some meds to let me sleep so I do not know how long I contracted.  Day before I contracted for 11 1/2 hours before they stopped.  Fortunately, there has been no change to the cervix in the last few days.

Long story, sorry, but lots of stuff going on.  These were spontaneous triplets, we were not trying to get pregnant, it was an oops we are pregnant, oops there are three thing but they are our babies and we are trying to do everything we can to keep them in as long as possible.  I am just finding it really weird at how little there is that they can do to stop contractions and labor. 

are these triplets identical?

Well one is a girl so she is not but the boys could be.  There are separate placentas, but the boy's placentas are on the back wall and look like they are fusing, their membranes also seem to not be as thick between them as they are with the girl so they have told me that the boys could be identical but no way to tell until delivery.  Would be fun if the boys were.

I'm having identical boys in 2 weeks and I'm scared I will confuse them, lol.....happy to hear you got this far keep baking those babies

Thank you and congrats on your boys.  Good luck!

I have to be honest and tell you that I am shocked at how little they are doing to stop your labor too. When the procardia stopped working on me they "cleared" my system by giving me 24 hours of mag sulfate (awful, horrible stuff but it did the trick), then when I started contracting again they gave me oral Terb, and when that stopped working they put a 24 hour pump in my leg so I got continual doses all day long. Once I started to breakthough on the highest terb dose they gave me more mag sulfate and started the cycle all over again. We manged to make it to 31 weeks, 5 days before delivery. Do you have a high risk doctor, or is this a normal OB that is taking care of you?

Do you have a heart condition? Is that why they are not giving you the terb, or are you saying they won't give it to you because they are afraid it might CAUSE a heart problem? That is where I was a little fuzzy on your post.

If it was me, I would be yelling for a second opinion, because this care does not seem to be as aggressive or proactive as it could be.

I have both a regular OB and a high risk OB seeing me on a regular basis.  I have seen both this week.  The high risk OB gives her recommendations and the OB makes I guess the final decisions.  There is a third doctor that is in the rotation also and he also is consulted with by the OB and the peranatologist so I have three doctors workingThe high risk OB had wanted the terb stopped altogether when I was originally admitted 15 days ago but my OB said not until 24 weeks.  I have had super ventricular tachycardia.  The procardia has caused very low blood pressure and now they give me low doses when I am contracting only but even that is giving me side effects.  My blood pressure drops to about 95/45 and I get severe headaches and nausea and start passing out.  I had one 10 mg tablet of Procardia yesterday evening and suffered all day from the side effects, fortunately when it was just too much they let me have Vicodin and Zofran which helped a great deal.  They would have given it to me sooner but I have a tendency to not complain until it is just to the point I cannot deal with it anymore. 

The decision has been made that the risk to benefit balance for the terb usage has tipped in the other direction and it is no longer worth the risk to my heart to use it.  The mag sulfate they will use if I start "true labor" but not until then.  So I deal with the contractions with muscle relaxants and pain meds, they give me small doses of procardia to try and control it when I start contracting.  I think the reluctance to use mag sulfate is also due to my previous experience with it.  I spent 2 1/2 weeks on it back in 2001 with my third child and had stroke like side effects so they just don't want to mess around with it unless absolutely necessary.

ok, that makes sense about the terb, it sounds like it could do you way more harm then good. Also, on the mag sulfate, from what I understand it does not really work as effectivly if you use it more then once, so at this early it would make sense that they would want to to push you out as far as possible before using it.

Have you looked into any alternatives, like inversion? I spent a couple of hours a day inverse and it seemed to help out quite a bit (and it helped with swelling too!), I even gained like a .4 on my cervix after one treatment. It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but even if it gives you a day or two it might be worth it.

Are you spending most if your time on your left side? And I can't stress how important it is to stay hydrated.

I don't envy you here, I spent 11 weeks (14 weeks total) in the hosptial, with alot of the same issues you are having. Keep calm (I know, harder said then done), keep drinking and keep baking.

If you have any questions about trips, the NICU or anything else don't hesitate to ask. Oh and COMPLAIN if you feel something funny LOL The staff is used to it, they want to help you, so let them!