23 weeks

I am just fine. Baby Greyson is just fine (yes, I do believe that is his name). But we almost had to face the reality of having a 23 week baby born- which means he would most likely not survive. It was a really scary week but things are looking up!

On Wednesday night/Thursday morning I started having some pretty strong contractions. I have had contractions throughout this entire pregnancy, but these felt different. They felt more serious. I started trying to time them and they were all 5-10 minutes apart. I had an appointment scheduled for 9:40am so I figured I would try to rest up and just head to my appointment like planned.

I dropped Owen off at school and headed to my doctors office- all while having tons of contractions in the car. When I got to my doctors office I let her know what was going on, and she immediately hooked me up to the machines to see how much I was contracting on the monitors. I was hooked up for 15 minutes and I had 4 contractions during that time. My doctor came into the room and said "well lady you are going to the hospital and you might be there for a very long time". YIKES!

I headed over to the hospital L&D department around 11am on Thursday. They immediately hooked me up to monitors, gave me a few shots to try and stop the contractions, some pain medication, and had me wait for a while to see what would happen. The terbeutaline they gave me to stop the contractions did not work so they started procardia. It also did not work. The doctor decided to keep me overnight to try and stop the contractions. They also did an ultrasound to check on the baby and he looks GREAT!

Things started to get real around this time. The doctor and the nurses came in to discuss the fact I was only 23 weeks along, the likelihood that the baby could survive at this point was very low, and that if the contractions did not stop they would transfer me to UNC because they can handle micro-preemies.

The last ditch effort to stop the contractions was to put me on magnesium. This is a very harsh drug on your system and they prepared me for the horrible way I would feel. WOW THEY DID NOT LIE! But it was worth it because the contractions got further apart by this time.

On Friday they sent me for another ultrasound to check my kidneys because my urine came up looking bad. The ultrasound showed that my kidneys and ureters are dilated and filled with fluid. It showed that on both sides of my kidneys things are not flowing properly and it is causing pain. This pain can be causing contractions as well.

On Saturday morning I was told the urologist would be coming in soon to speak to me about the situation. By this point they had my contractions under control- thankfully! I waited until about 6pm for the doc to finally come in and when he did he freaked me out. He said I would most likely  need surgery to put stints in my uriters (the tubes that connect your kidneys to the urethra). I immediately lost it and started crying hysterically. It was just too much in too short of a time.

The urologist along with the OB decided not to make a decision right now regarding my kidneys. They decided to give me meds to try and clean out my entire system and see what happens. I have a follow up appointment on Thursday.

So now I am just trying to take it easy. Praying the contractions do not pick up again- right now I am having about 1 an hour.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers during this time!!!