A PREGNANT PAUSE

Yesterday, I had my second false alarm.

I started feeling contractions at around 6:00 PM. I followed my doctor's instructions, gulping down huge amounts of water and lying on my left side in bed. When they still hadn't subsided by 8:00 PM, I asked Lorenzo to take me to the hospital. I felt bad, knowing he had to report to Camp Parks early the next morning for his Army Reserve training, but he was very understanding.

My husband and I share the same goal in this pregnancy: making it as close to 40 weeks as possible. Even 37 weeks, already considered full term, is good enough for us. Unfortunately, I had just barely passed my 34th week at this point. It was still too early for my baby daughter to be born.

Lance came at 34 weeks. With both Lance and Troy (who came at 36 weeks), we waited too long to go to the hospital. We weren't about to make the same mistake three times in a row.

Good thing Lorenzo discovered a faster route to Doctor's Medical Center when he last brought me in for contractions, exactly four weeks ago. By the time we rounded the bend, just within sight of the hospital, I was besieged by a HUGE contraction, and all my misgivings flew out the window. Yes, this could be a false alarm, but it could very well be the real thing, too. This time around, I wasn't taking any chances. Considering my track record, I'd rather err on the side of caution.

When we finally reached the hospital, I was so relieved, I didn't even mind being wheeled in on a wheelchair. Anything to combat the force of gravity on my gravid womb. Just being in the confines of Doctor's gave me a sense of calm. It is the best hospital within the vicinity, sporting a very capable Level 3 NICU facility, able to handle even the smallest babies. If you were at risk for pre-term labor, this was the place to be. With my history of premature births, I was very familiar with the acronym NICU, short for "Neonatal Intensive Care Unit". Luckily, Lance and Troy didn't have to be brought into a NICU, despite their early births. But if my baby daughter ever came early like her kuyas, it's good to know there's a NICU so close at hand.

As luck would have it, the Maternity Center was full to the rafters last night. I ended up being wheeled to a separate treatment room. This room was stripped down to the basics, with the requisite examination table and maternal/fetal monitors and not much of anything else. Lorenzo and I had the same feeling of deja vu upon seeing my quarters. This room was just a step above the infamous storage room at Kaiser Santa Clara, where I ended up giving birth to Troy.

When I had Troy, my labor progressed so quickly that they didn't have time to prepare a proper LDR (labor and delivery room) for me. In fact, they barely had time to get the storage room in order. Lorenzo tells me the bed preceded me by a mere couple of minutes. At that point, I was just happy to make it to the hospital. Any more traffic on the road and Lorenzo would've had to deliver the baby himself, right in the confines of our minivan.

Not that I doubt my husband's capabilities. It's a little known fact that Lorenzo assisted in Lance's delivery. During a critical period when I was in labor, Lance's heart rate dropped to 53 beats per minute, extremely low considering the normal range was 150 or higher. At that point, my LDR nurse (a Filipina named Maria Fe) decided to deliver the baby without waiting for my OB-Gyn, who was en route. She needed all the assistance she could get, and Lorenzo gamely joined the two other nurses who came to help. Between the four of them, they managed to brace my legs open when it was time to push. In between pushings, Lorenzo mopped my brow and tried his best to soothe me and ease my discomfort.

One of Lorenzo's most memorable moments happened during Lance's labor. I was hugging him while they were trying to insert my epidural. My poor husband had to witness my (extremely incapable) anesthesiologist stick that HUGE needle in my back SIX TIMES before finally getting it right. Everytime the doctor would pull the needle out, blood would spurt out of my spine, and all Lorenzo could do was watch with mounting irritation while listening to my moans of agony. It is a testament to labor's pain that I didn't even feel the needle entering my back due to my contractions, which were coming one on top of the other at that point.

When my epidural was finally inserted, I heard the nurse say, "Would you like some orange juice?". I was about to answer when I realized she was talking to Lorenzo. My husband had turned an interesting shade of grey. He gratefully accepted the offer, sitting down to steady his legs after the ordeal. Lucky for the anesthesiologist, who promptly withdrew from the room, narrowly escaping Lorenzo's wrath. We later discovered that the epidural came much too late to do any good. By the time it was administered, my cervix had already dilated to 10 centimeters, due to the strength of my contractions.

Last night's contractions were no way near as excruciating, but they were starting to scare me anyway, not so much in terms of intensity, but in terms of regularity. My bedside monitor told the whole story. As each contraction came, a little "hill" registered on the charts. Within minutes, it was apparent that the "peaks" and "valleys" were coming at an alarmingly regular pattern.

My nurse got in touch with my OB-Gyn, Dr. Susan Podolsky, who instructed her to inject me with a dose of subcutaneous terbutaline. Terbutaline is a broncho-dilator commonly used in asthma patients. It also acts as a smooth muscle relaxant, so it is commonly prescribed in cases of pre-term labor, when uterine irritability is detected. I guess my history of pre-term labor has something to do with an irritable uterus.

Great. Of all the wombs in this world, why did mine turn out to be such a drama queen?

When I was pregnant with my eldest son, Max, my ex-husband had to take me in for a non-stress test every other day due to threatened toxemia. This condition, also known as pre-eclampsia, is often indicated by pregnancy-induced hypertension. I read about it, and it seemed to be more common with first-time pregnancies. One of the explanations they came up with was that my body was rejecting the baby as a "foreign object". Even then, my uterus was already trying to show me who was boss.

I was placed on home-monitored bed rest at the time, with a nurse overseeing my care. Bed rest seems to be a common thread in all four of my pregnancies. I guess I carry the Filipino term "maselang magbuntis" to a whole new level. Max ended up coming at exactly 40 weeks, the only time I ever succeded in carrying a baby to term. Bed rest wasn't good enough for my last two babies, Lance and Troy, who came early anyway. But back then, they didn't inject me with terbutaline.

My nurse continued to monitor me after giving me the shot. Unfortunately, it looked like the drug only succeeded in lowering the intensity of my contractions, but it didn't get rid of them altogether. She called Dr. Podolsky, who told her to give me another dose, and discharge me with a two week's prescription of oral terbutaline, which I was instructed to take every 6 hours.

And so I go back to my bed rest, and my self-imposed exile from the blogging world. Expect me to surface every now and then, coming out with a blog or two. I still have some works in progress, many of them just pending completion at this point. This should satisfy the appetite of my co-bloggers, who stop by every once in a while, asking for updates.

To all my friends, thank you so much for continuing to visit my sites, despite my long absence from yours. I'm afraid I dont have as much time as I used to, and it's bound to get worse before it gets better. When the baby comes, I will be ignoring my websites altogether, focusing my energy on the more important task at hand: easing my first daughter's transition from her warm, wet world into an equally fascinating environment, this wonderful world we live in. A world which I love to write about, and I which I promise to return to, as soon as I'm able.

And so, without further ado, I ask for your leave. It is necessary for all of us to take a "pregnant pause" every now and then. With me, it's downright crucial.

Thank you for understanding.