Back in the Hospital

On Saturday morning, Rosie woke up with some bleeding and ongoing contractions that were about six minutes apart. We went in to U of M hospital right away. When we got to the hospital the doctors performed and exam and identified that Rosie is now 1 cm dialated. With that, they admitted her into the hospital until things become under control. They started her on an IV of fluids to hydrate her as much as possible (this is supposed to stop contractions) and antibiotics as she tested positive for Type B strep and the baby needs the antibiotics when he is born. They also put her on a clear liquid diet. That worked on Saturday as the contractions were reduced drastically to about one or two every hour. They even changed her diet back to a normal diet by dinner time.

On Sunday morning the doctors came in and said that if the exam they were getting ready to perform produced the same results as Saturday's exam they would have her go home again. Unfortunately the results we different, not only was she 1 cm dialated, but they found out that she is now 80% afaced (spelling?). After that exam they started her on anti-labor medicines. The medicines cannot stop labor, they can only slow it down for a few days at the most. So, they give her a dose of this medicine every six hours. When the medicine is in her system she only has a contraction every 1-2 hours. However, as the dose wears off the contractions start coming back. As of Sunday night the contractions were coming back near the end of the six hour dose to about one contraction every 10-15 minutes.

Right now the doctors (and us) are hoping that we can make it until May 28th and then they would induce labor. This date was picked as it is the start of the 34th week of the pregnancy, which is the week that the lungs would be considered matured. However, that date is starting to look a bit difficult to achieve with all of the contractions Rosie is having.

The pediatric surgeon is not overly concerned if we do not make it to 34 weeks as he does not see a lot of added risk by only making it to 33 weeks, but there is still some additional risk involved by deliverying in week 33 (mainly lung maturity and a slightly higher risk of potential bleeding in the brain during delivery).

We also had a lot of conversations with the doctors over the past few days concerning what would happen when the baby is born. The doctors explained how the baby is evaluated for key vital signs, and of course lung performance. They also explained how ECMO (heart-lung bypass) would be used if needed. Although everyone will not now for sure whether ECMO will be required until after the baby is born, it is the general feeling is that Mason will require ECMO within the first few hours after he is born. After that, they key is to stabalize him further and then determine when to repair the CDH.

We will try to keep everyone as up to date here on the blog as possible over the next few days. And thank you again for the continued thoughts and prayers.