3 Hour GTT

I was woken up around 5am for step one of the 3 hour test; drink the sick sugar water. Then for the next 3 hours I was woken up each hour to be poked by amateur phlebotomists who kept missing my veins. That plus the sugar induced nausea led to a very terrible morning. I then got attitude from the on call doctor for not turning the lights on when she came in for the 30 second meeting we have each day. I found out a bit later that I passed the test but was too tired to really care each time a nurse came in to congratulate me.

Later this afternoon I had my regular NST and poor Milo's heart beat was a lot higher than normal. I'm convinced he too was feeling the ill affects of the sugar high (he is usually in the 130-135 range and was up at 150 today).

The rest of the day passed by slowly as I would do something productive for an hour then nap for an hour. I have been leaking a bit more than usual now that Milo is getting bigger and more active. Although I had a slight scare this evening when I saw the fluid had a pink tint too it. I know that most women usually bleed at some point after pPROM and it didn't mean anything was wrong but pink/red anything is always terrifying. The nurse checked on Milo and said everything was fine but to keep an eye on things. It isn't an active bleed and can be the result of a million different things so ill just try to not freak out over it and pray it goes away by tomorrow.

26 and Some Change

So we have made it to 26 weeks (yay!) and time is still steadily passing by; I have now spent two full weeks in the hospital and still manage to keep myself busy. Some days I think "ugh, six more weeks" and then I realize "omg, only 6 more weeks!" I feel like I have nothing prepared (probably because I don't) and June 8th feels like it is just around the corner. I understand there are limitations to how much prep work I can do stuck in a hospital bed, but that doesn't eliminate the desire to feel prepared. So I am letting the rest of my family take care of the baby room and I just keep reorganizing my list of baby gear and adding to my baby boards on pinterest. I actually found a cool website that lets you create a list/registry similar to pinterest (http://babyli.st/rupp) so you don't have to make a list at several different stores/websites.

In other news, I failed my first glucose tolerance test (to check for gestational diabetes) which I never in a million years thought would happen. I have a diet that is pretty out there; no wheat(gluten), no corn, no soy, no legumes, no sugar, limited dairy, no food with crazy ingredients etc., and since I don't eat sugar I was so confident I would pass that I tried to get out the test completely (Orange dyed sugar water is not something I would willingly drink in a normal situation). The first time I tried to take the test they forgot to come and check my blood so I had to repeat it. There was no way I was drinking that much sugar twice in one day so I asked to do it the next day. Once they told me I failed I immediately tried searching online to find out why. Turns out a lot of people following a similar diet had the same result. Woman who ate terribly during their first pregnancy passed the test but with their second child while on a clean diet failed and had no idea why. The general consensus was that when sugar is eliminated from a diet your pancreas isn't use to processing large amounts of glucose anymore. So when you take the test, and ingest 50+ grams of glucose in 5 minutes, it may look like you have gestational diabetes (GD) but really its just something your body isn't used to having in your system. So the past few days I have been trying to eat as many carbs/starches as possible to re-acclimate my body to processing sugars so that I will pass the next test. I'm hoping it will do the trick because otherwise I will be put on a sugar-free diet (repetitive and redundant) and I will have to start checking my blood sugar 4+ times a day for no reason. My doctor was even shocked I failed after I told her about my diet/lifestyle and said I wasn't a usual candidate for GD; she said there were other tests we could try (like testing my blood sugar multiple times a day for a week) but this would be the fastest and most accurate. So for now I just have to suck it up, drink the suspicious orange sugar water and pray I pass.

Biophysical Profile & Fetal Well Being Test

Milo was once again playing hard to get this morning when it was time for his NST (Non-Stress Test). After 20 minutes and two nurses trying to find his heartbeat (not just the echos of his cord or the placenta) they ordered another ultra sound and a Biophysical Profile. The ultra sound showed he was right where he usually was so we have no idea why he wasn't found earlier (we assume he was trying to make the nurses look bad). The Biophysical Profile/Fetal Well Being Test assess different variables to determine how well the baby is progressing. They are typically done a bit later in the pregnancy but my doctor figured with all this trouble locating him why not just make sure he is doing ok. The test looks at the following: Fetal breathing movement (or pratice breathing), fetal movement of body/limbs, fetal extension and felxion of limbs, and amniotic fluid volume. Each is worth 2 points for a score out of 8. I still had no fluid, so he lost 2 points for that but did well on the limb movement and flexing (big surprise). The tech then said we would wait up to 30 minutes to see if there were any signs of practice breathing. She reassured me that even for normal pregnancies babies  don't always start practice breathing until 27+ weeks so we may not see anything.She also said that sometimes they practice breathe but they don't do it in a long enough  to count for the test. I asked if hiccups count because we had seen those before and she said yes, but he would have to hiccup during the test for it to count. Then a few moments later he starting practice breathing :D He kept going even after she said he did it long enough to count! Practice breathing just meant that he was working out his diaphram; she said that combined with hiccups is a very good sign especially  seeing them both so early.

All in all he seems to be doing extremely well; he is very active despite the limited space, he gets good scores during his NSTs and now a 6/8 on his wellness profile! We are so blessed to have so many positives things to focus on despite the lack of fluid. Each day we just feel more and more reassured that God is watching over us and protecting us throught this difficult time. We are so encouraged by this news and are looking forward to seeing how he thrives in the weeks to come.

Movin like a Maniac

The past two days the nurses have started monitoring Milo once a day during a nonstress test. Basically they attach a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor around my belly and wait for him to move. They are making sure his heart rate goes up when he is active and then comes back down. It only takes 20-30 minutes but Milo hates this. As soon as they strap on the monitor he is constantly trying to run away from it. Sometimes he succeeds and they have to chase him down. Yesterday he was not having it; if he wasn't running from the monitor he was kicking it. Then afterwards he didn't stop moving around for hours. I had never felt him so active, it was really amazing. Then later that evening they came back to just check his heart rate with the doppler (same as every night) and the baby was no where to be found. Now even though he tries to move away when monitored he can't get very far. So his heart beat has been found in the same general area for the past 8 weeks. The nurses start asking scary questions like "how long has it been since he moved?" and "he isn't usually this difficult right?" They then decide that they are sure he is fine since they hear movement but wanted to get an ultra sound just to see what was going on.

The tech comes in with a portable ultra sound machine (i.e. I can't see anything going on) and just sits there going "hmmm" "huuuh" "innnteresting..." and I am just laying there like 0_0. He finally says "oh! The baby is fine by the way, just in a weird position." Milo was sitting with his head up, back to my back, and hugging his knees to his chest. He basically positioned is heart as far from my belly as possible making it impossible to detect with any of the hand held devices the nurses use. All of the movement I was feeling earlier was clearly the result of a man on a mission. Unfortunately all his efforts were thworted because he is no match for gravity, and with me rolling around all night he plopped right back into his usual spot and was monitored again this morning. He has still been pretty active and I fear he is attempting to make his way back to his hiding spot and we will repeat this all over again later tonight.

One down, 7 more to go.

Day to day life at the hospital is pretty uneventful. A nurse or tech comes in every four hours to check my temperature, ask if anything has changed, remind me to check for tenderness, change in discharge color/smell, and ask if I need anything. I do see a doctor every day but it's just the same old same old " any changes?"-no, "any questions?" -nope.  After my 4th day I did get special 'wheel chair privileges' meaning, John can roll me outside for 30 minutes a day.  The food is terrible  but John is amazing and has been cooking all of our meals. Of course all the nurses get jealous when they walk in a smell chorizo, so we plan to host a thank you breakfast at some point during our stay. 

Wednesday night I was greeted by a group of volunteers who host arts & crafts every week. This week was flower pot decorating in celebration of Earth Day. So I let them wheel me down the hall to the craft room, getting sad pity smiles like I was a mental patient going to my scheduled puzzle time and immediately regretted my decision to participate. In the end it wasn't so bad and I left with a flower pot that would match the nursery and all the details of a Harry Potter themed wedding one of the volunteers was planning for next winter. 

Among my other accomplishments this week I learned how to play mine sweeper, did you know those numbers actually mean something? I use to just click blindly until I blew up; but I have come to learn it is actually a strategy game who would've thought?

Saturday is when things actually got interesting around here. The nurses came in and woke us up to get me ready for an ultra sound YAY! I had been leaking very little and was hopeful we would see some fluid built back up. Plus the baby had also been moving around like crazy all week, so I wondered if it was due to extra room. The tech showed as that while there was fluid it was all mixed up with the cord so it doesn't count because it can't be accurately measure. The baby's bladder and kidneys still looked really great and were functioning properly and since the baby is breech (and will likely stay that way) we don't have to worry so much about a squished brain. So there was still some good news. The tech also said that since I am not leaking much it just means that the baby is absorbing or using most of the fluid and what leaks out is just what's left over. She then asked if we knew what we were having and we told her a girl, she then went to measure the baby's legs got this puzzled look on her face and asked "Are you sure? That looks mighty suspicious..." So in the spirit of nothing going according to plan in this pregnancy...we are actually having a boy! This is no longer Selah's pPROM story but Milo's.

His full name is Milo Ethan Rupp. We really liked the name Milo and found it rather funny that it means merciful destroyer; because let's face it, my uterus has endured some heavy destruction these past 5 months. Ethan stands for strong, optimistic, solid and enduring which adequately describe this pregnancy as well. He is now 25 weeks and still no complications, in 3 more weeks we will get the second dose of steroids and hope to continue on until 32 weeks. Hopefully then we will be able to find evidence of his lungs maturity and we will schedule a c-section around June 8th. 

24 Weeks!!

We finally made it to this cruicial mile stone! Baby Selah is now considered viable and we got our first round of the steroids yesterday morning (which pretty much felt like getting punched in the arm repeatedly) and received the companion dose this morning after checking into the hospital. The staff is nice, the food seems better than anything I was expecting and I am praying to get our PS3 hooked up with netflix ASAP. We haven't paid for cable in forever, and I do not miss it. Everything is total garbage, and I have no patience for commercials lasting longer than 30 seconds. It has been nearly 7 weeks since my water broke and I feel like the time has just flown by; so I am really hoping these next 10 weeks will feel the same.

 

They are checking for signs of infection every 4 hours, and checking Selah's heart rate twice a day. Other than that I am on antibitics to keep infection away (and taking priobitics myself to help prevent my immune system from being completely destroyed). I am still drinking about a gallon of water a day and only leaving bed to pee. Even though I was on bed rest at home, I always got up to do a few things around the house. So I plan to be completely stir crazy by tomorrow. Regardless, I am so thrilled to be in the hospital and so comforted by the feeling of progress. Every day that passes gives us strength and courage and I just praise God that we have made it this far.  We never expected to make it through that first weekend and here we are weeks later full of hope and complete faith and trust in God to see us through.

How it started

My pPROM story started one day shy of 17 weeks; I woke up feeling like I was having another bleed which wasn't too unusual (see "complications before pPROM). I went to the bathroom and felt a large gush, again not too unusual but it had been awhile since my last bleed so I was a little surprised. I went to flush but didn't see any blood so I knew something was wrong. I didn't have a clue what it felt like to have your water break but assumed it was a little bit like that. It was 4 am so there wasn't much I could do but go back to bed and plan to call my doctor in the morning. We made an appointment first thing, and during the ultra sound we saw that little beating heart. We were so relieved I couldn't believe it, but once we met with the midwife she told us that my water had broken. She referred us to a perinatologist, but told us I should expect to go into labor within the next few days or weeks. We were heart broken, but went to see the perinatologist hoping there might be something they could do. Their ultra sound equipment was incredible, even with out the water they were able to see the baby's little tiny organs and kept talking about how perfectly healthy the baby was. I just sobbed the entire time, it wasn't fair that this poor baby was perfectly healthy. The only problem was my water broke too early and we didn't even know why. I wanted to scream at the tech for showing me how perfect the Kidney's were and that everything looked great. Why was she even bothering? There was no hope for this baby, so why torture me with showing me the tiny fingers and toes wiggling as if nothing was wrong? Looking back now I am so glad she did, regardless of how things turn out I will cherish any time I got to see her. I told the tech we hadn't found out what we were having and I just couldn't handle finding out right now so she said it would be in her report when we were ready. Unfortunately when we saw the doctor she they told us the same thing the midwife had; we could wait to go into labor naturally, get induced once the heart stopped or terminate the pregnancy. At first the thought of going full term with a baby that had a 0% chance of survival seemed unbearable; but we decided to wait it out and let things happen naturally. 

We fully anticipated that I would go into labor over the weekend, so we packed a bag and waited. We were told to look into funeral services so that the hospital would be ready and aware of our situation when the time came. I thanked them but just couldn't do it, I was supposed to be looking forward to my baby shower not planning a funeral. What kind of service would that even be? No one knew this baby, we hadn't even found out if it was a boy or girl yet! Our appointment for that was supposed to be just a week away. I had been counting down the days for weeks, now I couldn't tell if I wanted to know. I figured eventually I would want to know but still couldn't handle it just yet. 

Once Monday came around we went back for another ultra sound and saw a strong heartbeat. We felt so conflicted, we wanted to be excited that our baby was still alive but without hope of the baby surviving what difference did it make? We started to pray we wouldn't find a heart beat so that it would all just be over and we wouldn't have to wait for the inevitable anymore. Of course then there's the horrible realization that in a way you are praying for this baby that you love and prayed for to die. It was all just too much. We went back every week to see if the baby's heart had stopped and if we could be induced. Each appointment was heart breaking, it was impossible to cope with the idea that in some ways we didn't want to find a heart beat. As the weeks went by I got lots of incredibly helpful information from women in a forum for high risk pregnancies. One woman directed me to a site where other women shared their pPROM stories based on when their water broke and when they went into labor. I began reading stories of miracle babies who were carried to 24 weeks and beyond who were actually taken home and were perfectly healthy years later! Of course there were the cases when the baby didn't survive but there were still many miraculous success stories. Three weeks after my water broke we went in for our next appointment and saw a strong heart beat but no fluid. It was a bitter sweet moment, we had made it further than anyone anticipated, still had a strong heartbeat and a growing baby. I brought the success stories up to my doctor and we decided to plan for me making it 24 weeks. At that point the baby would be considered viable, I could start steroid injections to help the lungs develop and hopefully carry the baby to 34 weeks. During this appointment we also decided to look at the report and see that we were having a girl. We decided to name her Selah (Say-la), it is a biblical name that means "to pause and praise him." Even when everything was so hopeless we felt peace and comfort and knew that God would use this experience to draw my husband and I closer.* 

At 21 weeks we had another ultra sound and there was a 2.8 cm pocket of fluid! We were ecstatic, over the next two weeks the fluid went down to 2.0 and then to 1.2 but I am hopeful that with bed rest and staying hydrated I can build it back up. Tomorrow I will be at 23 + 5 weeks. That is when I will get the first set of steroid injections and will be admitted to the hospital on Friday. The plan is that I will be induced at 34 weeks, assuming I haven't gone into labor before then (fingers crossed). So I will continue to use this blog for updates and to keep myself busy during the next 10 long weeks at the hospital. 

*As you will see in later posts at 25 weeks we learned that it was no longer Selah we were waiting for but Milo! It was too late to change the URL for this site so we decided to just leave it as is. So to clear up any confusion, the first two posts were written under the assumption it was Selah's story but was later changed to Milo's.