Irritable uterus

[Amf2508]

This is a long one! Started at 27+4, contractions every few minutes. By 28+5 they were every minute and hitting 100 on the TOCO. I was treated for threatened pre term labour, had steroids, magnesium sulphate, have had tocolyctics to try stop them and it did nothing. I am now 32 weeks and STILL contracting every minute sometimes even twice in a minute. I am exhausted, my sleep is awful. I’m struggling to parent my other 3 children as I usually would. I am resting as much as possible and it makes no difference. I currently have a c section booked at 38+6 due to my previous birth not going to plan. Was induced, hyper stimulated and had a mild PPH. I’ve been told the doctors would struggle to induce me without worry of hyper stimulation again. I’m hoping they will move my c section slightly forwards (have appointment soon with my consultant) just wondering if anyone has experienced it to this extent and did the drs help you eventually! Obviously baby is the most important, he seems to be doing okay atm but I don’t know how long that will last when he’s larger (less room). And lots of doctors have said we don’t know how long the baby will be happy, I’m scared of an emergency c section as I get further along 😩

I had an irritable uterus from 33 weeks and had two assessments for preterm labour. Contractions were showing on ctg before 33 weeks. I also had Obstetric Cholestasis, severe fatigue and query HELLP syndrome so was being regularly monitored and had two hospital admissions. At 36 weeks my health deteriorated and I was called in for induction at 36+6. There wasn't a bed in the induction that day so they did a sweep which almost put me into labour. Had I not been so unwell I would have tried to wait it out but I agreed to an induction the next day with the pessetry. They only kept it in for a few hours as I was starting to hyper stimulate, baby arrived about 18 hours later.
I have a 5 yo as well and it got to the point where I was too unwell to look after myself and my daughter so reliant on my partner, our parents and friends to look after her.

@Superscientistthat sounds like such a traumatic experience for you! I have gallstones and itching so have been having regular bloods for OC too… but fortunately no signs! But the fatigue is beginning to affect BP and contraction strengths. At my consultant appointment today they moved my c section to 37+6. They could see that it was beginning to have lasting effects and understood the worry of being in a healthy enough state to handle a surgery! Baby is now breech, so the worry of preterm labour leading to emergency c section is back 😩 I’ve survived 5 weeks of this hell, I have another 5 to get through all whilst getting bigger and weaker! Thanks for your response, really appreciate it!

I was originally down for an induction at 38 weeks because of the OC but it was brought forward to 37 weeks because of my extreme fatigue - i had to stop driving, not be allowed to be left alone with my daughter and was sleeping for 18h a day and not awake for more than an hour at a time. I didn't gain any weight from 29 weeks and started to lose again because I wasn't awake enough of the day to eat enough and finished only 5 kg heavier than my booking weight! At 36 weeks I developed low platelets and hemolysis, both were under the threshold for HELLP. I already had very high ALTs so they retested my bloods 3 days later and my bile acids had shot back up so they asked me to come in that day for induction. They were very worried that I wouldn't manage labour but at the same time worried about managing recovery from a c section. We agreed to a very low threshold for switching to a c section. The low platelets meant I wouldn't be able to have an epidural. I slept through most of labour and ended up not being able to stand and labour stalled, I'd gotten quite used to sleeping through contractions in the previous 5 weeks! Baby arrived pretty quickly after my waters were broken.

Not all emergency c sections are equal, I would break them down into planned and unplanned emergency c sections, so even if you go into labour before your date you could still have the benefits of an elective c sections. Have you spoken about all your previous experiences with your team?

Gallstones was listed as one of the possibilities as it can be associated with abnormal liver tests and I have a strong family history of gallstones, my mum and sister have both had them removed after getting acutely unwell. My sister was just 19 when she had hers removed. I had a liver scan day 5 pp and that showed no gallstones.

Baby is now 5 months old and my body still isn't quite back to normal and since giving birth I have had elevated urates and high calcium. Pregnancy really did a number of me this time around!