Hey guys, just a bit of a rant post as I’m laying in a hospital bed alone at 4am overthinking and worrying.
Over the past week now, I’ve been losing about a fingers worth of my mucus plug each day. I wasn’t too worried, as my entire pregnancy I’d been losing parts of it so it wasn’t abnormal to me. It was Wednesday night when I kept getting woken up the most painful cramps, but no bleeding so I chalked it up to pregnancy pains. When I awoke at about Wednesday 12pm, my entire underwear was soaked through with a clear thin liquid. I called triage and was asked to come to the hospital. They didn’t seem concerned at all, asked me basic questions, rushed me through all the tests probably assuming discharge or something not alarming. It was when they took my blood pressure and the saw it was really high that the midwife quickly found a senior midwife and asked if they could do a speculum. The took one look down there, looked at each other, back down and then said, “your waters are definitely coming at us!”
They told me they were also concerned as my cervix was very soft, they said it was about 1cm dilated. I was immediately brought into the labour ward with about 10 doctors circling me. I had an IV put in my hand (which still hurts 😭) steroids injected, bloods taken, and quickly hooked up to an ultrasound. Whilst this was going on, a doctor was quickly informing me about what would happen if I was to go into labour right there. It was becoming a very panicking situation real fast. The ultrasound showed the baby still had some fluid around her, and things kinda calmed down but I was stuck in the labour ward for that whole day and the next. I was hooked up to this machine that checked the babies heart rate and mine, and monitored the cramps I was feeling. I couldn’t sleep with them attached to me, and after about every 3 hours they’d take them off for an hour or two so I could have a quick nap, but it made me feel so exhausted. At the start, my belly would go rock solid, and I would have a strong painful cramp for about a minute, this would repeat about every 5 minutes. By night time, they had gotten to a constant cramping pain, with extreme painful cramps every 2 minutes or so that made me cry. I kept asking if they’d check my cervix again incase I was still dilating but they really did not want to; and I’m unsure on the exact risks on baby by demanding it honestly. They said because my waters have broken, the baby has no protection so it is risky putting anything inside my vagina so they would like to hold off on the cervix checks for as long as they can.
By very late Thursday evening, my cramps had settled (most likely due to the morphine! 😂) to a constant period cramp, with a painful cramp every 15/20 minutes. I had my bloods checked twice, the first reading for infection was 12, and the second was 18. They said this was good, but I’m going to stay on antibiotics every 6 hours regardless. Since arriving at the hospital on Wednesdays, my waters have gone 3 times, but constant leaking so I’m on this huge pad :( I was then moved to the before and after labour ward, which my last machine reading was at about 9pm and I haven’t had one since. I was told I’m not such high risk anymore, but not really clarified on much as to why they came to that conclusion exactly.
It’s now Friday morning, I had my last painkillers at about 6pm yesterday so it’s been about 12 hours now and my cramps have greatly settled. I now have average period cramps, with a severe cramp randomly maybe every 30mins-1 hour. I am still leaking however, which the doctor says I will do up until I eventually give birth.
I guess I feel so frustrated that we just don’t know, we don’t know if I am in labour, if I am going to go into shortly, or how long I will be in this hospital. I’m hoping that because the pain has become more manageable, they may send me home to more or soon. Since being here, one doctor has told me I’d be here 3-4 days, another said 2 weeks; and another said up until I give birth. I know it’s nobody’s fault, there’s genuinely no way to read the future. My partner’s currently at our home getting some rest, so I’m alone with my thoughts feeling so frustrated and scared of the unknown. I also have gestational diabetes, so I was already a risk pregnancy. This hospital is great, but does not help with diabetics. For breakfast they have cereal and toast, which I cannot have either. For lunch they have a couple items, like meatballs, sausages which isn’t too bad. But for dinner, there’s only 2! Options. A jacket potato, or a sandwich. I cannot eat carbs as they spike me really high, so I’ve been living off of little snacks and having my partner run out to get food which is costing us so much money. I explained my predicament, and was told by the diabetes nurse that I can just have brown bread instead. Except I can’t, ANY bread makes me spike really high, it’s one of the things I cannot tolerate at all.
Thanks for reading my rant, if you have any similar experiences I’d love to hear them!
Timeline
Wednesday 2am: painful cramps keeping me up all night
Wednesday 12pm: awoke to waters breaking and painful cramping, rushed into labour ward, extremely painful cramps, waters broke twice
Thursday: drugged up, cramps have settled and moved down onto a less urgent ward, waters broke once, and have been dribbling ever since
Friday Morning: no painkillers, cramps are mild and manageable similar to constant period cramps.
New update as of 5am: my pads now have a very slight pink hue to them, like a baby light salmon pink, making my eyes doubt themselves. I got a midwife and she doesn’t seem concerned, but she has put me back on the monitor and given me some pain relief as the cramps have started to track up a little bit