It Can't Be Labour! I'm Only 30 Weeks Pregnant!

You never think going into your first pregnancy that once you reach the 12 week "safe" mark, you'll have to face any of the complications that can come along with growing a human inside you. Sure, we read online about them and worry from time to time, but deep down, I think we all feel like it won't happen to our baby. At least I didn't. In order to get the whole story, we'll have to start when I was 29 weeks pregnant. I had walked to my doctors appointment, and then walked to my dad's house. It was hot out (or maybe it was just my pregnant ass was overheating; it was only March in Canada) so I asked my dad for a ride home. He only has a motorcycle, but his friend was there and they were heading out anyways, so I got in the car with them. The car was a two-door, so I crawled into the back seat. Hindsight is 20/20. DON'T GET INTO THE BACK OF A TWO-DOOR CAR WHILE PREGNANT. The drive was only about five minutes to my house. We pulled up at the curb in front of where I was living at the time, and I proceeded to get out. Well, when I was getting out, my foot got caught on the passenger seat belt, and I tripped out of the car onto the grass. I hit my knees on the curb, and my hands were out in front of me to catch myself from falling on my stomach. I wasn't hurt, I was just shaken up. I was worried about baby, but nothing hurt. I didn't hit my stomach, and I could feel her kicking a few minutes after it happened... I thought we were fine. REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU FEEL, DON'T BE LIKE ME. GO TO THE HOSPITAL. The next day I was fine. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I wasn't sore except for my knees, and baby was kicking and moving as she normally would. Two days after the fall is when I started to notice a bit of a change; which still didn't set off alarm bells in my head, for some reason. I was "peeing" myself a lot. It was embarrassing and awkward, but every so often a little flood of pee would come out. I didn't even feel like I had to pee at the time so it was frustrating, especially because I was at work. I talked to a few people who assured me that it was probably just baby resting on my bladder; it was nothing to worry about. This went on for literally a week. I ended up making an appointment to see the doctor because I got to the point where I felt something was wrong. IF YOU ARE PREGNANT AND LEAKING BODILY FLUIDS, SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION ASAP. Seriously. I was an idiot for not going sooner.

It had been just over a week from when the leaking started, and I was at work. I worked at Wendy's at the time, so I was building the burgers for customers that morning when I started getting some light cramps. As the morning turned to afternoon, the cramps just kept getting worse and worse. They were very random, so I thought it was Braxton Hicks (practice contractions, basically), but the pain was just getting too much. I needed to go home and lay down!

I went home and took a nap on the couch, and the pain seemed to die down a little bit. The rest of my day was okay, but the cramps came back in waves. Me and my husband went to bed that night and the pain was manageable until about 4 AM. I had to get up and have a shower because I was in agony and thought that maybe the water would help. It helped a little bit and after almost an hour, I was able to go back to bed until about 8 AM. When I woke up it was bad like when I woke up the first time, except this time it just kept getting worse. Finally it was just too much and around 9:30 AM, I called my dad to take me to the hospital (he is the only family that lives close by to me). We were there by 10 AM.

Once we were at the hospital, I got into a wheelchair and was brought up to Labour and Delivery. We told the nurses that we thought I was in labour, but when I told them I was only 30 weeks along, they didn't think it was labour. They hooked me up to test something; I think it was to see if I was having contractions, but it wouldn't work because every time I got a surge of pain I moved too much and it ruined the test. The pain was in my back (I have been told I have a backwards uterus, so that may be why), and when I told the nurses that they assumed it was just a very bad UTI. They continued to try and do the test, and after the 3rd or 4th start (I was supposed to sit still for 20 minutes, which clearly wasn't happening) I asked if I could go to the bathroom before they continued. I got into the bathroom and sat down to pee. Out of nowhere, my body started pushing on its own. I involuntarily pushed twice, and when I reached down, I could feel a lump coming out of my vagina. It literally took everything I had to get up and get back to the nurse. I said, "Either I'm in labour and I just felt my daughters head, or this UTI is so bad my body is pushing organs out of my body... either way I need your help." She sort of smiled at me, not really believing me, and said she would check to see if I was dilated. As she put her fingers in to check, the rest of whatever water I had left "broke." "Oh! You're in labour!" ... Oh? ... Really? Gee, thanks, I had no idea...I was wheeled into delivery immediately (as the nurse came back with my needle of morphine... I was so close, haha) and after two more good pushes, my 30 + 6 weeker was born at 11:02 AM. She let out a little cry, so I knew she at least survived being born. They showed me her briefly, but whisked her away to essentially save her life. No one knew if she could even breathe on her own yet, so she was intubated to keep her from having to work too hard getting oxygen. It can be stressful to a preemie to continuously breathe on their own, so sometimes they can have apnea and brady spells, which can cause a desat. Medical Term Definitions:

• Intubated - Having a tube put into an airway so that when placed on a ventilator air can be forced into the lungs making it so the person is no longer in charge of their own breathing.
• Apnea - A period of time where a person "forgets to breathe".
• Bradycardia "Brady" - When a persons heart rate drops below a certain number of beats per minute. Adults = 60BPM Preemies = 100BPM.
• Desat - When there are drops in oxygen levels in a persons blood.

Being the mother of a preemie isn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy. Am I absolutely blessed to have such an amazing, healthy daughter, and have I enjoyed the extra two months we have been able to spend together? 10,000 percent. Would I change a single thing in my life? No. Do I wish things went differently and my baby was a term baby? Absolutely. Not only for me, but for her. She wasn't supposed to be out of the womb, yet here she is getting tests and pricked and prodded, living in an incubator, eating from a tube stuck in her nose, the list goes on; but that's a story for another post.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading. My daughter is now 14 months actual, almost 12 months corrected, and doing amazing. 'Actual' being the day she was born, 'corrected' being her age from her due date. Once she is about 2-3 she will just go by her actual age. Corrected is mostly for baby milestones. It wouldn't be fair to compare her to full term babies of the same age, so they compare her to babies who were born around the time she should have been born. So far she is hitting all the milestones she needs to, but we won't know if there is any lasting mental damage/underdevelopment from her being born so early until she is older.

This was just an introduction to our journey. The hope is to post more on the topic, such as our experience in the NICU, our experience with being out of the NICU, as well as probably just some general information about preemies and being the mom/parent of a preemie. It's been a long, hard year, and it's taken me a long time to be open and comfortable talking about this without breaking down. The emotional toll it's taken on me, and all the other preemie parents out there is immense.

My main goal with posting here is to raise a bit of awareness about premature birth. Did you know one in ten babies are born prematurely? If you are a parent of a preemie, I invite you to share your story as well! It can be very therapeutic to get all your thoughts/feelings/concerns out in writing. Even if you have reservations about posting - write it out for yourself. I wish I had tried this sooner.

The next chapter of this story coming soon.