A bit of stability

Hello all,

After a long night last night, Liz is doing much better this morning. She was up most of the night with continued contractions, despite the steadily increasing drugs that were trying to stop them. Although they had upped her magnesium dosage, she continued to have strong regular contractions. An ultrasound at 11pm showed that her cervix had shortened (not a good sign, that means these are definitely labor pains). As the pain and contractions continued, we finally called Brian (he was working a 24 hour shift). Around midnight, they upped it yet again (think side effects times ten) and added morphine with another stronger anti-contraction drug. Brian and I exchanged places, I left to go home and Brian took over here at the hospital.

From a personal viewpoint, both Brian and I are freezing and wearing heavy sweaters in the hospital room due to the high AC. Liz, on the other hand, is burning up and feels warm to the touch.

Finally, she was able to get a little sleep and the contractions seemed to slow. Since starting, she’s taking 5 different types of anti-biotics and continues on the magnesium and the IV. As a result, she is very dry-mouthed and they severely limit what she can drink (since she’s taking in a fair amount via IV already and they don’t want to dilute the drugs too much). When they were providing the morphine, they neglected to tell her that she might have breathing problems as a result. During the course of the night, she had to get supplemental oxygen (at one point 4 times an hour). The morphine allowed her to drift off to sleep, which was great right up until when she started having problems breathing and a loud alarm would go off. So, even in her drugged stupor, she wasn’t able to sleep much unfortunately, and I suspect Brian was the same.

Even though her cervix has started to shorten, the doctor said that she could possibly maintain her current status for days or weeks to come. At this point, every day is another blessing. The steroids need 48 hours to go to full effect from when they gave them to her. As a result, they’re really working to calm the contractions until at least Tuesday so the ‘roids can really kick in.

For those who are local, visitors are probably not a good idea until after Tuesday or so. With the drugs she’s on, it just wouldn’t be a very good experience for either party, and we should know more after Tuesday (fingers crossed).

The care continues to be fabulous, a much better experience than two weeks ago. She has a dedicated nurse who has no other patients, so they are here whenever Liz needs something, and they’re all very nice and very willing to help.