Baby Update: Preterm Labor Contractions

We’re high risk as is due to a mini stroke kicking off the start of my pregnancy back in Nov. of 2023.

I’ve been experiencing consistent contractions everyday for hours on end before they slow down, starting around 29 weeks with our main OB Dr (who delivered my C-section baby in 2019 and my VBAC in 2022) completely disregarding all the concerns and signs being brought forth with the most recent being this last Friday due to back pain starting on the right side and going down my hip. My husband was trying to advocate for me and was trying to stress that work (I’m an infant & toddler daycare teacher) is way too much activity given how I come home contracting for the rest of the night after every shift. Our concerns were disregarded as she put it “she can’t order bedrest for a twitchy uterus”.

I started experiencing some diarrhea, sudden heartburn/acid reflux and was having issues with the my appetite and vomiting again out of nowhere even with the 3 meds I’m on for HG. The back pain was also getting worse off and on too.

Well I ended up having to go into the hospital after I got off work yesterday and it’s a good thing I did because I was experiencing back labor.

When we got to the hospital contractions were 10 min apart and mostly being felt in my back but within 30 min we’re down to under 3 min and lasting 45 seconds and we were progressing quickly with full belly tightening contractions ontop of the back pain surges.

When we had gotten to the hospital, they did the amnio swab to make sure waters wasn’t leaking and that was negative. They also did an FNN swab, which is supposed to have a 99% clearance that if it comes back negative saying we are clear from preterm delivery for at least two weeks. But even with the test coming back negative, it was very obvious to the dr and nurses on call that I was in fact having preterm labor contractions and we went from 0-2CM very very quickly.

They gave me everything they could to try and stop labor and progression because contractions were coming every 2-3 min. and nothing was working at slowing them. After the first pill to try and stop contractions failed, they moved on to adding tropidol ontop of the other meds and the 2 bags of fluids. I was given the tropidol into the IV AND as a shot in the arm because they needed things to slow down/stop fast as I was at the 4 hour mark now of being there and nothing was working to slow things.

Steroids were given with the second round scheduled for tonight at 6pm. It took almost a full hour after the tropidol for things to even start tapering off and by that point the dr needed things to stop fully or else they were going to admit me and do a 24 hour magnesium drip to be even more aggressive. Thankfully after another hour things stopped and they were comfortable with allowing me to go home and rest on strict bedrest orders.

Officially Labeled as high risk for preterm delivery now since we almost hit 3CM before they were able to get things under control and were not even 32 weeks.

We see high risk Dr on Thursday and have a fetal cardiologist appointment on Friday due to a hole (VSD) in her heart that was discovered around 18 weeks and did not close up by this point like they hoped.

All i can say for anyone currently pregnant is LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Tests aren’t always accurate and every pregnancy is different.