Preterm labor and more complications

I hope to at some point be able to write about happy news for this pregnancy. This is not the case today. Yesterday I lost my mucus plug. Sort of a funny side note--when I called Rick to tell him this, he offered to help me find it when he got home. I realized he had no clue what a mucus plug was, and really why should he? Anyway, I started freaking out and immediately called my Dr. so they had me come in to my appointment earlier to check things out. By the time I got there, I was having some contractions that were starting to get uncomfortable. They hooked me up to some monitors and told me that I was in preterm labor. I'm on some medication to slow down the contractions now, and today I feel a bit better. The meds make me feel a little out of it, and last night I had a horrible headache because of them, so I didn't take the next dose. I got reprimanded at my Dr. appointment today for not taking them, and was ensured that the headaches will go away once my body adjusts to the medication. So that's the good news, it seems that we can buy some time with the meds.

The bad news is that baby A is having some problems now. They found fluid around her stomach area yesterday during the ultrasound. This can mean a few things: a) baby B's death is impacting her and she's getting some bad stuff passed through the placenta or b) with baby B's passing, the blood flow shifted in the placenta, which is making baby A anemic or c) some other unexplained issue. Right now we are in wait and see mode. If it's the anemia issue, baby A's system should kick in and make the required blood cells to repair things. If it's the bad stuff from baby B's connection then we really won't know how things will go, but that's what we have hoped won't happen through all of this. The same with the unexplained issue, there's too many unknowns.

The only thing they can do proactively is take a sample of baby A's umbilical cord blood to find out if she is anemic and if she may need a blood transfusion in utero. This has risks, and would be a procedure performed at Stanford. Right now it's something available but it's better to wait and see if her fluid increases in her stomach and if it starts to appear in other areas.

I have an echo scheduled to look at baby A's heart tomorrow and then another ultrasound at the Perinatologists, and probably another non-stress test (NST) to look at how baby A is overall handling things.

Delivery isn't a great option right now. When a baby is sick inside the womb, it's only compounded by a premature delivery and adjustment to the outside world. Premature delivery in itself is very stressful for a baby. Add in other factors and the chances of survival really fall. It's best to try to fix whatever is going on in utero and try to keep her in as long as possible. Every day she's in the womb is one less day she'll have to fight in the hospital.

I'm completely defeated. I knew there was a possibility of things turning in this direction, but I really hadn't believed it would actually go there. This has been such a constant struggle and I'm just hitting a wall at this point. But we have to take it one day at a time and go from there. So that's where we're at right now. Today, the appointment was fairly uneventful. Baby A's heart rate is looking better than yesterday, her fluid hasn't seemed to increase, and all other organs are functioning as expected. I'm not dilated, although my cervix has shortened from 4cm to 1 cm, so my body is trying to go into labor but it seems that the meds are helping.