I am currently one week into the third trimester. Unbelievable. A baby born at 29 weeks has somewhere around a 90% chance of survival. I just wish I lived closer to an NICU.
Last week, I made an appointment with the local midwife who has been my primary care provider for my annual exams to let them know that I am finally pregnant and receiving prenatal care and birthing with another practice but would like to consult with them in case I go into labor early, before I make the full time move to the city where I will be giving birth when I am full term. A back-up plan.
Did I tell you this? Because we live in a rural area, when I am full term and need to be within an hour of the place I plan to give birth, we will just stay in that city until the baby is born (I've been working and living there part time on and off for 3 years. This is also what made finding OB care so difficult.)
Anyway, we thought the local midwives and the hospital they work out of would be our back-up plan in the case of pre-term labor. Nope. The closest hospital that will deliver a baby before 37 weeks is 2 hours away, the same hospital network from which I am currently receiving care! This means that if I go into early labor at home, even at 36 weeks, I will be FLOWN, in a helicopter or plane, to the nearest NICU facility. Scary, no? It sort of changes for me the security of the 90% survival rate for babies born at 29 weeks.
Despite that, I am still feeling confident. I just made sure to discuss a plan for pre-term labor at my 28/29 week appointment yesterday. Thankfully, I am now on a 2 week schedule for my appointments and everything is looking great. Sort of.
The pass: I had my glucose test yesterday. Is it bad that I sort of liked the taste of the lemon glucola? Ok, yes it was way too sweet and sat like a puddle of syrup in my gut for an hour, but I have been craving coca-cola for weeks now. I will clarify that "I sort of liked" the first few sips of the glucola, until I had to start chugging it to get it down in 5 minutes. It reminded me a little of the Peruvian drink, Inca Kola in the way the sugars coat your teeth and make you feel sweaty if you actually finish an entire bottle.
I passed with normal glucose levels. Hooray! as I was worried I wouldn't by the young, thin woman in the waiting room who chatted me up about failing hers.
The fail I mentioned in the title of this post is that my iron levels are low enough that I am considered anemic. Probably not that big of a deal and pretty common. I just need additional iron supplementation. It does make me worry about the little one, but the nurse assured me that his body is probably getting what he needs and just leaving my body a bit depleted.
However, one of the risks of anemia during pregnancy? Pre-term labor.
Of course it is.
6 comments:
Pre-term labour is a common fear my friend, yet it is not that common and depending when it starts (and you are in the clear already) can be managed and sometimes even stopped! Big hugs
Does your prenatal vitamin have iron in it?
I definitely understand moving to a bigger city when it is getting closer.
Of course, you are VERY unlikely to need it, but I'll tell you how things went for us because we had a VERY GOOD result from a somewhat similar situation to what you're worried about. In our case, as soon as I got to the local hospital in labor at 31 weeks, the NICU team 2 hours away was put on standby. When it was determined I needed to deliver, they jumped into the ambulance and sped to our town and had me wheeled into the operating room the moment they got into the ambulance bay (I suppose it took about an hour and a half but I was loopy on meds and adrenaline so it seemed instantaneous). The specialists were in charge of the babies as soon as they were born and worked to get them completely stabilized in these little mini-NICU carts before taking them back to the NICU. They had a nurse, an EMT and a respiratory specialist on board. It was decided this was the better option than flying me to the hospital because they didn't want the babies to be born midflight.
I don't say this to sound scary but to say that, even if the "worst" happens (and this situation was the worst case scenario in my mind -- having them early 2 hours away from the NICU), there are professionals who know how to handle the situation. I think we are less rural than you are, but I know that the NICU team from this hospital goes around the state to even more rural areas (including some tiny Amish communities) doing these same things all the time -- I met lots of parents at the NICU whose children had arrived in the same way. It was an incredibly sucky situation, but everything was OK.
Yay for 29 weeks! That's crazy that you would need to be flown to the nearest hospital if you went into labor early. I like Rebecca's story - it would suck, but be ok. Hang in there! I'm sure you won't even need a backup plan!
Rebecca, thank you for reminding me that even with the worst case scenario, everything would be ok. I remember your story.
I'm really not worried about pre-term labor so much as feeling too isolated from good medical care in the event of an emergency.
To answer the question about iron: My prenatals do have iron in them. I also cook with cast iron, put kale and wheat germ in my smoothies and eat a fair share of meat. Despite this I am still deficient!
I'm still catching up.... Hope all is well and that you're feeling more comfortable about the non-likelihood of having a preemie now that you're 31 weeks!
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