Incompetent Cervix and a Cerclage

****Here we go gentlemen! Another girly post!****

I have been feeling good and working. I have been in good spirits and feeling awesome about the pregnancy. A little more tired physically, but that's to be expected. We bought baby cribs (I'll get a post up with those after we get them put together), Troy's Aunt Kathy was coming to help out with Avery and some things around the house, and I was feeling so optimistic.

I worked on monday and tuesday. Tuesday was a CA-RAZY day. I worked, Troy was off. Troy's aunt was flying in from North Carolina for about 10 days. Troy had an optometry appointment at 3 and I was leaving straight from work to make a 330 doctor's appointment while Aunt Kathy stayed home with Avery. So, of COURSE, I was at the doctor's office BY MYSELF, thinking, I've been feeling good, we are still at our regular routine of appointments. Well, as regular as a high risk doctor's schedule can be.

My ultrasound was great. The girls looked awesome. Dr. Adashek came in to do the vaginal ultrasound to check the status of my cervix. He used that wand thing with one hand and using the other hand, pushed down on the top of my uterus to simulate a light, moderate, and strong contraction (he has done this at all my appointments) and so far, every appointment, he has said that I "have a beautiful cervix." Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it! My cervix is beautiful!

Except for today.

He does a light push and then a moderate push and BAM! You see the INSIDE of my cervix open in a "V" shape about half way down. In an ultrasound, the cervix looks like a cylinder with a thin white line in the middle. When he pushes on it and nothing changes, that's great. But when he pushed on mine, it opened at the uterus end about 1.5 cm and 1.5 cm down. The length of my cervix is about 3.5 cm. So the shape of the "V" looked like an equilateral triangle basically.

I was like, "WHAT IS THAT? No, don't answer that. I know what it is."

He says, "Noooo, I was expecting a normal appointment today. You're funneling. No. No. No."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Am I on bedrest? What now?"

He says, "well, tomorrow you're having a cerclage. I'm sending in the nurse to schedule you and go over the details."

Well, crap. He told me that if I didn't have the procedure (not that I was considering going against medical advice) I would deliver in the next 2 weeks. Yikes. 25 week old babies = bad bad bad news bears. I am also now scheduled to come in 1x per week for a progesterone injection to tell my body that I'm still pregnant and not to go into labor. Double awesome.

The nurse came in and told me to be at the hospital at 830am for a 1030am procedure. It is considered an outpatient surgery and I had to fill out some forms about anesthesia. She gave me my shot and sent me out the door with a follow up appointment scheduled for a week later.

I felt really disoriented and confused. Everything had been going so well! Every time I have started to get excited about this pregnancy, God has thrown me another curveball. Triplets? SURE! We get excited and schedule our contractor and buy a new car, only to find out that one has anencephaly. We have a GREAT 20 week ultrasound and order the cribs and now I could deliver anytime? WHAT?

Luckily, God knew this was going to happen. Aunt Kathy flew in THAT day to help, and boy do we need it now. Troy just happened to be off the next day for my procedure so that worked out too.

I have said before that my doctor is amazing and I love him. I will continue to say it. He called Troy's phone at 10pm that night to talk to me. Honestly, he's lucky we were still up. Well, maybe he knows that I am a worry wart would still be up, so we were sitting up in the living room talking when the phone rang. SO LATE. Troy thought it was a work recall or something with the unknown number. Nope. Just my OB calling to see if I was okay, had any questions, concerns, etc. Seriously guys. I talked to him for 20 minutes and he answered every question and annoying concern that any mom would have. He's amazing.

So Troy and I got up for my procedure the next morning and got all checked in to the labor and delivery floor. They gave me an IV, hooked me up to a fetal monitor, made me answer a SLEW of questions about my pregnancy, history, allergies, etc. The doctor using the OR before my procedure was running late, so we were running about 45 minutes late also. I was not surprised. That's just how these things go sometimes. So me and Troy snuggled in my hospital bed watching trash TV.

IT WAS FREEEZING. Troy has spent some time with me in hospitals over the past few months and came prepared. He wore jeans, a fleece, and brought socks. And I was in a flimsy hospital gown with 2 cold IV bags running through my arm.

They wheeled me back for the cerclage to the OR. MY NURSE WAS AMAZING. So funny. She was like in her late 50s/early 60s and witty. It was freezing and she got me heated blankets and gave me hugs. She let me hug her and squeeze her triceps while I got my spinal anesthesia from the doctor. I hate hate hate needles. I'm so glad you can't watch epidurals. I would faint. They got me into "position" after the spinal while I could still feel and move my legs.

Y'all. Lets talk about this. If I hadn't had Avery already, I would have been HUMILIATED. Talk about a procedure that takes away ALL of your modesty. I was laying on my back, with my knees by my ears, and my feet HANGING about 2 feet over my head in these hook things. They put up a drape and had 2 of those spot light things RIGHT on my vag.

I started laughing. Seriously. I was like, "Can my life get any weirder right now?"

Ask and you shall receive.

Dr. Adashek walked in all prepped and clean with his IPOD. And I AM NOT KIDDING - he put on the Transformers movie music sound track. So I listened to THIS while he put stitches in my cervix to keep my babies in:



I was like, "Dr. Adashek...is this Transformers? Really?"

And he goes, "I'm seriously impressed that you know that."

**Side note: I have this FREAKY ability to remember original scores from movies and can identify which movie it is based on the orchestrations...I know it's weird. But seriously. I'm good. It just goes to show how important original theme music is for movies.**

So they raise the table up to his FACE level...while he's standing. And I guess he does the procedure. I didn't feel anything. And I was distracted. I felt like I couldn't breathe and my chest was getting crushed. I started feeling nauseated and hot. I think I was having a panic attack. I couldn't feel my legs. I could feel they were up, but they felt asleep and I kept trying to jiggle them to wake them up, but they weren't moving. My blood pressure was LOW. The anesthesiologist gave me something through my IV to help with the nausea. I was RIPPING the blankets off to cool off and breathing hard.

The whole procedure was done in about 20 minutes. Dr. Adashek said that he was so relieved that they had done the procedure because my cervix felt like mashed potatoes and it was supposed to feel like the end of a nose.

They lowered my feet out of the stirrups and I started freaking out. I was looking at my legs laying flat on the table and they still felt like they were up by my head. Weirdest. Feeling. Ever. My nurse said that since the last thing my body could feel was them up in the stirrups, my brain could still only register that position. Until I got the feeling back in my legs, they would feel that way. They did a sliding board transfer over to my hospital bed and wheeled me back to the room, where Troy was eating chinese food from the cafeteria. Barf. It smelled awful and I was still feeling nauseated. They laid me flat, hooked up heart monitors, a fetal monitor, and my IV.

About 45 minutes later, I started to feel like I had peed in the bed, so I looked down and I had a bunch of watery blood all over my legs. So then I called the nurse.

She came in to check me out and was like, "that's kind of a lot of blood. I think your water may have broken during the procedure (one of the risks) and you're also having some pretty strong contractions."

They cleaned me up and changed the pad under my butt. I also got an IV smooth muscle relaxer to stop the contractions in my uterus and an oral medication that does the same thing. While I totally panicked. Thinking, "oh no, my water broke, I'm delivering these babies today and they're not going to live at 23 weeks." TOTAL panic.

The sensation of getting the feeling back in my stomach, legs, and feet was SO weird. I slowly started to be able to move over the course of 1.5 hours. Still feeling like my knees were by my head. I NEVER want an epidural again. I don't know how people do that. Seriously. My nurse said that people who have "control issues" normally hate the anesthesia. HA. You don't even want to know about my control issues lady.

They came back about 15 minutes later to check the pad under my butt for more fluid and it had slowed and my contractions were gone. They wouldn't let me leave until Dr. Adashek came back to check me out because of the amount of fluid and strong contractions I was having. He came back from the office to deliver a baby and check me out. He said that my water did not break, explaining to me what that would have been like if it had.

I stayed for about another hour, putting our total time at the hospital at 8 hours. Again, thank God, Aunt Kathy flew in the day before. Seriously, the timing could not have been better.

That night was rough. I was scared and once my meds wore off, I started having contractions again. I started timing them from about 1230am to 230am. I was having about 6 per hour, but not at regular intervals. I might have 2 in 10 minutes, and then not have one for 20 minutes. I texted Dr. Adashek and he called me in a prescription for a muscle relaxer for my uterus that I am now taking once every 6 hours. And I am on "modified bedrest" until next tuesday, at least. I am keeping stair climbing to a minimum, not picking up anything over 10lbs (poor Avery), and generally, sitting only. Aunt Kathy keeps yelling at me for doing anything. I think I may be done working for the rest of this pregnancy.

So now, I am trying to drink almost 200oz of water a day, taking uterine relaxers, doing nothing and hoping that the stitches hold. Prayers please. And if you are available in the month of September or October for a trip to Vegas, let me know. Seriously. I'll put you on the calendar.