Update: Slight Glitch

Well, I'm just back from five days in the hospital. And I'm only 23
weeks along. No, no m/c or anything awful like that, don't worry.
Still unpleasant, though.

Four years ago (almost to the day -- Nov. 13) I was in a major highway
accident and had to have extensive emergency abdominal surgery. This
left a lot of internal scars (and one big external one about two feet
long down my belly). The doctors I saw a year ago said that the
scarring meant I couldn't get pregnant without in vitro; it was
pulling my tubes into the wrong places. They were wrong. After I *did*
get pregnant, they assured me that the scarring would not be a problem
during pregnancy itself, if I'd managed to conceive somehow anyway.

Wrong again.

Seems that when you have a mass of scar tissue on your intestine and
then you squish it all into one place 'cause there's a baby in there
and then you flood your intestine with huge gorging quantities of pie
and milk, you get what are known as "adhesions," in which scars stick
to each other, twist the intestine out of shape, and it ceases to
function. Result: hideous pain, vomiting, and the immediate need to
spend several days in bed with an IV in my arm, forbidden to ingest a
damn thing. At least this time I didn't have to have a tube down my
nose the way I did the last time my scars stuck together (a few months
after the surgery that caused them).

It can require major surgery, but didn't this time. It fixed itself
with time and being left strictly alone, and they have sent me home
with dire warnings not to eat more than snack quantities at one time
for the remainder of the pregnancy. It may, joy of joys, recur anyway,
but my odds are better if I eat verrrrrryyyyy
sssssllllloooowwwwwlllllyyy. I hate eating slowly and frequently, but
I hate being hauled to the ER at two AM in pain a whole lot worse, so
am attempting to adapt my eating schedule.

The interesting things were as follows: first, I had always thought
that I couldn't have narcotic pain medications because they make me
throw up, but they gave me Stadol together with an anti-emetic and it
did fine. So now if I decide I want it, I have an option for pain
relief in labor that I didn't think I had. I don't know if I'll want
it; I'm hoping to go natural if I can cope well enough, but it's nice
to know that there are possibilities short of full epidural if I can't
handle it unmedicated.

Second, I reaffirmed that pain-based adrenaline combined with lack of
sleep throws my bipolar disorder into potential mania. I will have to
be careful about that in labor. Need to discuss it with my doctors
well ahead of time.

Third, because of lack of space and because I was being treated
chiefly by my obstetricians (I don't have a regular doctor in this
city, and anyway, it was sort of all mixed up with the pregnancy to
begin with) they put me on the maternity ward. So I have a *much*
better knowledge of the facilities and staff at this hospital than I
ever could have gotten from a tour, and like them quite well. I still
intend to take their tour and ask a lot of questions, since the one
thing I didn't get was a real sense of their policies regarding
interventions, labor management, etc., but if they check out I will
definitely use this hospital. I like them.

And if I had to spend four days hooked up to an IV bored out of my
skull, at least I got a nice mother-baby style room and a chance to
wander down the hall regularly and look at such of the newborns as
were in the nursery. (Most mothers at this place do choose rooming-in,
but there were often a couple there anyway, especially at night.) They
were *sooooooooo* cute, and I got to talk to a lot of proud
grandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings.

Naomi

Sorry to hear this, I'm glad your experience in maternity was positive, I
was admitted at 26 weeks in the middle of the night, the babies were just
down the corridor, either with their mums or in the nursery and I was
lieing in pain, fearing I might lose my baby, which was horrible.

We were told in antenatal class that less than 50% of mothers get pain
relief from pethidine, I planned that I would have an epidural if I needed
it rather than try a drug I had never had which didn't have a good chance
of working.


Well, I'm just back from five days in the hospital. And I'm only 23
weeks along. No, no m/c or anything awful like that, don't worry.
Still unpleasant, though.

Four years ago (almost to the day -- Nov. 13) I was in a major highway
accident and had to have extensive emergency abdominal surgery. This
left a lot of internal scars (and one big external one about two feet
long down my belly). The doctors I saw a year ago said that the
scarring meant I couldn't get pregnant without in vitro; it was
pulling my tubes into the wrong places. They were wrong. After I *did*
get pregnant, they assured me that the scarring would not be a problem
during pregnancy itself, if I'd managed to conceive somehow anyway.

Wrong again.

Seems that when you have a mass of scar tissue on your intestine and
then you squish it all into one place 'cause there's a baby in there
and then you flood your intestine with huge gorging quantities of pie
and milk, you get what are known as "adhesions," in which scars stick
to each other, twist the intestine out of shape, and it ceases to
function. Result: hideous pain, vomiting, and the immediate need to
spend several days in bed with an IV in my arm, forbidden to ingest a
damn thing. At least this time I didn't have to have a tube down my
nose the way I did the last time my scars stuck together (a few months
after the surgery that caused them).

It can require major surgery, but didn't this time. It fixed itself
with time and being left strictly alone, and they have sent me home
with dire warnings not to eat more than snack quantities at one time
for the remainder of the pregnancy. It may, joy of joys, recur anyway,
but my odds are better if I eat verrrrrryyyyy
sssssllllloooowwwwwlllllyyy. I hate eating slowly and frequently, but
I hate being hauled to the ER at two AM in pain a whole lot worse, so
am attempting to adapt my eating schedule.

The interesting things were as follows: first, I had always thought
that I couldn't have narcotic pain medications because they make me
throw up, but they gave me Stadol together with an anti-emetic and it
did fine. So now if I decide I want it, I have an option for pain
relief in labor that I didn't think I had. I don't know if I'll want
it; I'm hoping to go natural if I can cope well enough, but it's nice
to know that there are possibilities short of full epidural if I can't
handle it unmedicated.

Second, I reaffirmed that pain-based adrenaline combined with lack of
sleep throws my bipolar disorder into potential mania. I will have to
be careful about that in labor. Need to discuss it with my doctors
well ahead of time.

Third, because of lack of space and because I was being treated
chiefly by my obstetricians (I don't have a regular doctor in this
city, and anyway, it was sort of all mixed up with the pregnancy to
begin with) they put me on the maternity ward. So I have a *much*
better knowledge of the facilities and staff at this hospital than I
ever could have gotten from a tour, and like them quite well. I still
intend to take their tour and ask a lot of questions, since the one
thing I didn't get was a real sense of their policies regarding
interventions, labor management, etc., but if they check out I will
definitely use this hospital. I like them.

And if I had to spend four days hooked up to an IV bored out of my
skull, at least I got a nice mother-baby style room and a chance to
wander down the hall regularly and look at such of the newborns as
were in the nursery. (Most mothers at this place do choose rooming-in,
but there were often a couple there anyway, especially at night.) They
were *sooooooooo* cute, and I got to talk to a lot of proud
grandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings.

Naomi


-----------
Anne Rogers

OMG Naomi,
I am so happy to hear that you are doing better now.
Sending you pampering vibes.

Love

Nicky