27 Weeks – 6 Weeks After pPROM

I apologize for the cheesy bathroom selfie with the faucet growing out of my hips. It’s the best I can do.

This marks my first week of hospital bedrest. And my 6th week of being pregnant after preterm premature rupture of membranes (pPROM). This is pretty remarkable, as 75% of women go into labor within ONE WEEK after pPROM.

Things I’m Happy About This Week

1) I’m still pregnant! That trumps everything, good or bad.

2) No more IV. Still have the annoying hep lock, and I swear I have a mild latex allergy because I itch everywhere tape touches, but at least I can move around without the stupid IV pole, and alarms that go off hourly all night. And I can wear my own PJs!

3) My friend gave me a gift certificate to Amazon, which was an awesome idea. Now, how do I pick among the hundreds of books in my wishlist!?!? Anybody have a good movie to recommend?

Things That Are Annoying Me This Week

1) I want to eat ALL THE FOOD. Don’t the people from nutrition services realize that all the ladies on this floor are PREGNANT!? And therefore, 3 moderate sized meals a day is NOT enough? I have to ask the nurses for more food every day, and my husband brings me snacks, and I have kefir, yogurt and sauerkraut in the patient fridge. I hear a lot of women on bedrest lose their appetite, but not me, which is good, as baby is getting bigger every day and I feel HUGE.

2) What’s up with the sleep interruptions? The nurses give me meds at 9 pm, 12 am, and 6 am, take my temperature and blood pressure. Sometimes it wakes me up enough that I can’t go back to sleep and have to watch Netflix until I feel sleepy again. Which means I get hungry and have to ask for more food. Again. I think I’m getting a reputation, because yesterday my nurse said they had an extra food tray of supper and would I like to have it? I was too embarrassed to say yes!

If Baby Were Born This Week

1) His eyes would be open. (Yes, some preemies are so early their eyes are still fused shut like newborn kittens.)
2) His testicles wouldn’t be visible (they’d still be in his abdomen) and he would have no nipples (nipples come in the 34th week).
3) His lungs would most likely be capable of functioning, with considerable assistance.
4) He would weigh around 2 pounds.

I got to tour the NICU today. I asked the nurses to wheel me up there, but I should have been more specific. Instead of asking for a “tour”, I should have said, “May I please go to the NICU and stare at the babies all day?“, because that’s what I really wanted to do once I got there. It made my mama hormones go absolutely bonkers with maternal desire, and I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to scoop all the babies up onto my enormous-third-trimester-bosom and love on them. I seriously wish there was a program for that. There are people who volunteer to rock crack babies, why not preemies who need kangaroo care? Their parents can’t be there with them 24 hours a day. Sigh.

I agree with my husband, who took the tour Saturday and said, “It wasn’t as scary as I imagined it would be“. I envisioned a lot of beeping and alarms going off and bright lights and doctors and nurses running around doing procedures on sickly-looking babies. But mostly, the babies were all so beautiful, peacefully sleeping (preemies sleep even more than termie newborns), and the staff were quietly observing or sitting by isolettes, gazing at their snugly swaddled charges.

One can’t truly appreciate how tiny some of these babies are until you see them up close. I’ve looked at hundreds of images online, but it didn’t prepare me. I’ve eaten baked potatoes bigger than some of these babies. Their bodies are as big around as a skinny baguette. Their heads the size of plums.

Sorry.

It’s been a couple of hours since I’ve eaten.