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Prayer Request: Rey’s Update

I’d best give an update of what’s going on so that your prayers can be added to mine. My wife is fine although she has been put on bed rest: so here’s why.

A few days ago (three? can’t remember) my wife had some passing concern over the Braxton Hicks she’s been having at night. She wouldn’t give much detail to me, just saying—yeah I still have them—and I wondered about it myself. See, she comes from a stoic West Virginian / Ohio family in the heartland of Pennsylvania so she thinks that bringing up a concern to a doctor is a sign of complaining or rudeness. Me, being a complainer by nature and unaware of my rudeness, would gladly call up a doctor but I have learned to listen to her body. A lesson I currently think I need to relearn.

We called up the doctor and they prescribed Terbutaline Sulfate which is an asthma drug that doctors prescribe to stop pre-term labor contractions. Finding an FDA’s letter we refused to take this medication because at this point the risk of the drug outweighed what anyone thought was going on. The doctors did a test (fetal fibronectin) that checks if we?re susceptible to a pre-term birth in the next two weeks while agreeing that the drug may or may not be helpful.

So the results came back positive which means that there’s a one in twenty five six chance (apparently if you’re having preterm symptoms before the test theres a 1 in 25 chance of preterm labor. If you get a negative after the test that number drops to 1 out of 125. If you get a positive the chances become 1 out of 6!!!)  that she could have a preterm birth in the next two weeks (38 weeks is full term and we’re at 30 weeks so every week is huge progress in the development of the baby).

Into the hospital we went with our filled prescription in hand. The drug did stop those Braxton Hicks a half hour after Laura popped them but it also gave her minor heart palpitations?an expected reaction from asthma medication. In the hospital they gave my wife a shot of steroids to strengthen the baby?s lungs (at this stage of development, although there is a high percentage of survival it is always helpful to put in as much pre-labor care as possible to strengthen the baby?s own ability to breath. Their lungs are still too weak at this point thus the steroid works in that regard although more sessions than this is questionable on how healthy it really is). Today, she got the second shot (which apparently hurt pretty badly).

We had a conversation with the ?Frat Boy?, the OBGYN who delivered my first born but who is not our OBGYN of choice?he?s just always on call when we?re in the hospital. God has a sense of humor. Why we call him Frat Boy is worth telling but not today.

“So, why are you here? What’s going on?” (Frat Boy)
“I was getting some Braxton Hicks at night for about–” (Laura)
“Okay, stop there. When you say Braxton Hicks what are you saying? How often were you getting them?” (FB)
“Um, from 5PM to 11PM. Every 10 minutes or so.” (L)
“Yeah, that’s not Braxton Hicks. That’s called labor contractions. They don’t always hurt.” (FB)
“Well, that’s good to know.” (Rey)

So now Laura’s on bed rest and we’re getting help from any physical and spiritual family around us. Elayna is kicking around inside but we need her to stay in the tummy a bit longer. Preferably about two months.

-r-

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