Last time we talked, I mentioned how everything was going well.
Well, since the last update, things have happened. Breeding geeks is not easy. Breeding isn’t easy. Complications happen. Like a weakened cervix, which I apparently have.
We went in for our normal 24 week appointment, only having one concern. Turns out, my cervix was thinned out and starting to dilate. I wasn’t contracting, the baby isn’t trying to come, my body just decided that it wasn’t going to hold in the amniotic sack anymore.
And that is some scary shit.
We had to have a lot of talks about what we would do if I did give birth right now, how would we keep our jobs, and what would happen if I couldn’t move up to Seattle in a week.
Oh, did I mention we’re moving, too? Yeah, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Well, things went from, “Oh, god, we’re going to have him early,” to, “Well. Everything is getting better and we can do a procedure to keep him from falling out.” It was amazing. In the span of 24 hours, we had panicked, cried, freaked out, and had to tell our family bad things, to everything looking severely up and having better options than we did.
I got what’s called a cerclage stitch. It pretty much stitches the cervix closed so that it doesn’t open any further, as long as you’re not contracting. I will have to have it out when I finally give birth, or at 36 weeks (whichever is first). It’s not a common procedure, and it is considered a surgery. It was scary. I had to go through it by myself. I got anesthesia administered via a spinal injection, and then thrown on my back. I asked for a sedative to help calm my nerves. I couldn’t have it before the spinal, but got it after. It was lovely.
I didn’t feel a thing during the surgery. As I am typing this up, I’m actually recovering. When this gets posted, I might be released. I had been asking for a catheter to be put in since I got pregnant because I didn’t like getting up to go pee all the time; finally got what I asked for. It’s still in, so I don’t know what pain I will feel when it gets taken out.
Pregnancy is scary, and amazing. What our bodies do to sustain life astounds me. We had to think about hard decisions that no parent should ever have to think about. You always go into a planned pregnancy (and some unplanned) thinking that everything will be okay and that you won’t have to make any of these decisions. My advice is to prepare for them before you get pregnant. Can you take care of a special needs child? Do you want to? What if they are so damaged that their quality of life will not be up to par for a good life? Will you do comfort care (let them die naturally) or aggressive resuscitation (medical intervention)?
Know the answers to these before you get pregnant, even if you aren’t planning on getting pregnant. Make sure you know these answers with your significant other because they might be different (mine and CTS’s were until we got all the facts, and we’ve been together for 10 years). And be honest with yourself, because it will hurt if you don’t.
As someone who has had a catheter more than once, I will tell you that it’s not pleasant to have it removed, but the sense of relief once it _is_ out is blissful. Of course, being that I’m not of the female persuasion, my experience may be different than yours.
I have had it out now, and it wasn’t…unpleasant. It wasn’t pleasant, either, though. It was slightly uncomfortable, which the thing was the entire time it was in, but after it was out I felt heavenly. I never thought I would be so uncomfortable with the convenience of a catheter in, lol.