June 7, 2007 - In labor at 29 wks gestation

My normal OB Dr. is about 45 minutes away from where we live and when I started getting the contractions this afternoon his nurse told me to just go to the closest hospital so they could get my contractions stopped. I'm only at 29 weeks gestation so we definitely did not want to deliver tonight. At the hospital they confirmed that I was indeed having real contractions and not braxton hicks contractions. They were every 2-3 minutes and getting stronger. They gave me 3 injections of Terbutaline to stop the contractions but it wasn't working. However during the 4 1/2 hours I was at the hospital I had no cervical changes and during the last hour they started getting a little less severe. Since it wasn't my Dr. who was dealing with my care and I wasn't planning on delivering at this hospital, I think they basically wanted to get me out of there. It probably didn't help that my baby has Trisomy 13...I'm guessing it was a little overwhelming for the on-call OB Dr. I think they didn't know what to do with me. So even though I was still having strong contractions, the Dr. sent me home. He said if the contractions got worse or if my water broke to not come back, but to drive the 45 minutes to the hospital I was supposed to deliver at. So now I'm at home and the contractions have actually been continuing to get better over the last hour. I'm still consistently having them, but they getting less and less severe. I think it must be all the prayer because they gave me my last dose of Terbutaline nearly 4 hours ago now and my nurse at the hospital said it would either work right away and completely take away the contractions or it wouldn't work at all. So thank you to any of you who have been praying for me. We definitely need lots of prayer though because I'm not sure if they're gonna come back or what's gonna happen in the next couple days. I'm placing my self on bedrest in hopes that it will help. I wasn't too impressed with my Dr's tonight. It didn't seem like they really cared about my baby. After I left the hospital I paged my regular OB Dr. to tell him what had happened and to make sure that his instructions for me were the same as the other Dr. I'd had tonight. My regular OB Dr. is a Christian and I have been assuming that he would value the life of our unborn child even if she isn't expected to survive for long after birth. I was quite surpised though when I talked to him. He seemed irritated that I had called him and he told me that because I wasn't getting short of breath while I was talking to him, (this was after the contractions had decreased in severity and I was able to talk through them, where as before I could barely breath through them) he didn't think I was having real contractions. I was a little offended that he didn't take me seriously. I'm an RN and this is my 2nd child. I've been getting Braxton Hicks contractions for quite a while now and I had them with my first pregnancy as well, so I'm quite certain I know the difference. Plus, both of the nurses I had at the hospital were both positive that I was having real labor. They didn't think I should be sent home and they both thought that I would deliver tonight or tomorrow. None-the-less, my Dr. didn't take me seriously. I also asked him about taking Terbutaline pills at home, which I was given when I had preterm labor with my first child who was healthy, but he didn't think it was necessary. He told me that in my situation no Dr.was going to want to prevent labor (I guess because he figures my baby will die anyway) and he wouldn't prescribe it for me. I'm offended at the way our unborn baby was treated, but hopefully it won't matter. My contractions are continuing to subside and we're just praying that they'll go away completely. Sorry this was such a long message. I guess I had a lot to say. At least now we know that we'll need to be adament about what we want for our little girl the next time we go to the hospital, which will hopefully be many weeks from now.