Let me tell you something about magnesium--it is NOT fun! I had it with Kara too. They hook you up to an IV, and start flooding your system with it. Magnesium depresses your nervous system, and is used to prevent seizures. For the first 10 minutes, while your body is getting used to it, you feel like your body is on fire. Seriously--I felt like I was burning all over! It also makes you feel like you can't breathe well, and it makes you really tired (at least, it does me). I also have a lazy eye which is corrected by lenses, but when on magnesium, it makes it really hard to see out of that eye for some reason.
At about noon, the medical staff assigned to my case decided I needed to be induced. They gave me a pill just to soften my cervix, and had planned to induce labor with Putocin (Pitocin? Not sure how it is spelled) at 4 or 5 PM. For whatever reason, the pill they gave me started mild contractions almost immediately. I texted my mom to let her know she might want to head to the hospital because my labor with Kara had been fast, and I thought this one would be fast too. Boy was that an understatement!
At 4, one of the doctors decided that I needed to have an MRI to make sure I didn't have any hemorrhaging in my brain--at this point, my platelet count had dropped down to 50,000 (normal is between 400,000-150,000, and at 20,000, surgery is no longer an option--I was that low with Kara). They were concerned that with my now elevated liver enzymes and quickly dropping platelets, I would start hemorrhaging, and they were going to do a C-section after the MRI if I showed any bleeding to hurry and get the baby out.
Well, that's when things started getting interesting. As I was heading up for the MRI, I started feeling some labor contractions, but they were about 10 minutes apart, so I figured I'd have the MRI, come back, and then have plenty of time to have the baby. I think I headed up for the MRI at 4:30. While I was in the MRI, the tech would tell me, "here's a 5 minute segment, here's a 6 minute segment, here's a 1 minute segment," etc. etc. From the first test to the last, I felt my contractions start to go from 5 minutes apart to 1 minute apart, and VERY strong. I started wiggling to work my way through the contractions, and she buzzed in to tell me to stay still. I buzzed her on my "emergency" button they gave me and tried to tell her I was in labor, but she didn't have the speaker in MRI turned on, so she couldn't hear me. I seriously thought I was going to have the baby on the MRI table.
She finally wheeled me out and said to my nurse, "well, the images were a little blurry, but I think they're usable." I turned to my nurse and said (well, probably yelled), "It's because I'm having contractions. I'M IN LABOR!" I could tell she didn't really believe me. She told me, "Oh, you're having contractions? Good! Try and have more than one, then maybe we won't have to have a C-Section." It made me so mad, so I said, "no, you don't understand. I'm IN LABOR! You need to have the anesthesiologist ready by the time we get to the room!" (I didn't have an epidural with Kara, and I REALLY wanted one this time). So, we headed down to the room, and I begged the transport tech almost every 30 seconds not to go over the bumps because I was mid contraction. I'm sure that was a pretty interesting night for him! He wheeled me up 30 minutes prior, and I was fine, only to have an angry, laboring woman on the way back down!
I'll leave off here for now!
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