Category: Remembering Micah’s Story

Sunday, May 25 began as a restful, relaxing bedrest day. Daniel was working, so his family took Mara to church with them, where she could be watched in the nursery. She ate lunch with them too, so I didn’t see much of anyone that day.

I had contacted someone in a local moms group about a changing table she was offering.  My e-mail to her on Sunday afternoon reflected my skepticism that this whole preterm labor thing was really an issue.

“I have not been coming out to playgroup the past few weeks,” I wrote her. “I actually was put on bedrest a couple weeks ago, because I was having so many contractions. One day I had 10/hr for about 12 hours, and at 29 weeks, the drs wanted to play it safe. . . .now I’m 31 weeks, and still having contractions, but much fewer, so I’m hoping they will let me off bedrest at my next appt! All that to say, I can’t go anywhere (being on bedrest), so my husband will be coming by for the changing table. . . ” We decided that Daniel could pick it up that evening on the way home from church.

Daniel’s mom called in the afternoon and offered to pick up the laundry that night when they dropped Mara back off after the evening service. I thought it would be great for Daniel to have his mom washing his clothes, as opposed to a random girl from our church. 🙂 So I thought, ‘I’ve rested a lot. I’ll sort the laundry and treat all the stains that Mara’s clothes inevitably have.’ And I did. But that was all it took for my contractions to come back strong.

I had no idea my body would respond that way. But for about three hours, I couldn’t ignore it: my contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart. Daniel texted from church, asking if he could stay for the dinner and church meeting afterwards. I wanted him to stay. He was constantly so busy with Mara and things around the house, every moment he wasn’t working, so I knew it would be a little break for him to get to interact with friends from church. I texted back, reminding him to pick up the changing table afterwards, and he said he would.

Daniel’s mom came to get the laundry, and I told her about it. My contractions had sobered me up quite a bit. We decided I should rest for an hour, drink lots of water, and if they were still frequent and strong, I should call the resident on call again.

It was “deja vu, all over again,” as they say! My mind wrestled and argued just like the first time I went up to the hospital. I didn’t want to go up there, be monitored for an hour and sent home. I didn’t want to be put on even stricter bedrest. I didn’t want to overreact and run up to the hospital at any sign of labor. But there was no mistaking it. My contractions were close and strong.

When Daniel finally got home, he, his mom and I sat in our bedroom and decided that I definitely should call the resident, who very predictably instructed me to come in right away and get checked out. We walked out to the car–my first time to walk outside since Tuesday! One of the neighbors saw me and asked “How’s that baby?”

We stopped on our way to the car. “Actually,” Daniel said. “She’s having a lot of contractions, so we’re going up to the hospital now. But it’s still about 9 weeks early.”

Occasionally, it would hit me: This could be serious. And I think that was one of those moments.

Once again, a weekend/late-evening drive to the hospital was so much faster than a morning rush hour or lunchtime commute! I was hoping the contractions would lessen as we drove, but they didn’t. Not at all. I was thankful to have Daniel with me this time. Somehow it was starting to seem a little more serious.

We arrived at the hospital and found a great parking spot on the ground level. Went inside. Same drill. To lighten the minor tension, I amused myself, by telling Daniel ahead of time what was next, so he wouldn’t be surprised. Take the elevator to fourth floor. Check in with the nurses in Labor and Delivery triage. Put on hospital gown. Take samples. Lie down. Begin monitoring the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions. Drink lots of water.

But this time, when they checked me, I was 3 cm and 70% effaced, meaning things are definitely progressing toward active labor. And this is where things were different. Everyone suddenly treated me as if the baby were coming tonight. I wasn’t really expecting that. I was fully expecting to be monitored for an hour, contractions lessen, go home, strict bedrest.  .  . It was very good to have Daniel there with me. “We need to think of a name,” he said. I think the realization was hitting him too, that we could have a baby ‘way sooner than we had anticipated.

I loved the female resident who was working with me. I had met her once before during a doctor’s visit and was impressed with her positive outlook, her professionalism, her peppy (but not giddy) personality, the way she made eye contact and asked if we had any questions, and the way she presented difficult things.

My contractions were close enough and strong enough that she didn’t have me wait an hour to see what happened. Right away she called for a steroid shot with the hopes that it would help the baby’s lungs mature, in case he was born quite early. I was also given procardia right away, with the hopes of delaying my labor as long as possible. She brought in her laptop, with an amazing ultrasound feature, and showed us the baby right there. That’s when she said, “Okay, he is breeched. So if he comes tonight, you will be having a c-section.”

At my last doctor’s appointment, I had been told his head was down, so I was quite disappointed, if not shocked, to hear her announcement. I was willing to have a c-section, if the baby’s life and health depended on it, but it was definitely not my preference. Moments like that, though, are so crystal clear, you don’t even get to wonder what to do, you just know what God has willed is what is best. So while the thought of having a c-section always disturbed me previously, I didn’t even give it a second thought. I did wince a little though. 🙂 I was given all sorts of paperwork to sign. I signed for the c-section.

The resident told us it was very likely that our baby would come in the early morning, but it would ideal if he could stay inside at least 24 hours or so in order to get the second steroid shot, which provided a chance to strengthen his lungs and prepare him to enter the world. We were hoping. . . We were praying. And the most beautiful part: we were trusting! I did not really feel anxious, although I deeply understood what this could mean for us, for our baby. But God gave me His unspeakable peace, passing all understanding. Thank you, Father!

The procardia began messing with me. I began struggling to focus on what the doctor was saying, feeling very dizzy, light-headed, like I was going to pass out. The resident said the initial dosage was intentionally high to try to get my body to stop labor. But they would back off on subsequent doses, she said, since apparently my body couldn’t handle that much procardia.

After an hour or so, they checked me again, and while my contractions were still strong and just as frequent, I was still only a 3. That was God answering our prayers.

Around 1 a.m., after about seven hours of strong contractions 2-3 minutes apart, my contractions finally slowed to 3-5 minutes apart. The procardia was working! The resident told Daniel, if he wanted to go home and get some sleep, he could, since it looked like I would not be delivering tonight. They told him to be ready to come back though, if we called him during the night. I breathed a sigh of relief. They moved me out of triage, into my own room, in labor and delivery. They said it was still possible that I was in labor, just much slower now because of the medication, so they wanted to monitor me for at least 24 hours.

Daniel left and I actually slept. I was used to contractions now, after several weeks of them. But I was abruptly awakened at 5:35 a.m. by a resident coming in to “check,” saying I was still a 3, and could go back to sleep. How do you go “back to sleep” after a pelvic exam?

I was a little annoyed with this resident when he told me that the reason I went into preterm labor was dehydration, because the two main causes of preterm labor are infection and dehydration, and the lab work showed that I didn’t have an infection. I respect medical professionals, and usually I’m on board. But, with all due respect, I wasn’t dehydrated. I had been drinking a gallon of water or more each day, and I intentionally drank almost a gallon of water before coming into the hospital last night, to rule out dehydration. I had preterm labor, for some other reason, a reason that we may never know. But it wasn’t dehydration.

I definitely missed the resident from last night, and unfortunately, I didn’t see her again. I received conflicting information from the nurses, the techs, the residents, the chief resident.

Someone told me I would be in the hospital until at least week 34. Someone else said I would go home later that night. I should have learned right away not to get my heart set on anything anyone told me, but I didn’t. Which caused Daniel and me both frustration as I reported back to him what I was hearing, so we could plan child care for Mara in a constantly dynamic scenario.

On Monday night, I received my second steroid shot to strengthen the baby’s lungs.  What a huge answer to prayer, having made it 24 hours without delivering! Every single day is crucial in the development of preemies at this age.

As I continued taking the procardia, my contractions did space out again, more like 5 – 6 per hour. The resident was comfortable enough with that to send me to the Mom Unit. The Mom Unit is where you go when you’re not in active labor, but you’re close enough–or high risk enough–that it’s ill-advised to send you home. So I went, not knowing if I would be there overnight, or until week 34 or 36.

Now that I was at home on bedrest (not walking through airports or sitting next to a pool in Florida), Daniel and I had to figure out what to do. I had been instructed to stay on bedrest until week 36, the end of June. That seemed almost impossible with a 17-month-old at home! But we were committed to doing what was best for the baby.

My mother had planned to come from South Dakota to help after the baby came. But she was planning to come at the end of July (and this was May).  In the meantime, she was travelling to South Carolina for my brother’s wedding on June 7, and then to Oklahoma the following week to spend 4 – 6 weeks with her mother, who was having rotator cuff shoulder surgery and would be unable to care for herself or even dress herself.

A gracious offer came to us in a unexpected way: Daniel’s sister Darla, a junior in high school, offered to come and live with us, skipping school 3 days a week to help us out. Initially, fearing that her grades would suffer and her other activities and responsibilities would be neglected, I didn’t think that was a good idea, but somehow the amazing Darla made it work! She didn’t really even ask, she basically just told her teachers that she needed to miss school to help her family! I shouldn’t have been surprised! 🙂 She worked so hard both at our house (caring for Mara and the dogs, helping with dishes and housework and making meals) and balancing school, church activities and her own family responsibilities (I don’t even know everything she must have had going on!). We literally could not have made it without her!

Our sweet friend Ruth from church began coordinating child care for Mara (on the days that Darla couldn’t be with us) and meals for us several nights a week. With Daniel’s crazy work schedule, we had to look at each week individually to see the days and times Daniel would be home or working late and match that up with the days Darla could be with us, and find people to help during Mara’s remaining “wake-times.” Ruth did a great job spear-heading this effort, and we felt incredibly blessed to be served by so many members of our church family (some members that we hardly even knew) in such abundant ways.

Bedrest, as you might imagine, was difficult for me. I like to think I did a good job, under the circumstances! The doctors had said I could be sitting up, so I did anything I could from our bed or the couch. I thought I would have plenty of time for extra reading and Bible study, but surprisingly, I still stayed quite busy.  I folded laundry, which my “helpers” brought to my bed. I divided an assortment of snacks into snack bags, so Daniel could just grab them for his lunch. I typed up detailed instructions for Mara’s schedule and care, so the random people who were watching her on any given day would have a general idea of her “routine.” I made simple grocery lists and e-mailed them to Daniel, who stopped at the store on his way home. I looked for baby items we needed on “freecycle” and arranged for Daniel to pick them up.

I spent lots of time with Mara. We brought her booster seat into my bedroom, so she could eat there when necessary. We had fun watching her put her bunny into the booster seat, strap him in, attach the tray, and pretend to feed him, just like we feed her! Since I could no longer lift her, she learned to carry the stepstool into my bedroom, bringing her books, and climb up next to me on the bed. She loves reading, and there was plenty of time for it! We read Sammy the Seal and Corduroy over and over and Bible stories, like the story of Nicodemus (or “Bee-oh-wee-oh,” as Mara called him!). I had my “helpers” bring fruit and snacks within reach of my bed, so when I was home alone with Mara, we could grab something to eat without going downstairs. She loved eating the apples (“bapples,” she called them). In fact, the first time she ate an apple, it was 3/4 gone before I had a chance to tell her not to eat the core!

It was a bittersweet time for Mara and me. Mara was forced to be a “big girl,” to do things “all by herself.” It was exciting to see her pushed a little–to see what she was capable of. But at the same time, she was still so very young, practically still a baby herself. She often cried when I told her I couldn’t pick her up or she had to go up the stairs all by herself. That was the bitter part, because I knew that when (finally) I could pick her up again, there would be another, new baby in my arms, taking her place. She really was my “big girl” now.  In a sense, that made the transition simpler for her, in that she had to adjust to not being carried or held before her baby brother ever arrived at our house. When he came, there was never any hint of jealousy toward him. That was the sweet part.

Running parallel to the preterm labor issues, we also had the continuing saga of the landlord not paying the mortgage or the water bill. The water department came out to shut off our water on May 15 and we had to race around like crazy to get money to the water department that day for all the previous unpaid water bills. If she had told us she was not paying the water bill, we could have done something about it before Daniel had to take off work to deliver money to the water department. What a hassle!

There were things I could do on bedrest regarding our living situation: I revised and proofed Daniel’s communication with our landlord, and spent time talking with legal assistance agencies to figure out what our options were, as far as continuing to live there, since we had a rental contract through December, but the landlord was defaulting on her mortgage. Bottom line: we just needed to find a new place to live.

Being on bedrest, I could no longer continue looking at houses with Daniel and our realtor, Christine. So we decided that they would continue looking without me, but before he would make an offer, we would re-visit the house and I would go along as well.

After a week of this, I thought, we will get into some sort of bedrest routine. But as it turned out, bedrest at home didn’t even last a week.

The nurses in triage knew I was coming since I had called ahead. They already had my file and helped me right away. Taking samples. Sending me to rest and drink large amounts of water while monitoring the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions. Little Q seemed fine, which was good news. And the contractions that were initially five minutes apart when I arrived began easing to eight minutes apart over the course of an hour and a half. They said it is common for contractions to increase throughout the day, strengthen, and then decrease after a long period of rest. They checked at the beginning and at the end: just 1 cm dilated. Which, they told me, could possibly signal the beginning stages of labor or could be simply because I had a previous pregnancy.

The resident on duty at the time decided that I should be on bedrest, only getting up to go to the bathroom and take a shower once a day. He said, “I know you have a young child–I’m sorry, you will have to find child care.”  I told the nurse I had a trip planned to Florida (tomorrow), and she went back to talk to the resident about it. He told her I shouldn’t go and wrote something to the effect of “flying is medically unsafe” on a prescription pad to “help me try to get a refund.”

Great, I thought. I was hoping for a note that said ‘cleared for travel’ just in case the airlines gave me any grief!

The nurse gave me an instruction sheet that said to come back in if my water broke or if my contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour. I knew to come in if my water broke, but I asked what else I could look for, since my contractions could potentially be 5 minutes apart most of the time. They said, “Just look for something different.” Something different. That seems so vague when your baby’s life depends on it.

So I drove back home, with my bedrest instructions and the prescription that said I couldn’t travel.

I prayed all the way back. I couldn’t imagine bedrest until week 36, but I knew the risk for the baby was too great to ignore. I wanted to be surrendered to God’s plan for me even if that meant bedrest for two months. Or if that meant a pre-term delivery with our baby’s life hanging in the balance. (Quite frankly, either scenario sounded difficult. My dear, dear friend Donna had a 32-week preemie and then spent several weeks on bedrest with her second baby. I watched her go through all of that and saw her testimony of God’s grace for each moment, whether it meant a preterm delivery or bedrest. I wanted that to be true for me too.)

Somehow though it all seemed a bit surreal–like an “overreaction” by unseasoned residents, giving me their textbook diagnosis.

Moms know when they’re in labor, people always say. Don’t worry–you will just know. I didn’t “just know.” And I seriously believed I was fine. Watch me carry this baby full-term! I kept thinking.

I didn’t think I was having actual pre-term labor, and I didn’t think it was unsafe to travel, but I was sure Daniel who had already questioned whether or not I should go would side with the resident.

He surprised me. He said I should go! He agreed that I would actually rest better at my sister’s house in Florida than I would at home.

Other factors he was weighing:

• My sister had purchased my plane ticket, and the ticket was non-refundable.
• My brother’s wedding was June 7, and at this point, our attendance was looking pretty iffy. My brother’s wedding was to be the first entire Bunton family get-together in several years, and we were all really looking forward to it! Knowing that I would probably have to miss my brother’s wedding, Daniel wanted me to at least be able to see my sister. . . my dear husband.

So the day after I was put on bedrest, Mara and I hopped on a plane to Jacksonville, Florida, where I did not leave my sister’s apartment once on our entire trip, except to go sit by the pool and watch Mara play. I didn’t go to the beach.  I didn’t go out to eat. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t even go to the park across the street.  I was, after all, on bedrest.

My sister had some special together time with her little niece! Taking her to the park, to church, to the store, to get “take-out.” I struggled, as expected, to just sit.  But it truly was a relaxing time, and I knew it would be much simpler to relax there than at home. Although I frequently had contractions during our visit, they weren’t strong and I didn’t time them.

We left Jacksonville very early on a Tuesday morning. It was a direct flight and Mary helped me check all my luggage. So all I had to do was walk slowly to the gate pushing Mara in the stroller with the diaper bag hung on the stroller handles. Sounded simple–and benign–enough. But my contractions during the flight began to play with my mind. I was starting to think that there might be something to this “preterm labor.” Of course, I didn’t mention that to any Southwest airline personnel . . .

We got home, and I knew I needed to rest. I was wiped out, just from getting up early and walking through a couple of airports! Some friends from South Carolina were here in the city and having dinner with our friends Chris & Melissa Tuesday night before flying home early Wednesday morning, and we had planned for months to go over and eat dinner with them. If it had been someone we might see more often, I wouldn’t have gone, but under the circumstances I felt it was best to go, with the understanding that I would only sit on the couch and sit and eat dinner, then leave.

We went, but the contractions were becoming very uncomfortable. And as soon after dinner as I could suggest it, Mara and I went back home. She was tired, I was tired. We both slept well.

My son Micah has a special birth story. Unfortunately, as it unfolded, I had little time to record the details. So as I think back to “what we were doing this time last year,” I’m going to write it down before I forget. It’s hard to believe he is almost 11 months old!

One year ago this week, I was 27 weeks pregnant. Everything seemed to be going well. Just four weeks earlier on Thursday, March 27, we had our first ultrasound at 23 weeks, confirming that there was most certainly a baby inside and showing us clearly that the baby was a little boy!

I had no concerns about the pregnancy because my first pregnancy had been very typical and uncomplicated. My first labor lasted forever, so I wasn’t really even concerned about making it to the hospital 40 minutes away. We will have plenty of time, I kept telling my husband.

During the early morning hours of April 27, I woke every hour, and sometimes more often, with contractions. I hardly slept at all that night! It was a bit unnerving. But when I talked to the resident about it, I was told, “You will notice things happening earlier with your second pregnancy, especially Braxton Hicks contractions.” And a friend who has six kids wrote me: “I had Braxton Hicks contractions for a long time towards the end of my pregnancies. Especially the more babies I had!” So I chalked it up to second-pregnancy Braxton Hicks contractions.

There was still a part of me that questioned whether week 27 with baby #2 should feel like week 38 did with baby #1. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the end!