was i really that bad of a nurse before?

WARNING: this is gonna be a long one...

so apparently, i needed more empathy towards my patients... in addition to having to go through fertility treatments to get these babies, i've now also added to my list: end up in the hospital dilated to 3cm and have to be on mag! yea!!!! however, i have to admit, it hasn't really been that bad... well, except two things: Foley catheters are the devil, and 3 grams of mag is kind of not for me. at all. tiff, you know when i admitted you, gave you 2 or 3 gms/hr (i can't remember), gave you an ambien, and steinke was a little concerned in the morning? yeah, i think mighta been there yesterday... i'll start at the beginning: we had our showers this weekend (see previous post), so much fun, maybe too much excitement, but nonetheless, smashing good times. we went in on monday for our first non-stress test, which went really well- the babies looked really good, she found them immediately, they stayed on for 15 minutes, both had really good variability and accels, and my uterus was only a tad irritable... ok, i can handle that. so then i wait and have an appt. with my doctor. everything was going really well... until he checked me. (it's like that song, and then he kissed me... :)). so i wasn't still 2/thick/ballotable, i was 3/70/-2!! not cool, seriously, NOT. COOL. as i thought he might say, he asked if i could go straight to the hospital to be observed for 24 hrs, and get steroids on board to help out babies' lungs... sure i could do that, at this point, i really was not contracting that much, so we talked about what the plan would be and it didn't really involve anything like mag or any sort of meds to stop labor- because i really wasn't showing signs of being in labor- except my cervix slowly opening without it being ok to do so... well, i'm a little dramatic at times (what, me?!?), so i kind of got myself worked up about the possibility of these babies coming at one day shy of 30 weeks, bryan was very quiet, so i knew he was working himself up in his own way (which didn't help my state of calm), and as soon as i hit the friggin' hospital bed, i started bangin' 'em out! seriously, usually it's the opposite! but anyway, the plan of care changed ever so slightly to now include a full admission, IV, and the wonderful magnesium sulfate. :) the perinatologist came in to consult, and he said he had to be the bad guy, just because when i'm already dilated 3 cm, and i have twins, there's just not a whole bunch of wiggle room til there's no stopping these babies from coming. and i didn't care at that point, of course, do whatever you have to... but he also scanned me, said the babies looked great, good fluid, good movement, didn't try to figure out what they were, both measuring 30 weeks, with heads measuring 33!!! yeah, i know, a little much :)... they're their father's children. :) so anyway, we started the mag- 4 gm bolus, 2 gm/hr, and that was fine. once that had been going for a bit, dr. finley (the perinatologist) popped his head back in to ask if i was ok with a foley cath... and i was, just because i was getting up A LOT to go to the bathroom with all the fluids... and i didn't know how i'd react once my mag level was a little higher... yeah, let's just say that was hell. absolute hell. it was in for about 25 minutes before i made the nurse call the doc on call and ask if we could take it out... my conclusion is that i have a small urethra. so that was ok, and it was out before it had even been in for a half an hour... big surprise, lily being a difficult patient. but i was still able to get up to the bathroom, so it was fine with my doc that i did that. however, i didn't stop contracting- probably didn't help that all the docs that came in to see me through the course of my admission (3 in all) all prepared me for delivery that night. i know they have to do that, i've seen it a million times, but not fun to be on the receiving end of things... so i kept contracting and they ended up bumping me to 3 gm/hr. fine all night, still getting up to the bathroom with bryan's help, not sleeping well, but that was the least of my concerns. 730 the next morning rolls around and wow, did it hit! look up the word gorked in the dictionary, i was it. head felt like it was 300 pounds, couldn't keep my eyes open, double blurry vision, the works. but my biggest fear was that i was going to get super nauseous, and i managed to avoid that. and my mag level was only 6.6- mallard-warren would have been like, turn her up!, she's not therapeutic yet!! my doc came in to round at about 9:30 and had my nurse turn it down to 2.5 b/c the majority of the contractions had gone away- this was good. i almost immediately felt better, more with it, and she eventually was able to turn me down to 2! then i was back to my normal self- bryan said when he looked at me, it was like there was someone there again... :) plus, i stopped contracting! so fast forward through the night of no contractions, much better sleep, etc., to my wonderful doc coming in to round this morning- i was expecting this: let's keep the mag on for 24 hours after your last dose of steroids, and then we'll start to wean you off of it... what i got was: what do you think about stopping it? um, yeah! so we go from weaning to stopping it this morning, saline-locking my IV, taking me off continuous monitoring, and giving me the possibility of going home in the next couple of days!!!!! yea!!!!!!!!!! so i have to drink, drink, drink water, and my uterus has to behave today, but i might be able to return to semi-normalcy... :) and i might have to miss some christmas festivities, but if it means we can make it to at least 34 weeks with these babies, I DON'T CARE. 36 wouldn't be bad, either :)... so i've had the experience, and it really wasn't that bad, but i definitely have become a little more empathetic towards all my future patients... stay tuned for lots of updates via my bed at home! :)