Amniocentesis

Today I went in to L&D, and they hooked me up to the monitors and stuff. Shortly after I got there, the doctor came in and did the amniocentesis. It did not hurt as bad as I thought it would, but it could have gone a little bit better. I laid down completely flat in the bed, and the doctor did the ultrasound first to make sure there was a good little sack of fluid that he could put the needle in to easily withdraw some. Baby is head down, which is great. He found one, then sterlized my stomach and the u/s wand thingy, and held the (freaking huge) needle with one hand, and the u/s with the other. There was a student nurse in the room, standing by my head so that she could watch. I looked at her and watched her during the procedure. Right before he began, I looked at her and said "Im nervous!" She kind of nodded, then when she saw the needle, she turned pale. I was entertained by that, so I continued to watch her. When he stuck me with the needle, she jumped a mile high. Then he had to move it around a little, and with every movement, she flinched majorly. It started stressing me out a little bit. But then the doctor said "uh oh" and told me that before he could withdraw a sample, the baby decided to move into the needle, and he had to withdraw it so that he would not hurt her. So he took it out without the sample and had to stick me again. So he found a new pocket of fluid, and re-did the amnio. She did not move in to it this time, but he said there was a chance that he scratched her with the needle. He said if he did, then it was the back of her head, and it would not cause any harm, but it just kind of stinks. The sample looked like cloudy water, and he said it was beautiful. The nurse jumped a few more times during the second stabbing as well. As soon as he was finished with the amnio, I had severe pressure down there, and felt a VERY intense contraction. This alarmed me big time, and I told the doctor immediately, and he said that was normal. They re-hooked me to the monitors, and I was contracting every 3 minutes, and they were painful. After the amnio though, I could feel where the needles went, and during the contractions, those two spots were sharp pain. So they gave me some pain meds, which took the edge off, but I was still hurting pretty bad. Shortly after that, my doctor went off duty, and another doctor that I have seen before and have good faith in came on duty. They also drew blood work to check on the pre-eclampsia. The second dr came in and told me that with the amnio, they do two different tests with it, they do just a +/- quick screen, and a quantitative screen, which takes 12-24 hours for the results. When the quick screen comes back positive, it means that for sure the baby's lungs are mature. When it comes back negative, it means that there is a chance that the lungs are immature. Then the next day, the quantitative one comes back, and you get a number as to how mature exactly the lungs are. This can tell you that yes they are mature, or no they are not. If they are not, then the doctor knows approximately how much the number grows every day and knows reasonably well when the lungs will be mature. My quick screen came back negative. I should be getting the quantitative results tomorrow. If that shows that the lungs are mature, then they would like to induce tomorrow or the following morning. They told me that I am in the first stage of active labor, and going extremely slowly. So I may be back in either way about to have the baby, or I could stay in this stage for a while. Normally, they would give me a shot of trebuatline to make the contractions stop, and make me more comfortable until I am 37-40 weeks. However I have a slight heart condition in which my heart goes too fast, and all of the medications that they could give me to get the contractions to go away, would be bad on my heart. So they cannot do that. So the only thing they can do is give me pain killers, and pray that her lungs mature quickly so that I can have her and have some relief, and make sure that her blood flow stays as good as possible. So basically I am still waiting and waiting. I am 36 weeks today, full term is 37 weeks. He said if for whatever reason I go in to full blown quick labor today or tomorrow, or even after that and her lungs are immature, then she will have to spend a day or two in the NICU, but he believes that this far in the game that she would do fine. We just are going to do whatever we can to avoid that. They cannot stop the labor, but they will not help it along in any way until they are sure her lungs are mature, and she is ready to be born. In the mean time I am still contrating every 3-5 minutes, and on lots of pain meds. I am not sleeping, and barely eating. Too much pain. I take a sleeping pill and pain pill before bed, but it does little. I try to eat and drink to stay healthy for baby, but its hard being in this much pain and wanting food. So I just pray that her lungs are mature tomorrow and I can have her safely soon and put this behind me.