Well, let me tell you: I would not wish any fetal cyst draining procedure on my worst enemy. Not that I know who my worst enemy is, probably ain't even a woman, but if she were a woman, I'd never wish on her the experience of seeing the start of the insertion of a long needle into her womb which fishes around and then sticks and slides in between her baby's ribs. So, yes, I can conclusively say that the procedure was painful and scary and mentally taxing. My husband even said it was one of the most intense and scary experiences of his life. He had to watch the whole thing and keep me focused on cooperating.
I entered the hospital that morning in a seriously foul mood. I was so anxious about the procedure. There was a woman who cracked a joke about going to the same floor as me, hardy har har, because well, I was pregnant, and that's where pregnant people go in CHOP. Nico politely laughed, I just gave her a blank stare and kept pressing the Door Close button, which subsequently kept the elevator doors closing on people. I sort of apologized every time, but honestly, if I could have just had an empty elevator ride to the 5th floor, it would have made me just that much more comfortable.
Once we were among the CHOP doctors, my mood did lift quite a bit. They know me well now and they always seem happy to see me. I made jokes with them. One doctor pretended my fleece socked feet were car shifters, and he "raced" my feet. Another lady doc who I'm especially close with joked that she was impressed with how I even wore pretty underwear for my draining procedure at the hospital. I know, some of this may sound strange to you based on how you know doctors, but I feel close to these people. They have been seeing me at least every other week for months, watched me cry and laugh a million times over, and, most importantly, been stewards of the growth of my baby, which is a pretty goshdarn intimate thing if you let it be, if you embrace it that way. Plus, they just like me. I can tell. We have good rapport.
The jokes all ended though as soon as I saw them pull out that needle. I turned my head quickly to my husband, held on to his hand for dear life, and started to try breathing exercises. They talked me through the early parts, but then left out the scary parts, I learned later. Yes, the needle hurt when they put it in. But that was not nearly as disturbing as when they were fishing for the baby with it, and trying so hard to find the right moment to try to insert it in her. And what was most scary of all was feeling my baby try to get away, curling herself into the opposite side of my womb, away from this foreign object. The whole team became very quiet, I heard them whisper pleas to the baby to stay still and cooperate. My head was dripping sweat. My husband was talking me through it, rubbing me, and the doctors were complimenting me throughout too, telling me I was doing a great job. They reminded me to take deep breaths. And then, soon after my husband said it was almost done, it was done. The whole thing took about 40 minutes. My sense of time was skewed but I looked at the clock enough before and after to know. My husband told me later some of what he saw. It was painful for him to watch both me and what was going on internally on the ultrasound screen. But he did say that once they put the needle in the baby, she stayed very still, like a good girl.
A risk with such a procedure is going into preterm labor. And within 15 minutes, I was cramping. A few minutes later, I started having full on contractions. I only learned later that the fact that I was feeling them so strongly was an indication that they were very active contractions (uncommon for women in their first pregnancy), and this was no surprise because 45 minutes later when they checked my cervix, they said that I was dilated.
I had to stay at the hospital until things slowed down, but they just didn't. I had very active contractions for about four or five hours. There were a few things that people have told me about contractions that didn't stick very intensely until I was experiencing them myself, like the fact that certain sounds are extremely irritating. My poor husband was trying to eat some food, starving, and the sound of him chomping down on salad made my ears burn. I had to tell him to be quiet and stay still a few times while I was having contractions. A couple hours in, they gave me medicine to try to stop everything. Eventually, the medicine worked, things slowed down to an eventual almost stop, but the cramping kind gave way to a rapid on and off succession of Braxton Hicks, which has not yet stopped to this moment. That was five days ago.
They admitted me that night and it was a long, miserable night of constant peeing, an uncomfortable bed, hands swelling around my IV. I remember watching Last Call with Carson Daly in the middle of the night and couldn't help but imagine what company I was in. The nurse had to come in every half hour to reassemble my uterine and fetal monitors after every trip to the bathroom. My husband stayed overnight with me and he was awoken too, every time. I had the nurse take out my IV in the middle of the night because my swollen hand was aching.
The next day though, exhausted, I just begged to go home. I was still having active Braxton Hicks contractions, but not labor contractions. They gave me a cervical exam and I was still dilated, but at 1.5 centimeters, and no more than the night before.
They did an ultrasound and even I could see that the cyst had at least partially re-filled itself. Fortunately, not that much yet--it's original size of 100 mL of fluid was down to 19 mL, but still the fact that it was re-filling was concerning. They sent the fluid to the lab and would have results soon to tell us more about what the cyst actually is.
It felt more clear that this pregnancy was not going to go on for much longer. They let me go home, ordered me to modified bedrest, scheduled me for a visit three days later, and gave me tips to keep from going into labor again. It was the dawn of the ending. I came home and took a five hour nap.
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