Premature Labor - Julia in Hospital

Post date: Nov 6, 2010 2:48:08 PM

NOVEMBER 5, For those of you who have not yet heard the news, Julia is in the hospital. On Wednesday she began feeling cramps, but what were really contractions. She has gone into labor early. We were admitted to East Alabama Medical Center on the morning of Thursday, November 4. They were able to slow the contractions, but were not able to stop them, which was of concern to the doctors. While it is a great hospital, they are not equipped to handle extreme premature babies. We are only at 25 weeks.

On Friday morning Julia was airlifted to UAB hospital's Women & Infant Center since they have an outstanding neonatal intensive care unit. Once settled into this hospital, the doctors have given her a lot of medicine. They were able to slow the contractions. Some women can maintain in this state for days, weeks, or months allowing the baby to develop. Others can only maintain it for a few hours. So basically we don't know. It is a waiting game now. Julia is dilated to 4 cm right now and the membrane looks thin, but is still intact. So Julia is drugged and laying on a decline to keep pressure off of it. The doctors have already begun talking with us about preparing for a premature birth, and have begun speaking candidly about the increased developmental risks associated with such premature babies.Please be praying for Julia and for our little boy. Please pray that the contractions will completely stop. Please pray that the membrane does not break. Please pray that the little boy will be able to develop within her for many more weeks. Please pray for Julia's response to the medicine - some of it caused her body temperature, blood pressure, and reflexes to dramatically fall last night. They just had to up that medicine again to try and slow the contractions. If you are on facebook or twitter, I am posting updates every few hours there.