Three days in the Hospital!

Hello family and friends,

I wanted to take a minute to update everyone on what is going on. For those of you who don’t know, I was admitted into the hospital late Monday evening after a fall on my back onstage during a preview performance of Bat Boy: The Musical at the Firehall Theatre.

Here’s the short of things:
They are kept me in the hospital for a little over 3 days because there has been evidence of hemorrhaging in the placenta around my baby. This hemorrhaging could cause our daughter to lose blood volume, which puts her life in danger. This morning I was released because the amount of her blood found in mine went down, but we’re not quite out of the woods yet. I go back in on Tuesday for them to retest, and we’ll see from there.

Here’s the (really) long version:
I fell at the end of Act 2, changed out of my costume, listened to notes, and went home. My lower back hurt from the fall and I felt strong pain in my upper abdomen. I waited about ten minute for it to feel better, but it just got worse, so we decided to go to the emergency room. When we arrived at the ER, they immediately wheeled me up to the maternity ward and ordered an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed what they thought was a small tear in the placenta, and they decided to keep me until the morning. They hooked me up to a “mom” machine which monitors our baby’s heart rate as well as if I am having contractions. They also informed me that I sprained my sacrum and bruised my hip in the fall. L

Early Tuesday morning, they gave me another ultrasound as well as a blood test. The ultrasound was to check that placental tear and to give the baby a biophysical scan, which shows if everything is okay with the baby. They also gave me a blood test called a Kleihauer-Betke test, which detects fetal-maternal hemmorage. Basically, it can see if there are any fetal blood cells mixed in with my blood cells. A positive result for the KB test indicates bleeding coming from the baby, umbilical cord, or placenta. Several hours after administering both tests, the resident doctor came in and let me know that the ultrasound looked great, but the KB test came back positive, with 0.2% of the baby’s blood mixed in with mine. The doctor told me that they were keeping me for another 24 hours at minimum, and that they needed to monitor our daughter very closely at that time.

Since I’m only 24 weeks and 6 days pregnant, the baby is still very small to be picked up by the monitor. She has a lot of room to wiggle around in, so it’s hard to get her to show up! The nurse will hunt for her heartbeat, place the monitor disc where they can find her, and then I have to lay as still as I possibly can for hours on end. If I move, she goes off the monitor. Then sometimes she goes off the monitor on her own accord. So that’s been stressful. The discs are attached with a two inch think Velcro strap, and I have rope burns on my back from the strap being adjusted when she moves. Today they gave me essentially a huge ace wrap, and that is a lot more comfortable!

Wednesday morning, they administered another KB test, and we waited a couple hours for the result. We were really hoping for a negative, but instead the test came back positive. Not only that, but the amount of fetal cells doubled since yesterday. They are continuing to monitor both of us to make sure that everything is okay.

My doctor also warned us that if the fetal cell percent goes up to 2.0%, there is a possibility that they will transfer me to Fargo to deliver her early. If the fetal cell percent goes up that high, she will have lost a significant amount of blood and will need to come out so she can get a transfusion. The NICU in Grand Forks can only handle babies who are born at 28 weeks or more, so if I need to deliver her soon they couldn’t accommodate her here. The NICU at MeritCare can handle babies born at 25 weeks or more, so they could take care of the baby if I need to deliver within the next week. Which we really hope doesn’t happen.

This morning (Thursday) I was given the KB test again, and three hours later (!) the results came back. The results were positive again, but today they only found 0.2% of fetal cells in my blood, which means that the bleeding went down. My doctor released me and told me to rest for the next couple days and to resume normal activity after that. She also let me know that we’re not entirely out of the woods yet. I go back to the clinic on Tuesday and they’re going to retest then, and hopefully that one will be negative! If not, then we’ll see, I guess!

With my doctor’s approval, I should be resuming my role as Meredith in Bat Boy: The Musical at the Firehall next week (maybe tomorrow if I’m feeling up to it). I sincerely appreciate all of you who were showing your support this week. We are both pretty shaken up, and it helps knowing that there are lots of people praying for us. Our daughter is a little fighter, and so am I, so the two of us girls are working hard to keep her in there until she’s done cooking! :)

Much love to all of you!

Love,

Maura, John, and Mairi Ferguson

(oh,P.S., her name is Mairi! We figured that since all of your prayers helped, you deserve to know her name.) :)