“Doctors ordered her to lie on her side in bed and not move”

October 24, 2017 4:01 AM

‘Reality shrivels. This is your life now’: 88 days trapped in bed to save a pregnancy by Katherine Heiny.
posted by Kattullus (31 comments total)

That was a very good read.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:09 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Fantastic essay, thank you.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:11 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Why don't they just abort the foetus in this situation?
posted by mary8nne at 5:42 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Why don't they just abort the foetus in this situation?

It seems likely if she was in a jurisdiction where it wasn't ridiculously legally encumbered that the obstetrician would keep that in mind as an option, but the author of the story seems determined to make an effort to carry the pregnancy to term. The option isn't mentioned at all in the story, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been floated very tentatively by the OB (IANAD, but I'd think responsible medical ethics would encourage influencing the patient's personal decision as little as possible in any scenario where the risk to her own life was minimal).
posted by jackbishop at 6:03 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Why don't they just abort the foetus in this situation?

a) Because it's wanted
b) Because at 26 weeks it's viable
posted by Talez at 6:05 AM on October 24, 2017 [29 favorites]

c) Because she very clearly wanted to remain pregnant and give birth.

Choice is choice.
posted by cooker girl at 6:12 AM on October 24, 2017 [69 favorites]

She requested and read Adrift. Interesting.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:23 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Arg. Are there really horrific pregnancy stories posted this often on the Blue, and I just never noticed because I wasn't pregnant before now? Everything is terrifying.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 6:42 AM on October 24, 2017 [17 favorites]

>The first group included rice, poached chicken and yoga, The second group included alcohol, secondhand smoke, deli meat, smoked seafood, raw eggs, soft cheese, pâté, caffeine, unwashed vegetables, diet soda, eggnog, x-rays, aspirin, ibuprofen, antihistamines, nasal decongestants, cough syrup, librium, valium, sleeping pills, castor oil, vitamin A supplements, paint fumes, insect repellent, acupuncture, cats, hair dye, altitude, saunas, reptiles, tick bites, microwaves, electric blankets, rollercoasters, bikini waxes, stiletto heels, hot dogs and tap water.

Oh, the things we impose (often without any kind of supporting evidence) on pregnant women :(

>responsible medical ethics would encourage influencing the patient's personal decision as little as possible in any scenario where the risk to her own life was minimal

Believe it or not, no. Medical ethics requires that doctors try to explain all the possibilities and give a patient as good an understanding of her options as possible, but they're absolutely allowed to try to influence her personal decision as long as they make it clear that it is ultimately her decision. "I feel strongly that X is the right way to go" is totally acceptable, if the other options are described too.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:51 AM on October 24, 2017 [11 favorites]

Oh, the things we impose (often without any kind of supporting evidence) on pregnant women :(
Yeah, and even rice has probably swapped groups since she was pregnant, since there's been a scare about arsenic recently.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:12 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Arg. Are there really horrific pregnancy stories posted this often on the Blue, and I just never noticed because I wasn't pregnant before now? Everything is terrifying.

Not only that but for some bewildering reason friends, coworkers, relatives....all have a special terrifying story that they store up until around month six and then they all unload on you at once.

Try not to avoid it as much as you can but yeah, everyone likes a war story except the people in the war.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:13 AM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

My (twin) kids were born by emergency C-section at 31 weeks. They're not kidding about a 3 lb baby. But the nurses in the NICU* were fantastic. They were totally matter-of-fact, like, "Yep, small baby, here's her food intake and other stats, yes you can and should hold her as much as you want, etc." Absolutely no talk about mortality statistics or developmental problems that could occur, just the relevant information about your baby that you needed to know right now.

I feel sorry for the child. 88 days of self-sacrifice is a guilt trip the mother will be able to wield for decades to come.

Can we not?

*actually New Born Special Care Unit, but say "NBSCU" and people are all "what?"
posted by disconnect at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2017 [20 favorites]

I was born, viable if mildly off spec, from a scenario very much like the essay depicts. Thanks, mum.

Everybody kept telling her to give up, put an end to her own suffering, and just let the biomass that would become me self-abort and randomize back into the environment. That may have been sound advice, but I'm glad she chose to be stubborn instead.
posted by Construction Concern at 7:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

"My husband brought me breakfast in the morning before he left for work. Our housekeeper brought me lunch."

Choice is choice. Freedom from poverty gave her more choice than many.

(I don't think she intended the article to be about choice - it seemed to be more about self-discovery, and coming to accept and celebrate her stubbornness as a strength.)
posted by metaseeker at 7:59 AM on October 24, 2017 [17 favorites]

"Self-discovery" is a charitable appraisal.
posted by marycatherine at 8:11 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: viable if mildly off spec
posted by A Terrible Llama at 8:15 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments deleted. mary8nne, it's been too many years of this kind of thing with you, and it's just not worth it. You're done here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:32 AM on October 24, 2017 [16 favorites]

I skim read that story because she had went to term. PPROM is a pretty brutal club to belong to. (20 weeks, made it to 30 weeks) I had four older kids at home, a terrible job and a husband who was ambivalent about the pregnancy and the children. I checked out of the hospital against medical advice and did bedrest at home and then back in the hospital and learned so much more about ultrasounds and amniotic fluid and potential birth defects and basically memorised Cochrane's handbook for obgyn.

I also played civilisation iPad obsessively. Highly recommended if you are trapped in a hospital ward with no wifi and the 3-5 daily checks to see if the baby is dead yet.

Oh that was a fun year.

It's a well written story but it's weirdly way too optimistic given the broad experience of 99% of PPROMs. YMMV.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:34 AM on October 24, 2017 [13 favorites]

We did this. 10 weeks bedrest, 9 in the hospital, with monochorionic diamniotic twins who developed twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). Laser surgery in utero. PPROM at 25 weeks, 4 days. My wife was up out of bed 5 minutes a day for a shower; the remaining time she laid on her back tilted slightly to the left. I had just started a new job and was the one with the health insurance, so I went to work and lived on a small air mattress at the hospital. Let me tell you, panic is leaving the gym after an hour-long workout to find seven frantic voicemails on your phone that you have to get to the hospital, now.

The hardest part? After they were delivered at 34 weeks, 5 days. Twin L had a pneumomediastinum and nearly died in the hours after birth, then nine months of supplemental oxygen and a feeding tube due to silent aspiration. They are now happy, healthy three year olds running around, nearly indistinguishable in health.

I still get the shivers remembering the panic of driving to the hospital after her water broke, and driving to Children's after Twin L had to be transferred by ambulance. I was convinced she would be in critical condition or worse when I arrived, but the staff at Children's greeted me with a slightly puzzled "she's stable and doing great."

But we'd do it all again.

Why don't they just abort the foetus in this situation?

a) Because it's wanted
b) Because at 26 weeks it's viable

Yes.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:02 AM on October 24, 2017 [19 favorites]

On one hand I advise my fellow lady-friends who are pregnant to avoid stories like this because most pregnancies will never experience anything more severe than bad heartburn and some minor tearing. On the other hand I had GD, three first trimester miscarriages, and am a two-time survivor of pre-eclampsia and early term deliveries. With my first round of pre-e, I very stubbornly ignored the family members telling me I looked super rundown because, y'know, I was 36 weeks pregnant and WTF people? But it got caught because I'm diligent about checkups and that's how it gets diagnosed and treated. Being diligent saved our lives.

I also was very stubborn with my first miscarriage and that's the one that nearly killed me. I bled out over five days, and only on the fifth day (after going through a 4th of July celebration and a birthday party for me like nothing was wrong) did I ask my husband to take me to the emergency room. Every day I was sure I was "done". Every day I bled more and more.

I was severely anemic and the hematologist at the ER said if my blood count had dipped any lower they'd have given me a transfusion. I don't know how, but I went back to work two days later. We were in the middle of mastering a game and like a dummy, I insisted that I was needed. I nearly crashed my car on the way home from work because I almost passed out behind the wheel.

Bleeding is apparently something my body does all too well. I had the same issue when my son was born -- I lost a lot of blood, and my diligent nurse kept track by weighing my chux pads. I was also on the bubble for transfusion then, but a dose of something medicinal (the third attempt -- I can't remember what it was that did it, but it came in suppository format which thankfully I couldn't feel because I was still under the effect of the local from my c-section) ultimately staunched the flow and once again saved my life. For real, ya'all, if I'd been born just half a century earlier, I'd probably be one of those moms who died in childbirth.

So being stubborn is something pregnant women have to be sometimes (the groupings she talks about -- lord, the things people tell pregnant women they can't do based on the scantiest of "evidence"), but also sometimes we need to listen to the professionals.

PPROM is fucking awful and serious as hell. Hospital beds are uncomfortable and I didn't like being cooped up in one for four days, much less 30. This lady has endurance. And luck. I am so glad she was one of the 1%.

sharp pointy objects, the best (worst) I can say is that if terrible things are going to happen, they will happen, and there is not much you can do to stop them. Everything terrible that is preventable you are probably already doing, because you are a smart, articulate, hip person on Metafilter. Also, the terrible things are rare and the odds say you are going to have a wonderful, healthy, full-term pregnancy.

I don't know if that brings any comfort at all, but this I do know: the potential for terrible things doesn't stop because you give birth.

And don't skip your prenatal appointments.
posted by offalark at 9:12 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Metafilter: everyone likes a war story except the people in the war.

(And not just Metafilter, in real life too.)
posted by Melismata at 9:29 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

All the things I have always meant to fix about myself but had never got around to – my stubbornness, my hypochondria, my inflexible nature – had turned out not to need fixing. Had, in fact, turned out to be survival skills.

This is kind of my nightmare. I have been working so, so hard to compensate for unhealthy behaviors stemming from my anxiety disorder. If a situation like this happened to me and I was left with the impression that my maladaptive reactions had HELPED? I would be completely devastated, knowing that I had unwittingly entrenched them even more, and that I would never be free.
posted by chainsofreedom at 9:42 AM on October 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

I don't know, chainsofreedom, you might also come through it having realized that even when fears worse than the ones you dream up in your head invade your life, you take one step at a time and get through it and come out the other side. I haven't had this experience with a high risk pregnancy, but I'm a moderate hypochondriac who came down with cancer in 2015. Had I not been a hypochondriac I might not have called my doctor less than 12 hours after finding that tumor. The last two and a half years have been the hardest of my life, no doubt, but I found out I can get through the hardest things and be relatively okay. We are capable of more than we know. This is why I'm so irritated when people tell each other things like "oh, you're so strong," et cetera, as if it's a compliment that someone seems to be managing well going through something like this. Nobody is really managing very well, and nobody is really any stronger than anyone else in the face of this kind of trauma. But when it comes down to it, there's nothing else to do but get through the minutes.
posted by something something at 9:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [10 favorites]

Are there really horrific pregnancy stories posted this often on the Blue, and I just never noticed because I wasn't pregnant before now? Everything is terrifying.

Easy, non-scary pregnancy stories are boring, and usually only interesting to the people involved, and occasionally to other people currently facing the same situation.

I had two easy pregnancies and two easy births; for both of them, I checked into the hospital about 4 hours before giving birth. Both of them about two weeks before my due date. For the first, labor lasted all day before - I couldn't sit down; had to be walking or lying down, and had cramps. (Nobody told me that "contractions" don't feel like anything contracting; they feel like menstrual cramps that make you want to double over.) For both of them, the attendant (doctor for first, nurse-midwife for the second) ruptured the amniotic sac when they decided I was dilated enough; it didn't break on its own.

Most pregnancies are (relatively) smooth; that's how we got to have 7 billion people on the planet. There's a lot of pain and a lot of blood at the end, but some of the pain is "good pain," if that makes sense? It feels like stretching, like you're horribly constipated; you want the pain gone but you know it's doing something important.

My partner and doula found out that I'm not more cooperative when I'm out of my mind with pain; apparently the stubbornness is a core personality trait. I think I only drove off one of the hospital staff, though.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:14 AM on October 24, 2017 [7 favorites]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

During my first pregnancy, at 35 weeks, my water broke in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. The wetness woke me up. First, I went to the bathroom to see what was going on. Second, I went to get my husband. He was playing Overwatch, so I just said, "can you come see me when you're done?" (He still tells this story and thinks it's hilarious.). Third, I called my OB's emergency line and talked to the operator. While I was waiting for the on-call doctor to call me back, I did the most reasonable fourth thing to do: read the Wikipedia article about pPROM, which (at least then) had a chart of what doctors do at different weeks. It said at 35 weeks, they were probably going to go ahead and deliver the baby.

So when the doctor called back and told me to go to the hospital, I was prepared. We packed a bag (because of course we hadn't already). At the hospital, they ran the tests on me that the author described in the piece. I had been there for about an hour before the triage nurse finally confirmed that, yes, they were going to go ahead and deliver the baby.

And that was that. My doctor said that if I get pregnant again, I'll have to go to a preterm labor specialist every few weeks to get cervix checks and stuff. Fun.
posted by liet at 10:50 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Are there really horrific pregnancy stories posted this often on the Blue, and I just never noticed because I wasn't pregnant before now? Everything is terrifying.

Another easy pregnancy and delivery here. My initial professional (a midwife) made me cry more than once so I switched to a doctor I had met once at like 32 weeks or something. Delivered with a stranger from the practice in one push. (I do not regret switching practitioners for a minute. Staying with the midwife would have created trauma for me.) Being monitored in the hospital and told I had to be still when contractions wanted me to move was the hardest bit. Baby is normal and healthy. I recovered quickly and easily. Heartburn in pregnancy was painful. Sleep deprivation still annoying. I have some annoying skin issues from pregnancy but that is about it.

My story would not build steam for public consumption like the essay posted here.
posted by crunchy potato at 11:06 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

The story is interesting, but the horribly sensationalist title was probably cooked up by someone else.

"Months before she was due to give birth, disaster struck for Katherine Heiny. Doctors ordered her to lie on her side in bed and not move – and gave her a 1% chance of carrying her baby to term"

Argh! The doctors did not order her to lie still for 88 days!

They said, this would be really hard and the chances are not good, and these are some things that might come up. Then she, deciding for herself, said she really wanted to do the really hard thing, which was totally not required of her, but she really really wanted to, and they supported her through it wonderfully. And it worked out in the end and she gets to tell her story and pat herself a little bit on the back. Along the way, she read a book about a drifting sailor and spotted a metaphor there so she took inspiration from that. No coercion anywhere! Not a single mean doctor or nurse or person in the whole story, just one super nerdy guy.

I kind of wish the sensationalist title didn't get carried over to the blue, but it did get everybody's attention.
posted by metaseeker at 11:31 AM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

The housekeeper line stopped me in my tracks, too.

A friend got pregnant with twins after I did, spent months on bedrest and delivered 2 babies weighing less than mine together all before I had my son. Due to pressure on her nerves (vagus nerve?), she lost full use of her hands for a while, but it slowly returned. All the babies are healthy adults now. Pregnancy and childbirth are dangerous for women. I love my son and wanted more kids, but nobody should be forced to go through full pregnancy and childbirth.

I'm happy it turned out for her.
posted by theora55 at 1:31 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

metaseeker: I kind of wish the sensationalist title didn't get carried over to the blue, but it did get everybody's attention.

For what it's worth, I did think about that. I prefer generally to excerpt a paragraph from an essay like that to give MeFites both a way in and a feel for the text. But the way Heiny structured her telling, everything was very slow and measured. I didn't find any obvious quotes to pull. So in the end I went with the title and description. I realize that in a newspaper like The Guardian, the writer has limited control over headlines. They did use one of her quotes, at least.
posted by Kattullus at 3:37 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting. This took me hours to read, as I kept having to take breaks. I went into preterm labour at 33 weeks, hospital bedrest for one week, home bedrest for 2, then my preeclampsia got too bad, and I was induced at 36 weeks. The descriptions are just what I remember, down to the neonatologist coming to my room to give me statistics. My twins are 7 now, so even though it was touch and go for a while, it's all good now.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 5:34 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

My mother spent the last month of her pregnancy in bed, though she could change position. A constant source of comfort was our cat who would cuddle up against her belly and purr to settle me down when I kicked. Worked like a charm. Maybe that's why I'm a cat person.
posted by homunculus at 9:03 PM on October 24, 2017 [5 favorites]