ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
Meet a founder and charter member of Sidelines, a new area support group for women who experience complicated pregnancies, doctor-ordered bed rest - and ``the feeling that your four walls are closing in around you.''
It was an unlikely place to strike up a best-friendship: in the waiting room of an obstetrician's office.
But Jeanette Murray and Andrea Micklem realized they had a lot more in common than being in the second trimester of their second pregnancies.
Both were categorized as ``high-risk'':
Both would be hospitalized off and on throughout their pregnancies;
Both would suffer the harsh side effects of labor-stopping drugs;
Both would come to doubt their role as child-bearers. As mothers.
``You feel guilty and inadequate for not being able to carry the baby to term,'' says Micklem, a Roanoke school teacher.
Combine all that with the sheer terror of worrying about the baby's life, the raging hormones and the loneliness of doctor-ordered bed rest - and it doesn't make for the picture-perfect pregnancy.
When Micklem and Murray realized they were bumping into each other on an almost daily basis, in the waiting room of high-risk pregnancy specialist Dr. Lynn Keene, they connected immediately.
``As soon as we started talking, we never stopped,'' Micklem recalls. It's still that way, even though both have since delivered healthy babies.
When Murray talks about the possible birth defects her daughter could have had - and all the sorrows she's witnessed as a six-year nursing veteran of the neonatal-intensive care unit at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital - Micklem jumps in to finish her thought:
``She knew too much.''
The two compared notes daily on their medications and side effects, which included hot flashes, insomnia, flulike symptoms, lapse in memory and light sensitivity. Murray, who lives in Christiansburg, kept a suitcase packed in the trunk of her car every time she drove to Keene's Roanoke office. ``You never knew if you were going into the hospital or not,'' she recalls.
Both women praised their husbands and extended families for helping care for their older children and households while they could not. Still, the only person who could truly relate to Micklem's fears and experiences was Murray; for Murray, it was Micklem.
``When it was all over, we realized our meeting was luck,'' Micklem says. ``We knew it didn't happen for everyone. And we kept thinking, `How would we have done this without each other?'''
So when Murray read about the national nonprofit support group, founded in 1992 in Laguna Beach, Calif., she felt a calling to form a Southwest Virginia chapter. The name Sidelines is a reference to doctor-ordered bed rest; lying on the left side can reduce a pregnant woman's blood pressure.
Still in its infancy, the Southwest Virginia group is recruiting women who have been through high-risk pregnancies to serve as buddies or mentors to women currently going through similar problems. Most of the coaching and hand-holding is done on the phone.
When a match can't be found in the region, Murray will tap into the national database. Such was the case last year when a Texas woman, five months pregnant, became a quadriplegic after a car accident. Miraculously, the fetus survived.
A few phone calls later, a Texas Sidelines group learned of a quadriplegic who'd delivered a healthy baby in Ohio - and who had just become a Sidelines volunteer there. United in their disabilities, the two women spoke on the phone every day for the next three months.
When the Texas woman's baby was born - healthy - she credited her phone buddy with helping her make it through.
``When a complication happens, it's very normal for the emotional needs to go up,'' explains Keene. ``Some of us get our support from our families, some from friends. But it's always good, when you find yourself in new and frightening situations, to talk to somebody who's been there.''
One in five pregnant women experience complications, Keene said. Seven percent to 10 percent of pregnancies are at-risk to end in preterm birth.
The fact that most women go through pregnancy seemingly with ease - working, vacationing, shopping - makes it more difficult for those who don't, says Richmond's Anne Simmons-McGroarty, Sidelines coordinator for Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Among the 40 moms her group has counseled since its inception earlier this year, one loss resulted. President Clinton has praised the national organization for its efforts to combat infant mortality.
``We urge compliance, and sometimes people outside don't realize how crucial that is,'' Simmons-McGroarty says. ``We make moms realize that every day they stay in bed, they are doing better.''
Volunteers sometimes go beyond just talking on the phone. One Sidelines volunteer in New Jersey found some Catholic nuns to volunteer blood for a high-risk mom frightened about receiving a needed blood transfusion. Another volunteer, from Ohio, traveled three hours to be at the side of a single mom as she labored to deliver her stillborn twins.
Few cases are as severe, but Murray says the need for an empathetic ear is there for anyone whose pregnancy is out-of-the-ordinary, not just those ordered to bed rest. Other complications include gestational diabetes, hypertension, abnormal bleeding, urinary tract infections, viral infections, multiple fetuses and a surplus of amniotic fluid.
Even with her background in nursing, Murray had a hard time learning how to administer her own terbutaline pump - sticking herself, changing the dressing and syringe. And having to undergo daily pelvic exams, ``You lose all your privacy. There is nothing left that's you.
``The littlest thing can unnerve you,'' she adds. ``With Andrea, it just so happened that whenever I was down, she was up - and vice versa.''
On the job, Murray regularly sees teen-age moms who are having complications. ``Either their bodies aren't ready, or they've had no prenatal care, or they have no family support and they're being noncompliant with their medications.''
She hopes to pair teen mothers who have been through similar difficulties by getting the word out about the free service to doctors, health departments and clinics. ``With all of the cases, our goal is really to find the best match we can,'' she says.
For more information, or to volunteer, call Jeanette Murray in Christiansburg at 381-2379. The next training session starts mid-September.
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Andrea Micklem (left, with childrenby CNBBailey and Austin) and Jeanette Murray (with children Cole and
Morgan) weathered their difficult pregnancies together, and they are
recruiting mothers to serve as buddies to
women going through similar problems. color.