False Alarm

Sunday night was a long one... At 36 weeks 5 days pregnant, I came down with yet another stomach virus (Cody and I both have gone years without catching this nasty bug.  That is, until we had children.  Now we seem to have it every 5 or 6 months).  I went to bed not feeling well, then woke up with violent symptoms from about 12:00 to 2:00 am.  After my 2:00 episode, I started having a lot of pain in my lower abdomen, enough that it was hard to stand up straight.  I decided to monitor my contractions before I called the doctor.  It turned out that for over an hour, I was having contractions every 3 - 7 minutes.   So I called the doctor who told us they needed to check it out. 

We took Caden over to my parents house and headed up to the hospital.  They got me set up on the monitors, asked 100 questions (including "Do you have feelings of wanting to kill anyone?"), and after the long list of questions they checked my contraction pattern and decided that they were consistently every 5 minutes.  This was followed by an exam which determined that I was 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced.  We were told that it was likely that we could have this baby today.  (Scary thought for me since I didn't bring ANYTHING and we were still very unprepared at home).

My doctor had thought differently.  She had them start me on an IV because she thought my dehydration was triggering my contractions.  They also gave me morphine and phenergran to help with pain and nausea.  As miserable as it was to be at the hospital triage with a stomach virus, it sure did make me feel better almost immediately once they gave me phenergran. 

By about 6:00 am, my contractions had become much less intense and were no longer regular.  The only problem was the Hadley's heart rate was a little too high.  We had to wait another hour to see if it would settle down.  By 7:15 a day shift nurse came in, informed us that Hadley's heart rate was much better, and performed another vaginal exam to make sure I hadn't progressed further.  I am almost positive this lady had a knife in her hand for this exam.  I can't even describe how painful it was.  I couldn't help but almost jump right off the table, which only made her get even more aggressive (and also made me bleed heavily for the next two days).  Still 4 cm--which was good news since my doctor really hopes I make it to 38 weeks. 

On our way home at 7:30 am with baby still on board in the belly.

The next day I was back at work... still dilated 4 cm.  How long can you walk around like that anyway???  It makes me very nervous to think that I am almost halfway to the "push phase".  My doctor did warn me to get to the hospital very quickly once contractions start again because it shouldn't take long.  I'm only concerned because I HAVE to make sure I have time for an epidural!!

Stay tuned... next time I get around to posting on the blog may be with a picture of sweet Miss Hadley Ann Coltharp.