Hospital Bed Rest

On October 30, I woke up feeling kinda crappy.  Steve took George to preschool while I took it easy. When he got home, I told him that I was feeling crampy... which wasn't normal since I started the anti-contracting medicine.  He insisted that I call the doctor.

So I called and got an appointment for later that afternoon.  Steve was not happy that I was going to wait that long and called back and got me an appointment earlier at my doctor's other office (the one connected to the hospital). We had to leave immediately.  George was sad and I told him to take a nap and I would be home when he woke up (not a good thing to promise... oops).

We got to the doctor's office and when she checked me, I had progressed to a 3!  Not good.  I was only 32 weeks.  She wanted to watch me closer, so she decided to do a non-stress test (where they hook you up to the monitors and watch contractions and baby's heartbeat).  Her office walked me over to L & D because they would be able to watch me better and longer.  I didn't even have to go outside... just over a walkway and there it was.  They hooked me up to monitors and we watched tv for a bit.

I was having more than 6 contractions an hour, so they decided to keep me for the night.  That night, my contractions got to about 7-8 minutes apart for a while.  I was really, really crampy.  The next day, my doctor came in bright and early and told me that I was going to be in the hospital until I hit 34 weeks.  That was 11 days away.

So I spent 12 days in the hospital.  As luck would have it, Steve ended up getting trips and was gone for more than half of it.  Luckily, though, my mother in law was still here to help!  I don't know how we would have been able to do any of this without her!  Actually, we wouldn't have.  I would have had this baby a long time ago had it not been for all of her help!  She brought the kids down to see me, which was a huge burden for her, I know, because of the long drive and the fact that George screamed every time they had to leave!  Poor kid is going to have a complex about me going to the doctor's office!

I learned that I have great friends in my ward here!  Lots of people were calling and checking in on me and I even had a bunch of visitors!  They were all great because the hospital is about 45 minutes from our house! The nurses were great, too!  I got to be friends with many of them over the 12 days!

Over the days, the contractions eventually stopped and I was taken off of the monitors.  I was allowed to shower and wear my own clothes.  Two days before I hit 34 weeks, they started giving me another round of steroids for baby's lungs.  I went home and did nothing except go to doctor's appointments for the next 10 days.....