I Was Just Kidding

Apparently my little baby has taken this Eviction Notice a little too seriously.

Apparently he doesn't yet appreciate his mother's sense of humor.

And apparently, he reads my blog :P

Friday was a regular day. I did the normal "mom" things.

I also had a fun maternity photo shoot with Tammy and attended a wedding reception.

Normal, right?

By that evening I started feeling more uncomfortable than usual. By the time we got home from the wedding, I was having contractions. That isn't too unusual for me. I've been having sporadic, contractions for months now. Although lately they've become slightly more painful. Still, they weren't regular enough to worry about, just something I deal with.

Friday night was different.

Dan put the boys to bed while I dutifully laid in bed, on my left side, chugging water.

Normally, this would settle my contractions.

But not this time.

They stayed.

Not only did they stay, they got closer together and became more uncomfortable.

I asked Dan to call Labor & Delivery to see if they thought I should come in to be monitored. unfortunately, the nurse said that legally she couldn't tell us what to do. That we needed to talk to my doctor about it. Dan called my OB's office and talked to someone.

(I'm not really sure who, someone on call at midnight.)

She said that it was up to us and it never hurt to be on the safe side. By the time they were about five minutes apart I asked Dan to call his brother because I needed a blessing. Rob came right over.

After the blessing I started to feel very tired.

So I fell asleep.

I woke about an hour later, still contracting, they were every 6-10 minutes. I tried walking around, I tried drinking more water. I tried Googling things. I started to worry.

Not because they were painful, but because I couldn't get them to stop.

I couldn't sleep. So at 3am I decided to go to the hospital just in case. I really didn't want to bother any one at 3am so I left Dan home with the boys and I went by myself. I promised Dan that if I needed him to come I would call, and he could get a babysitter then

(For some reason the prospect of waking someone up at 4am was better than at 3am.)

Since we only live 5 minutes from the hospital he agreed.

When I arrived I told the nurses that I was only 35 weeks and was not ready to have this baby. I wanted him to bake a little longer. They checked me, I was 2+cm and 85% effaced. Only a minimal change from my doctor's visit three days before. They decided to monitor me for an hour to see what was going on. Once hooked up to the monitors we discovered that the contractions were now 3 1/2 minutes apart. They weren't very painful. They were highly uncomfortable - bordering on mildly painful.

An hour later they checked me again. 2+cm and 90%. Not much of a change but enough that they had to check with the on-call doctor before they could do anything. Because I insisted that I wasn't having a 35 week baby they gave me a shot of Terbutaline to stop the contractions.

It worked instantly.

They monitored me for another hour. When they were satisfied that I was no longer progressing, even minimally, and the baby was doing fine they sent me home.

That's when Warden Dan put me on bed rest.

I spent the weekend in bed reading, watching movies, resting, etc.

My niece came over Saturday and watched my kids all day.

Dan took over on Sunday.

I am feeling fine now. My contractions have gone back to "normal."

(Which means one every hour or so)

I was even tempted to go to an hour of church on Sunday except for the fact that I now have pink eye.

(Where the heck did that come from?)

I am anxious to get back to being a functioning person again. My calendar is pretty empty this week, thankfully.

Other than taking Tyson to school I don't even have to leave my house all week.

And that's not even until Tuesday thanks to this three day weekend.

It's only 10 days until I am 37 weeks, and my baby will be considered full-term rather than near-term. My plan is to take it really easy for the next 10 days.

Wish me luck.