Sprung from the cage. Released on my own recognizance. Flew the coop.
Baby is doing well. I’m at home from the hospital, still pregnant, and on bedrest. By bedrest I mean reclining; I’m not to be sitting up either.
Perhaps bedrest would be a little less frustrating if we hadn’t just moved, and I wasn’t surrounded with thousands of boxes that still need to be unpacked. I still can’t find anything.
Now I need to get busy on all that homework I didn’t get done during my week in the hospital. At least there will be fewer interruptions here. Imagine trying to write a paper juggling 12 different books and a pile of papers and the laptop while leaning back – without sitting up or straining or reaching too far for any of the books. Don’t take for granted the little things like being able to sit up and spread your books out on the table. Oh, I miss sitting up and leaning forward.
Yup, still pregnant. And still in the hospital. I have been officially transferred from Labor and Delivery to the Antepartum Unit. This is a good thing, it means they are no longer worried that I will deliver any minute, but I still need some help to keep labor from proceeding. I’m still dilating – about a half cm every day or two. So it’s slow, but it hasn’t come to a stop. The good news is that I’ve made it into the 34th week which drastically ups baby’s viability, and we also got the steroids in so her lungs have a better chance of functioning on their own if she just can’t wait till term.
It’s really just a waiting game. There is a chance that they will send me home tomorrow – that depends on how far the dilation has progressed. They’ll check again in the morning. Part of me is excited at the prospect of going home to wait out the rest of my pregnancy, and part of me is terrified. I like knowing that the experts are just a button push away.
That’s right, I’m in the hospital right now. Saturday night was a tough night for me with lots of intestinal cramping and nausea. I was up all night. The next morning we started going through all the boxes we hadn’t unpacked yet looking for the booklet on pregnancy and childbirth from our doctor. When we finally found the booklet and thumbed through it and noticed on the page with “Warning Signs” – I could go down the list and check off a pretty good percentage. That warranted a call to the consulting nurse who said “Come on down.”
That led to six hours in the Labor and Delivery Triage room. When I first got there, all of my symptoms disappeared. Why does that happen?? It’s so frustrating to sit there with a Doctor or Nurse and try to describe symptoms you’re no longer having – In fact, most of the time in triage, I felt great but a little embarrassed because I came in with no symptoms. They put me on a monitor to track my contractions and the baby’s heart rate. I didn’t feel a single contraction, but as it turns out, the monitor showed that I was having pretty frequent contractions. They checked my cervix after a few hours and I was dilated to 1 cm, 2 hours later I was dilated to 2.5 cm. That’s when they told me they were preparing a room for me.
I honestly thought we would go in, they would check me out and then send me home with orders to call them if the cramping and nausea comes back. Not so much. Instead the plan is to put me on medication to slow down the contractions and steroids to beef up the baby’s lungs in case we’re not able to stop labor from proceeding. It wasn’t really sinking in what was going on until the doctor started telling me about how my baby was most likely viable at this age, but if she was born now, she would go straight to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Since I was admitted Sunday night, the baby’s heart-rate has remained steady, and so have the contractions. It still strikes me as extremely weird that I can’t feel the contractions. I’m hoping that bodes well for delivery. The baby also continues to be very active, which makes me feel good.
They are going to check me again in the morning to see if dilation has stopped or continued. If it stopped, I get to go home with orders to stay off my feet. If dilation has continued, I may be in here a while.
Baby seems to be active and feisty and raring to get on with life, which I think will be helpful to her if she is born with a hurdle to overcome – such as being premature. I hope she can settle down and wait a few weeks and use that exuberance for getting on with life a little later.
CoffeeJitters is an affiliate to a number of sites and services. I do not endorse products I don't love. I may receive compensation if you purchase items from links on this website.
