Hospital adventures

Last Thursday I noticed that I was having way more contractions than normal. I do get them frequently, but this was about 3 times more than normal. The baby wasn't moving much and I was way more concerned about that, so I did the caffeine test (drink a can of a sugary caffeinated beverage and lay on left side for an hour to see if baby will start moving) and she moved (barely) enough to satisfy me.

On Friday, I was still having tons of contractions. None were painful and in fact, I could barely feel most of them. I only knew I was contracting because I poked my belly and it was hard everywhere. I started paying a lot more close attention, and my mommy instincts were flashing red. I called the doctor and went in to do a urine sample to make sure I didn't have a bladder infection (which causes the uterus to contract). It was negative, so they sent me to the hospital.

They strapped two monitors to my belly - one to monitor the baby's heartbeat, the other to monitor my contractions. It was so fun to hear the baby's heartbeat continuously instead of just a little like at doctor's appointments. Skyler had fun poking my belly and seeing her heart rate jump, then go back to normal. Kammie kicked and kicked at the monitors the whole time we were there. It was so funny to be hearing her heart beat and then a loud WHOMP when she kicked.

After a while, the nurse came back in and said I was having contractions 2-5 minutes apart. I was shocked. I felt maybe 1 in 10 contractions and I had been convinced they'd tell me I was just paranoid and send me home. She gave me a shot to slow the contractions, which made me a little shaky.

She came back in later and said they had slowed to 9-15 minutes apart and if that kept up, they'd send me home. Soon she came back and said they were speeding up again, so I got another shot (and got shakier). This worked, but they gave me a steroid shot to develop the baby's lungs in case I delivered early. They also checked me when I came in and before I left to see if I was dilated (which I wasn't, thankfully).

I had to go back Saturday night to get a second steroid shot 24 hours after the first. I was having contractions that day and was a little stressed because I wasn't sure exactly how to monitor contractions I couldn't feel. I got really short of breath, so we went to the hospital at 3:00. We waited for 2 hours and the contractions slowed way down. They put the monitors back on and they were only detecting tiny, infrequent contractions. Whew! They checked my lungs and pulse and heart rate and said everything looked fine, so it was probably just the baby pushing on my diaphragm.

They also told me a test they had done the night before to test if I would go into labor in the next 2 weeks was positive, so I had a 12% chance of delivering in that time. They gave me the second steroid shot and sent me home.

I called my doctor today (she was out of town this weekend) and will see her tomorrow. She called in a prescription for me to take if I was getting too many contractions and in the meantime I'm just trying to take it easy. I'm hanging on to the 88% chance that I won't deliver, but I'm still a little nervous. I'm not ready yet! Kammie's room isn't ready and I'm only 32 weeks pregnant. She's too little to come out yet! I don't want a preemie baby!

I think I'll feel a lot better when I see my doctor tomorrow. I don't know if she'll put me on bedrest or just tell me to take it easy or what, but I can't wait to see her. This baby better stay put!