Friday for work I had to work at Vendor booth at the Genesee County Fair. I was there from 10:00AM-4:00PM, roughly... It was about 90 degrees that morning. I was warm but I was drinking fluids and sitting in front of a large industrial fan the entire time. I also decided that because I wouldn't be going out and about at the fair that I would indulge in some of the fair food that I love so much. I had deep fried mushrooms with ranch dressing for lunch, with a root beer float, and then later had a deep fried twinkie. My first option was Elephant Ear, but they didn't look that appealing to me so I decided I would opt for the twinkie.
I felt fine all day. And, all night. I got home around 5:30, and took a nap. Even though I felt fine, I was still tired from sitting outside in the heat all day. Pregnant or not pregnant I would have been exhausted. I slept for about 2 hours then I had dinner with Andy. He got chicken from Krogers and made that for me, and then I took a bath, and went in to go to bed. I was updating my pregnancy journal in bed when I just started feeling very sick to my stomach. I put everything away and laid down to rest because my stomach was getting very upset and I felt like I was going to get sick. I laid in bed watching a movie and finally fell asleep around 11:00.
I was up every hour in excruciating pain. I got up every hour to go to the bathroom, feeling the constant need to pee was nothing new to me. I was convinced that something I ate at the fair made me sick. By 7:00AM I crawled into bed with Andy, sobbing crying... I couldn't take it anymore. Something felt wrong. He asked me if we should go to the hospital, I said I didn't know... I tried to drink some Gatorade, and again had to go to the bathroom almost immediately... Only I got so sick to my stomach I threw up while I was in there. I started crying again. I called for Andy, he asked me if I felt better and I didn't. So he told me to get dressed we were leaving.
We checked into Labor & Delivery and they hooked me up to all the fetal monitors. I was having contractions. I couldn't feel them to time them because I was so nauseous. They gave me medication for that, and as soon as that kicked in I felt every contraction. The doctor in the triage checked my cervix, I was dilated to 1 and my contractions were a minute apart roughly. I was crying and almost broke Andy's fingers they were so painful.
He apologized to me, thinking that I was being a wimp with a stomach bug. He said he would never second guess me again when I said something didn't feel right....
My doctor was called, and he made the decision to admit me to the hospital so that they could give me two steroid shots for Ava's lungs. She's 33Weeks 6Days when we were admitted. (I still think that based on her weight she's actually 36 weeks) They started giving me a pill every six hours to slow down the contractions. By 2:00 we were checked into a birthing room. I got my first steroid shot, and the contractions kept coming. Not as strong, or as frequent but they were by no means stopping them. Over night when I slept on my side they weren't able to monitor the contractions because of the way I was laying. But it hurt so much more when I was laying on my back whenever i would have one. I would instantly have a contraction rolling from my side to my back.
The doctor in the triage came in to do an Ultrasound around 7:30 - Ava had in fact dropped and was in position to deliver. My doctor came in to check on me during his rounds at the hospital. He said that if I had been able to wait 24 hours that he would have let me deliver her. At 34 weeks he won't try to stop labor. Legally he can't do anything to help me along, but He doesn't have to stop it. Next time we go in, regardless of when it is, Ava will be delivered.
They continued to give me pills over night to keep the contractions slowed down. That's all they did, they weren't able to stop them. They were able to keep me from dilating though. After I got my second steroid shot the next afternoon I was checked again and I was still at 1 cm. They said as long as there was no change in that I could go home.
We immediately went straight to Wal-Mart to get what we needed to pack our hospital bags. We went into the hospital not expecting to have a baby but very well could have! And we were not prepared. We are now though!!
We have also decided that when it happens again we are not telling anyone. We have a third person that will be in the delivery room with us. We haven't told any of our family about this either... To me, I do not want my family or Andy's family in the delivery room to see every bit of me inside and out. We have decided on a person that we both know and trust to be there if we need someone else in there for any reason. That is the only person that we will be notifying when we are admitted.
Also, after telling a few people that we did that we were even in the hospital we have decided that we just don't want to have all the interruptions when it's real. No one would listen to what we were saying. I knew that I was not in actual Labor yet, no one seemed to understand that contractions with out dilating is false labor. Not real.
We know and understand that there may be hurt feelings when no one gets a phone call to say that I'm really in Labor as soon as we get the to hospital... I was in the hospital for 35 hours - and did not have a baby. There is no reason for anyone to sit in a waiting room for 35 hours. We both agreed that when it does come time for things to happen we are calling our back up coach, and we will let everyone know when the doctor is saying it's close to pushing time. And we are going to send out one text/phone call to everyone with specific information, and shut our phones off. Family can choose to sit at home or in a waiting room and wait. But the last thing we want are a million phone calls and text messages looking for updates when we are busy having a baby.
We decided that no one is coming into the triage room, or delivery room. And that only once we've been admitted to our recovery room, and the "bonding" and cleaning up is done then will family be allowed in, two at time. And no kids. In fact, It was Andy's idea to not call anyone until we were moved into that room. He said he didn't want everyone bothering him while we were trying to deal with what's going on with us in the room. I'm glad he's on my side about this now. We are still going to call family before she's born, but not until she's closer to being born.
As of today (two days after being home) I'm still having contractions. They are spaced out, but she's still dropped, and I'm feeling a ton of pressure from her. She doesn't move as much, but every once in a while she gives me a good jab! It feels better not to have her feet dug into my rib cage. But there is no happy medium with that, because now her head is stuck in my area and she's putting plenty of pressure there.
I'm not sure how far apart my contractions are - I'm not timing them. I just know that I am holding out on going to the hospital again until I absolutely can not handle the pain any more. I probably could have stuck it out a little bit longer last weekend but I was scared and didn't know what was wrong.
I guess that any day now Ava could be here. It's just a waiting game, only because rather than completely stopping my contractions, they just slowed them down. We should get an update on Thursday at our doctors appointment. We'll have another ultrasound and be able to talk to the doctor and I think they may be doing an internal exam to check for Group Strep B or something like that... and they're probably going to see how I'm progressing at this point after what happened this weekend.
After being in the hospital for 35 hours already, I'm very much ready to just be done with this. Knowing now that she'll be safe and healthy at this point because of the medication they gave us I'm ready to be done with contractions.
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