another day, another hospital visit
 
I cannot wait to someday tell this kid what kind of craziness he/she put me through at the end of this pregnancy! I fell asleep late last night and woke up at 4am feeling more than the usual ‘uncomfortable’. I got up, looked at the four dogs pressing me on every side, and figured that was it. I adjusted everybody to give me some more room and tried to sleep it off. At 4:30 I started wondering if the cramping in my back meant I needed to ‘use the ladies’ room’. I tried, but alas, no luck. I moved to the other couch with the heating pad and tried to once again to sleep it off. The pain grew more intense and was now in my left side and back and sometimes in my lower abdomen. Now I really started to wake up. I grabbed my cell phone...5:30am...’ok, that means its 8:30 in Ohio’ I thought to myself. I did what any woman in my position would do: I called Mom. As I described to her what I was feeling, she said, “kate, that’s just like my labor was with you.” She told me to try and chart the contractions. I tried, but it felt like the pressure was barely subsiding so it was hard for me to determine how much time was passing between contractions. At 6:00am I started cleaning...I mopped the floor, put on some laundry, and started to pack myself a bag. I figured that if it was time, people would be coming into the house before I got there and I didn’t want it to need cleaning. Plus, it felt so much better to be up and moving and off of my back. My legs felt a little achy and I was having nausea in waves, but other than that, the pain was much less than I had expected. At 6:30 I called the hospital. They told me to come in. I hopped in the shower, changed my clothes, and headed for the maternity ward of group health. They couldn’t find my chart again. I swear, someone has a thing for losing my chart. By the time they found it, I was close to tears thinking about how Shawn is in Nashville and I couldn’t reach him. They put the monitor on me and sure enough, I was having much larger contractions than when I was in the hospital 10 days ago. This time I could feel them and was able to anticipate the monitors gentle rise and fall over the hills that represented my contractions. At first they were 5 minutes apart, but after the first half hour, they were coming strong every 2-3 minutes. The nurse called for the midwife. I was in labor. They checked my cervix (another fun thing I have now had done 3 times in 2 weeks) I was 2cm dilated and a little over half effaced....which basically means my body was gearing for labor...the baby’s head is down and engaged....the nurse could feel the top of it in the exam. (I wished I had asked her if it had any hair!) You have to be 100% effaced and 10 cm before you start pushing...so I had awhile. Then, like magic, about a half an hour later, my contractions just stopped. I had only two in an hour and they were much smaller. And just like that I went from ‘oh my gosh i am having this baby today!’ to back to normal life. They let me go...told me to take it easy...and to try to hold on another 2-3 weeks...although the baby is nearly 5 lbs now and could come out just fine... I guess some people stay dilated at 2-3 cm for weeks at a time...Somehow I just have this feeling holding on until May might be little tricky... Anyone care to revise their guesses on our ExpectNet.com chart? *grin* Please do pray though that whenever the baby is born, that we have enough warning to get Shawn home to be apart of the birth.... kate
Sunday, April 15, 2007