Scary night at the hospital

So I spent the night in Labor and Delivery last night being monitored for preterm labor. It was possibly the scariest night of my life. Baby sister is too little and not ready to be born yet so we were pretty worried there for a bit.

Last night was a pretty normal night, we had dinner, put Natalia to bed, and then watched our Netflix movie. It ended about 10pm and Charlie said he was ready to head to bed, I all the sudden didn't feel well and said I was going to stay up for a bit longer. I couldn't decide if it was just gas pains or if it was nausea, but something wasn't right. Around midnight or so I was in a lot of pain. My whole belly was a painful knot and I was having shooting pains. I didn't think it was contractions because they didn't start at my back like they did with Natalia when I went into labor. But it was something and I was frightened. I woke Charlie up and said I wanted to go down to the hospital and get checked just to be safe. At this point I'm in tears because I'm pretty scared. He stayed calm and we called around trying to get someone here to be with Natalia. Thank goodness his sister Stephanie answered. We felt bad calling her since she's due in five weeks, but it was our last option. She came here and off we went.

Once at the hospital I explained to the nurse what was going on and she asked if I was sure it wasn't contractions and I said at that point I didn't even know anymore. So they hooked me up to the machine and sure enough I was contracting. Every 2-4 minutes, not huge ones but they were there. She called the doctor on call and let him know he needed to come see me and check me. Thank goodness we decided to go down. I've heard too many horror stories of women who wait too long to go down and it's too late to stop the contractions. So Dr. Parsons checked my cervix and said it was closed and I wasn't dilated at all, which was a good sign. It was pretty tender down there though so he wanted me to be admitted for the night to monitor me. They put us in a room and got me hooked up to the machine again. I was given two different meds to help stop the contractions and from there it was a waiting game. At one point they were pretty concerned because the meds weren't working and I was still contracting pretty regularly. My pain was pretty intense as well. I ended up vomiting a lot twice, almost not making it to the bag the first time. YUK! They gave me a sleeping pill hoping I could try to get some rest, so between about 2am-4am I dozed in and out between contractions. Finally 4amish they must have stopped because I was out until 6am. WHAT A RELIEF!

The next couple of hours are a bit of a blur, I think I dozed in and out again for a bit. My dad came to see me and gave me a special blessing. Then my mom came and stayed with me so that Charlie could go to a mandatory meeting at work and then take a nap at home. Charlie's mom took over for Steph somewhere in the night and took Natalia all day for us too. She brought her in to see me and I cried because I was already such an emotional wreck! I was given another dose of meds around 8:30pm just to be sure, and still had a few contractions around 10amish. But, with some Tylenol I was able to zonk out and they went away. My mom and I pretty much both slept all morning which was nice. I was pumped full of IV fluids all morning to be sure I wasn't dehydrated from all the vomiting. Dehydration can lead to more contractions, so I gotta stay on top of my water intake. Then the doctor came and checked me again and said my cervix was still closed, and that if I was really going into preterm labor there would be changes to my cervix. THANK GOODNESS! He said I was ok to go home and that I was just to take it easy for the next few days. So 1pm I was officially discharged from the hospital and go to come home. I probably slept for about three hours and then Charlie and I went to pick up Natalia.

So it's been a super long 20 hours for me and our little family. I'm so grateful that things didn't turn out worse then they did. This will teach me a lesson not to push myself so hard and to hopefully ask for help more often. Charlie's mom is taking Natalia again for me all day tomorrow so I'm forcing myself to rest. Then I have a check up with the doctor Thursday morning and hopefully it will be smooth sailing for the next 17 weeks. Baby sister has been great the whole time and I've felt her move most of the day which was very reassuring. We still don't know what caused my contractions after all the blood work and tests they ran. Maybe it was some stomach bug or something I ate yesterday and my body just wanted it out. Who knows. Either way I'm beat and going to bed here soon!