Our First Trip to Labor & Delivery

Thursday was a fun day. 

My dog, Laila, would not leave my side that morning.

She's normally more of a cuddle bug to my husband but she was all over me that morning before I left to take our son to preschool and head to my every Thursday NST (non-stress test). Of course, that appointment went longer than usual. The nurse came in after about thirty minutes saying, "Baby looks fine but she hasn't quite passed my test just yet." So, she had me turn to my other side and sit for another ten minutes or so. I was confused because I had seen quite a few peaks and accelerations on the NST but maybe she just didn't hold them long enough. Oh well, she ended up passing just fine. So, off to work I went. I had been pretty uncomfortable at work that day and just felt kind of... off. Around lunch time I started having really intense contractions and pains that radiated out to my hips and back. I immediately knew this was different because normally when I have contractions they go away. These weren't going away and the pain was almost constant. I left a voicemail on the nurse's line and waited for a call back. While I waited I went and told my manager that I needed to just go sit in the back room because of the problems I was having. My coworkers were sweet and kept checking back in on me every few minutes. I got the call back from the nurse and she told me to go home and lay on my left side and continue drinking water until she could get in touch with my doctor. So, I finished up any unfinished business at work, picked up Reilly since it was late in the day, and headed home. I was home for about twenty minutes when my nurse called telling me that my doctor told me to go to Labor & Delivery (L&D) ASAP. So, I called my husband and my mom and let them know what the plan was. I was to meet my husband at my mom's house so we could drop Reilly off and take one car there.

Any time you get told to go to L&D it can be annoying and I was annoyed. Same thing happened when I had to go with Reilly because I had one day of high blood pressure towards the end of my pregnancy with him. We got there and I got hooked up to the monitors for another NST with the same nurse I had seen at 9AM that morning.

You've got to love those sexy hospital gowns, right? As it turns out, I was having contractions consistently 8-9 minutes apart. They checked my cervix and told me that I was 1cm dilated which can be normal for a second pregnancy but my cervix was still very thick so that made them happy. They took a metabolic panel at the request of my doctor since that somehow wasn't included in the blood work she told them to take at my doctor's appointment the day before. Of course, my AST and ALT numbers came back higher than they had been which I'm sure means they'll induce closer to 35 weeks as that was what we had discussed previously. I'm sure the induction will get scheduled this next week and we shall see if I even make it to that! My contractions kind of stalled out for a while and then as soon as they came in to discharge me they started back up again. They told me the normal things on when to come back which I hear twice a week anyway so off we went. Since then I've had more intense contractions. Haven't had a ton in a pattern just yet but I did wake up to a pretty intense one last night about 4:50AM. I didn't experience pre-term contractions with Reilly that I could feel anyway. I knew I was in labor with Reilly because my water broke early on a Monday morning. I still remember that morning so clearly... Felt a gush around 3:30AM, figured it was normal and I went back to sleep. An hour later I felt another gush, figured that time I should check it out. Got to the bathroom and I had water all over the floor, soaked underwear, and I had lost my mucus plug. I was in shock when I hesitantly yelled out to my husband from the bathroom to wake him up. He replied that he still had at least 10 minutes left before his alarm went off for work. Yeah, that's not why I'm waking you up honey... Haha! It's really funny looking back at it. I've never had to time contractions or even worry about them so this is all new territory. I keep waiting for my water to break and be the clear sign that this is happening today. I'm really hoping she holds off until at least 34 weeks but I've pretty much accepted the fact that we are facing NICU time no matter what. We may get lucky but I'd rather it be a welcome surprise than go in with my hopes up that we'll avoid the NICU this time around. Anyway, we've had a pretty eventful end of the week and as one of the girls joked on my April 2015 Pregnancy Facebook group, everyone seems to be on "Crotch Watch". Haha!