Another Trip to L&D

I hate hospitals. When the girls were born, I begged to go home pretty much as soon as they cut the cord, and was out of there less than 24 hours later. I've spent my fair share of time "sleeping" in hospitals with the girls when they were hospitalized, and I pretty much will do whatever I can to stay away from them now. But baby Henry seems to like it at the hospital - he keeps sending me there, and he's always extra active when they have him on the monitor. Silly boy.

Sunday evening I started having runs of somewhat regular, but light, contractions. They lasted all of Sunday night and most of Monday, but they would get irregular again and I would decide not to go in. By the afternoon I was starting to get a little more worried, and thinking I shouldn't ignore the "more than 5 in an hour" rule and just go get checked out. I was also starting to worry about Henry. I called a perinatologist I work with, and he answered some questions I had, which made me feel better even though what he told me wasn't that great - although 32 week preemies almost always do well compared to younger preemies, they cannot breathe or eat on their own. He said there was no telling what level of breathing support the baby would need, but he would almost certainly need some. He told me that babies can't suck/swallow until 34-35 weeks at the earliest, so he would need a feeding tube for a couple of weeks before we could start trying to nurse. Anyway, it was good to get the information and just know what we might have to deal with, and also once again to set my goal on making it to term - but at the very least to 34 weeks.

At around 7:30 p.m. my contractions were 5-8 minutes apart, though still not painful. I went in to L&D and was disappointed to discover that my OB wasn't on call. I love my OB, but I don't love her partners. They checked me and thankfully I had not dilated any more. They gave me fluids and then the doctor decided to send me home, although by that point (around 10 p.m .) my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, very regular, and starting to get painful. When I got home, I guess from the brief walking I did, my contractions suddenly went into overdrive. For the next three hours I had basically a repeat of early active labor with Amelia - very painful, but hopefully unproductive (I can't know for sure until I get checked again, but usually I have some bleeding when I really start dilating more quickly) contractions 2 minutes apart. I tried to be good and lay in bed, but honestly it was just too painful. So I took a shower until I ran out of hot water and rocked in a rocking chair. Finally I was able to deal with the pain a little better and laid back down on my side, and around 2 a.m. the contractions let up enough that I was able to doze off. This morning the contractions continue - they are irregular and very weak, but my uterus is just worn out so they hurt (like doing sit ups when you're sore from your last work out).

I have an appointment with OB this afternoon. Hopefully she will tell me that my cervix has not changed and that Henry is doing great (so far, whenever I've been hooked up to monitors, he has tolerated these episodes very well). I hope too that, maybe, we can talk about what's going on with me. I am being very good about bed rest, I am staying hydrated like crazy (when I give them urine samples it looks like I just filled the jar with water!), and yet every few days my body totally wears itself out with these contractions. Honestly, it's hard to think about continuing like this for four or five more weeks. But the drugs they give me to stop contractions make me feel horrible too, and they aren't without risks. So for now, I will just have to hang in there and hope that Henry doesn't like hospitals so much that he makes his entrance too soon - because if he were born today, we would face 4-8 weeks in the NICU and the rest of us hate hospitals!

P.S. My blog is sad looking - it's my goal this week to get some pictures of the girls, even if it's just them sitting in my bed!