Hospital Run

Today was our first hospital run. I woke up about 3:45 and began having contractions. First 10 minutes apart, and then 6-7 minutes. I have been told to come in if I have more than 4/hour. This obviously was, so we began to get ready about an hour into this. They seemed to space out more as I moved around, but still kept coming. The nurse said we needed to come in, so about 6:30am we headed to the hospital. Thankfully, Carla was here to stay with the kids.

When we arrived they hooked me up to monitor contractions. They continued the whole two hours we were there at a rate of about 6/hour. Most were fairly small, but they were there. I was only dilated 1cm and this did not change over the 2 hours we were there. Based on that, the doctor felt we were safe to come home. I am to take it easy, but not on total bedrest. As we left the nurse said she thought she'd see us within a week. We'll see if she is right!

Throughout today contractions have continued, though I haven't really been recording them. I can ignore the smaller ones when I am keeping busy, though I still am having a couple bigger ones each hour. Melody is extremely active and sometimes her movements are pretty painful as she seems to stretch out and push on things, so it is easy to confuse these with contractions sometimes.

This is what happened with Joel. The "false" labor for weeks before he arrived. Pray for stamina for me, as it is really tiring. My back muscles are all tight and my belly muscles are so sore from contracting. Then at night I don't sleep well as I get woken up by a contraction and then end up awake for awhile counting the spacing. I have sympathy for women who are overdue with their babies, though I have never experienced it. But, these contractions for weeks before the baby is due are no fun.

The doctors really don't want to have me in an emergency c-section situation, so they want me to play it more conservatively as far as coming in. This is difficult to do with the contractions I'm having. Pray for wisdom as we really don't want to have to do the middle of the night runs again until the real deal. The doctor did send home a RX of terbutaline which he said I can take if contractions begin. He said if the medicine works to stop contractions, it is false labor. If it doesn't stop them, we know it is real. We hope the medicine might be a choice rather than having to go to the doctor, but I am not really excited about taking it at all.

Tonight I'm just hoping to sleep well. I'm tired.