Welcome to Labor and Delivery

Last night as I was trying to catch up on all of your lovely blogs I began having what I thought were just braxton hicks. I didn't think much of it, as I normally have them a lot throughout every day. My doctor always tells me to time them, but I never really think twice about it. Last night, however, we had visitors from our church come over. They showed up around 8:00, and within minutes of their sitting down, I had a contraction. Because I wasn't really paying attention to anything else, I noted the time. Six minutes later, I had another one. I certainly didn't expect the next hour to go the way it did. I ended up having contractions every 5-6 minutes on average. Every time I would have one, it would feel like my heart slowed down, like I couldn't breathe, and like my blood sugar had dropped off, followed by a brief spell where I would get really hot. 45 minutes into our visitor's stay, I started to panic a bit. I started to wish that they would wrap up the conversation and go home. An hour after they arrived our guests tried to get up to go, but Hubs really likes having these guys over, and so the conversation continued well beyond the initial, "Well, we'll get out of your hair now." With each contraction, I would squeeze Hubs' hand in an attempt to tell him he needed to wrap it up and let our guests go, but he was blissfully oblivious, thinking I was giving him a love squeeze.

Finally at around 9:30, our guests left. As soon as Hubs closed the door, I tried so hard to choke back my tears as I said, "What did Dr. L say we were supposed to do if I had more than four braxton hicks in an hour?" When I told him they were every 5-6 minutes, he told me to call the Dr. I called the emergency contact number for my doctor and was greeted by a recording that said if my situation was deemed to not be an emergency, I would be charged $25. I hung up and cried. Then I called my sister to ask what I should do. She told me to call back and risk the $25, Hubs agreed, and they both agreed that I would not be charged $25. This time I had Hubs call because I knew the second I opened my mouth I was going to bawl and be virtually incoherent to a nurse. He left a message for the on-call doctor, and within minutes we got the call back. I was able to hold things together long enough to tell the nurse what was going on. She told me that I needed to head to the hospital and go to Labor and Delivery. I freaking lost it! I just started bawling. I was so not ready for this baby to come out yet! I was worried, scared, and completely exhausted. I didn't want to go to L&D. I wanted to go to bed.

Hubs and I went to the hospital and were taken back to a room where they hooked me up on a fetal monitor to check on Baby Bean's heart rate, and another monitor to determine if I was having contractions or just braxton hicks. Sure enough, I was having full on contractions. I looked at Hubs and tried so hard not to cry. The next step was to do a vaginal swab to check for fetal fibronectin. Then came the absolute worst part of the evening. The nurse checked my cervix to see if I was dilated. Ladies, I am going to tell you something I think you all ought to know. Having your cervix checked hurts like a (@#*%&?&$&%*(?*#*!!!!! I wasn't bleeding when I went into L&D, but I sure was when I left. The most interesting part of the experience was that every time I would have a contraction, Baby Bean's heart rate would go up. Hubs thought it was kind of funny that he could tell when I was contracting. "You must be having a contraction." "Yep."

Long story short, we ended up being in L&D for 3 hours. My contractions were constant, but my cervix was completely closed. The fetal fibronectin came back negative, and they informed me that a neg result was a really good indication that I would not go into labor within the next two weeks (whew!). They have no clue why I was contracting. They gave me a shot of turbutaline that stopped the contractions within about 15 minutes, and then gave me a pill of the same just before they released me to go home. By the time I got to bed, it was almost 2:00 in the morning. Needless to say, I missed a lot of work today.

Luckily I already had a doctor appointment scheduled for today to follow up on my GD. She put my mind at ease with the contractions and told me when it would be time to be concerned if it happens again, which is basically if they continue for hours or get progressively painful. I also went over my blood test results with her regarding the GD and she said my numbers looked great. She said the dietitians at the Diabetes Center were a lot more conservative than her and she just wants my levels below 140, which means my 136 on Monday was normal. Yay! Yay! Yay! It IS as easy as I thought it would be. And I DO get to eat cookies still. :D

I'm just glad that I finally feel like things are back on track and like I can relax for at least another two weeks.