At Least I'm Not a Wimp

Today didn't go quite as I had planned. I felt like I was going to puke last night and could only keep down an english muffin and apple. I was up during the night with my usual back pain and stomach cramping which I've had for about 3 weeks. Then this morning, the puking started again. I couldn't take a sip of water without it coming back up.

I laid on the sofa armed with a box of Cherrios and 2 bowls. This would be breakfast for my kids today. I couldn't even get them milk. After puking 2 or 3 more times I knew I needed to call in help. David promised to be home from work in 30 minutes. He figured he could work from home and throw some deli meat on a plate for lunch while they watched a Spongebob marathon. I would be in the bedroom sleeping. That was the plan.

I called my Dr. This puking business along with the pain has happened 3 times over the last few weeks. I know what labor feels like and it feels like a mini labor. I was worried about dehydration, swine flu and labor. They advise me to go to the hospital for some tests. She's thinking it may be a bladder infection or dehydration.

We load up the kids and head to the OB triage. In the past, these episodes last 5-10 hours and then I feel like a champ. So, I'm thinking this will pass before we even get there. We get in the curtained "room" and the kids are already going wild. David takes them across the street to Walmart. We know how this goes as we went once with Emily. It's wait and then wait and then when you think you are ready to go, you wait some more.

My lovely nurse Laura hooks me up to the fetal monitors and immediately tells me I'm contracting. Oh, so that's what all those pains are about. They are 4 minutes apart. I'm in pre-term labor. She gets a shot of something to stop it and shoots it in my arm. It worked for now. They ran a bunch of other tests...dehydration, pre-eclampsia, FFN or something that shows if I may go into labor in the next 2 weeks. Luckily, everything came back negative. I'm also only dialted to barely a 1, so it's good that's it's not farther than that.

I'm supposed to go back if I have any more cramping and pains, but um, I have them like every 12 hours. They go away. I can't just come in for a shot twice a day for the next 4 weeks. I have a Dr. appointment on Friday where I may get put on medicine daily to stop the contractions. If they keep happening over the next few days, I'm hoping that will happen.

The alternative is getting air-evacted to Phoenix as they don't have a NICU for babies here. That would mean a lot of things that I don't even want to think about right now.

At least I know what's been going on for the last 3 weeks. I truly thought that at 35 I was just too old for this and my body couldn't handle it.

It was frightening being in there and overhearing 2 other woman who were 31 weeks who were getting C-sections and air-evacted to Phoenix. I felt for them. I also took comfort in knowing that one of my blogger friends had her baby at 32 weeks and after a month in the NICU, he's home and doing well.

So we are at 32 weeks, please say a prayer, think positive thoughts, rub the buddah belly or do whatever it is you can that Noah will chill out in there for the next 4 weeks at least.