Our first visit to Labor & Delivery

Yesterday morning as I was walking into work, I got a terrible cramp and my belly turned hard as a rock… “hmph, that’s strange I thought” as I kept walking. I got into my office, started logging into the thousand systems I need to get my day started and immediately had another cramp that spread into a hard belly. Now I was paying attention. For ha ha’s I decided to wrote down the time, just because it struck me as odd. By about 11 am my little post-it (very technical here) was about 1/2 full with timed contractions that were coming anywhere from 5-10 minutes apart. They weren’t painful really, but a bit uncomfortable and definitely noticeable. I decided to call the Dr’s office to see what they said.

Of course in the hour I waited for the Dr to call me back, the contractions seemed to stop completely. Way to make me look like a paranoid pregnant woman! When I did speak with the Dr, she seemed a bit concerned by the volume of the contractions but was happy that they had ceased at that point, and said to just stay hydrated and call back if they started back up.

As luck would have it, about a 1/2 hour after lunch they were back! I started timing them again, and again they were coming about 5-10 minutes apart. By 3:30 I was getting a little freaked out, and called the Dr’s office again. She told me to go straight to Labor & Delivery to be monitored. That’s not really a reassuring thing to hear, but I figured better to be safe than sorry. I called C at work, and he met me at home so we could head over to the hospital.

About an hour later, we’re in an exam room and I have all sorts of monitors hooked up to my belly keeping track of the baby’s heart rate (ranging anywhere from the 130’s to low 150’s… per the Old Wives Tales, that’s boy all the way!!!) and watching the contractions as well. Within the first 5 minutes, I had a pretty strong one that the nurse pointed out on the graph. Phew- at least I’m not crazy. The Dr finally came in and decided that she was going to do an ultrasound and check to make sure that everything was still closed up in there.

After a not so comfortable experience with the stirrups, it was determined that things are still sealed up and LA isn’t planning to make his appearance any time soon. Thank.Goodness. The Dr still wanted to do an ultrasound to check fluid levels and make sure the baby was alright. What a little peanut LA is! When she was doing the ultrasound, LA had one of his feet up near his face and he was holding onto it with his little hand for dear life. While C & I were marveling this sweet child living in my belly, who was practicing breathing and trying to hide from the ultrasound wand, the Dr was actually checking for some technical medical stuff. Everything looked great though. LA is happy as a clam in there, and already head down, having “assumed the position”.

While we were at the hospital the contractions stopped again, so typical! I joked to C on the way to the hospital that this was going to be like when you take your car into the shop to get diagnosed for a mysterious sound and suddenly your car behaves perfectly. In the end though, the Dr said it was Braxton Hicks contractions, and my body was just “practicing” for the big day. That’s a hell of a lot of practice. Apparently my uterus is much like my personality – a bit of a perfectionist. For now though, things look good and LA is going to stay put for a little while.

The other good news is that the Labor & Delivery staff were amazing, and if we get some of those nurses or Dr’s during our stay there, I’ll be more than happy!