micah 6:5

One year ago today, I wrote this post:

Sheetz at 4:30am

...You might be thinking that Shawn and I ended up at Sheetz at 4:30 in the morning on Monday night because of some weirdo craving I was having...I'm sure that's what the other people thought, anyway. (And yes, believe it or not, there ARE people at Sheetz at that time of day!). After work on Monday, Shawn and I ran some errands, went home, and cooked dinner. Shawn had a meeting, so he left, while I got some light cleaning done. Around 7:00, I took Cole outside and noticed that the Braxton Hicks contractions I'd been having were getting a little bit stronger, a little bit more uncomfortable. I still didn't think too much about it, though, and continued puttering (actually, waddling is more accurate) around the house, working on stuff. I noticed that they were coming a little more frequently than normal, so around 8:45, I decided it was probably time for me to lay down on the couch for a bit and put my feet up. I watched "Jon and Kate plus 8" - a guilty pleasure of mine -and just waited for Shawn to get home. He got home fairly soon after that and soon settled in to hang out with me for a bit. I started noticing that the contractions were coming about every 10 minutes or so. I think I mentioned that to Shawn, but they weren't anything more than uncomfortable, so I just decided to keep an eye on things. Around 10:15-ish, I called my good friend Jill - who was a nurse, has had a baby, and who I knew would be awake - to ask her if this was normal. I think the contractions were anywhere between 5 minutes apart and 10 minutes apart. Jill did a great job of not panicking me and told me that I should probably call my OB's number and speak to the on duty nurse. I didn't even know that our OB had an on duty nurse for after hours, so I'm glad I called Jill, or our next step probably would've been to just go to the ER. So I called WomanCare.

The nurse told me that they didn't like to have pre-term women contracting for more than an hour straight (and by this time, I'd been having regular contractions for about an hour and a half), so to lay down on my left hand side, drink a quart of water, and go to Labor and Delivery if they didn't significantly slow down in an hour. Shawn got me the water, I laid down, and we watched some coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Now, I'm not blaming anyone for the contractions, but they did start getting worse about the time Michelle Obama was giving her speech. I'm not blaming...just sayin'. :) I was actually really impressed with her speech and poise, but while the contractions weren't necessarily getting any closer together (staying between 5 and 10 minutes apart), they were getting stronger. Around 11:15pm, we decided that we probably needed to go ahead and check into Labor and Delivery. Shawn packed an overnight bag for me (just in case), and we headed out around 11:30.

Winston-Salem was fairly deserted, and while we were both concerned and I was certainly worried, I think Shawn and I both felt a bit of a sense of adventure. Maybe it was being out that late (we're old and are usually in bed by 11:00), maybe it was packing the bag and realizing that there was a slight chance that our baby might be born soon, who knows! We prayed together, and I kept telling myself that while it's not ideal, babies who are born at 29 weeks have a terrific chance of survival and health. We checked in, took the elevator up to the Labor and Delivery floor, and checked in there. Unfortunately, all the beds were taken at the moment, so we hung out in the waiting room with all the awaiting grandparents/aunts/uncles/etc. Thankfully, I had grabbed a magazine before we left, so I kept myself busy reading "Runner's World." Shawn read some over my shoulder, but primarily amused himself with our Patient Privacy Notice - he's now well informed of our rights. :) I think we waited for about an hour...we chatted, read, and talked each other down from freaking out.

Scratch that, Shawn talked me down from freaking out! I don't know that I can accurately express how much of a rock he was. We were finally admitted, I put on one of those fun green gowns, laid down, and they strapped a fetal heart monitor and contractions monitor to me, and we waited for about an hour and fifteen minutes. It was wonderful and so comforting to hear the baby's heartbeat and to feel him moving. It was also a little strange to see the contractions on the monitor, to see the line elevate when I was in pain, and descend when I made it through. They were definitely stronger than when we were at home, so we were both grateful that we'd made the decision to go to the hospital...we would've ended up there anyway. The monitor was showing that I was having contractions every 5-7 minutes...not normal! Our Doctor checked my cervix (high and closed, which is good), and took a swab to be tested for liklihood of pre-term labor. We were told that the test did produce a lot of false positives. However, if the test was negative, that was a good thing as it meant I probably wouldn't be likely to go into pre-term labor. While we waited for those results, they took a urine sample to make sure a UTI wasn't the cause of the contractions. I was given a shot in the arm for the purposes of slowing down/stopping the contractions, which made me a little jittery (which is typical). The UTI test came back negative, which is great.

When I used the restroom, I caught glance at myself in the mirror and just about lost it. I suppose I thought I was handling this all very bravely, and that even though I was a wreck inside, that my face showed courage. What I saw was a very young looking, very scared girl looking back at me, and I realized that I wasn't fooling anyone. My fears were written all over my face.

After that, I was strapped to the fetal and contraction monitors again. Our little one was going crazy. I feel asleep for a few minutes, and Shawn said he could see him kicking so hard that he was moving the monitor and the sheet I had over me! He also kept tripping up the monitor because he kept moving, and it'd take a few seconds to pick the heartbeat up again. Like I said, we were incredibly comforted to know that he was still active in there! While we waited another hour, I slept on and off, read "Runner's World," and chatted with Shawn. Shawn listened to a podcast, read a couple of articles in the magazine, and kept me sane. :)

Our nurse came back in and told us that the pre-term labor test came back positive, which means that I could be likely to go into pre-term labor. I *think* she mentioned something about within the next two weeks, but it was late, and I was pretty tired, so I'm not quite sure about that. I was told to take it easy, stop running, slow down in general, and make a follow up appointment with our Dr. as soon as possible...and we were discharged. I was starving by this point, I'd last eaten when we had dinner together around 5:30, so Shawn and I scoured town for a place to find food. We had talked about getting pizza, but no self respecting pizza place was open at 4:30 in the morning. Our choices were Burger King and Sheetz...and a breakfast sandwich at Sheetz won out. :) We ate our food and crashed about 5:00am.

Since then, we've scheduled a follow up appointment for tomorrow (Thursday) at 11:50am, and I've talked to my boss about working on Tuesdays and Thursdays from home. After work on Tuesday, I was having some regular contractions again (about every 20 minutes or so), but after laying down for a couple of hours, they stopped. With where I'm at in my job right now and having so much baby stuff to get done, it's not easy to slow down, but I now have a very, very important reason to do just that. I'm eager to see our Dr. tomorrow and find out more about what's going on and what I need to do to keep this little one cooking inside there for awhile longer.

"My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD."