I just don't know. Part of me doesn't even want to get into the whole story because I feel embarrassed and exhausted just thinking about it. We went to birth class last night and I was feeling particularly uncomfortable. I truly thought she was kidding when she suggested that all of us sit on the floor to pretend to bathe the plastic baby. I've been having these tight belly pains and just general back ick, so sitting on the floor is not my idea of a good time. I watched all the women two or three weeks ahead of me gradually make it to the floor and I thought I better stop being a whiner.
Back story: Thursday at work around 2pm (same time as the bad pains kicking up the day before) I had three distinct spots of wet. I won't get into the gory details, but it came through my light knit pants. I ran to the bathroom, ran back, did not pass go, did not collect $200, I called the doctor immediately. I've felt timid about being "that first time mom" and calling for no reason, so I hadn't called earlier... Don't know exactly why I feel this timid embarrassed feeling, but I do. It must be hormonal irrationality, but in this case I had to call. I explain what happened and I immediately qualify everything with "...but I'm just calling to be sure, I bet it's just false labor...classic false labor, right?!" I was still feeling it, but I knew it was irregular. But I didn't know for sure was whether my water was intact. The nurse looked for open appts for me, then after finding nothing, she said she'd talk to the doctor and call me back. She seemed like it needed to be checked out, but then when she called me back she said that the doctor says "it's completely normal and don't worry about it"... ok, those creepy-I-called-the-doctor-for-no-reason feelings start creeping into their creepy little spot where they make me feel creepy. I respond with..."oh, yeah, that's what I thought, no big deal, thank you, thank you... I just wanted to double check..." My thoughts after hanging up the phone where when is it a big deal...what/when should I worry...oh my god, I'm going to have this baby at home because I'm scared of feeling dumb when I call the doctor... how stupid... stop being dumb.
Back to Friday: Productive day at work, then I jump over to RISD to get some courses preapproved to continue my photo classes, then we rush over to our second to last birth class. I'd felt kinda crappy all day kinda like someone had beaten me up or sucked the joint juice out of my hips and back muscles, but mostly the same old tight pains. I wore a pad and it seemed to be getting wetter as the day went on...just clear wet... but no gush, no soaking through a pad. There was a lone guy in our birth class because his wife was upstairs and had just given birth earlier in the day. I immediately ask how did she know she was in labor? She had come in with the back pains and they sent her home, then her water broke, and she came back in and had the baby. Ok, sounds pretty simple, but throughout the class I kept wondering about the details - How much did her back hurt? My back hurts...sitting on the floor stinks, that must be it...oh geez, that same, how the heck do I know if I'm in labor thought is back...oh geez, I think I just leaked some more...oh geez, was filtering in my head with every tight belly... then the tightness would fade away and I'd feel relieved.
After class I wanted to get the instructor's answer to my question-of-the-week - How do I know if I'm in labor? She gave us the typical answer that it should be regular pain intervals, blah, blah, does make sense, but I still don't understand. Then she asked how I was doing. I told her about the leaking and she encouraged me to just stop by triage to double check on the leaking. She made it seem so simple, they can just do a quick test...like litmus paper to check what the fluid is.... She mentioned that you would really want to double check because if it is amniotic fluid it could lead to infection complications if it goes unchecked. Ok, I was done with my dumb timidness and she made it sound like a simple double check.
We cruised up to triage and all of a sudden I had hospital bands on and they were taking my blood pressure repeatedly. It wasn't off the charts, but I was nervous and it was much higher for me than normal. They eventually got a good normal reading. Then flash forward to over 2 and half hours of waiting on the most uncomfortable chairs when you are having contractions you can imagine. I had to convince myself numerous times that we weren't wasting our time and that it will be better to be reassured... meanwhile, I thought I was losing it because my pains were getting worse. We watched the Office and ER and part of the news and then they finally called us back. I felt terrible for the other ladies that had come in before me that I was called in before them...two of them had actually arrived in an ambulance, and the triage took me before them.
We were assigned to a triage room with a tiny little bed and a lumpy plastic pillow. I kept thinking, what the heck am I doing here without all the stuff I've prepared. I don't have anything, I was lucky I had a hair band around my wrist. It felt surreal to be laying there with the gown and the monitors all hooked up. I could hear Aiden's heartbeat rocking like a little champ. He had really started kicking during our waiting which was incredibly reassuring. I was getting contractions all over the place and they were actually plotted out to prove how crazy and irratic they were... most were about 65% or whatever the measurement is. They monitored for a while, then a medical student came in to take my report. He caught me qualifying my statements and explaining that I bet that sounds like false labor... and he immediately made me feel better by literally telling me I wasn't crazy and I was doing the right thing to double check. He joked that he'd seen crazy and I wasn't getting a ticket on that boat.
Then the doctor came in to check on the fluid. She took the swab away to get it checked and then she checked my cervix. I was 1 and a half centimeters (a week ago I was completely closed). They came back to let me know that I was not leaking amniotic fluid which was a good sense of relief. Then I thought, ok well, then what?! Our nurse, Traci was the most reassuring person and she helped me really continue to feel like the baby was "fantastic" and "amazing" at coping with my contractions. It's hard to feel like you are squeezing the heck out of your baby while he kicks and punches... I know rationally that he's doing fine, but it's reassuring to see that the monitor says he's happy and healthy too. They called my doctor (or the doctor on call that I don't know) to check to see what they wanted to do about my situation. They said that they wanted to get me on IV fluids to be sure that I wasn't dehydrated and to slow down the contractions. They agreed that at this point they wouldn't give me medications to stop them completely (because I'm far enough along to safely have the baby), but they wanted to see if the fluid would slow them. After a miss on the first vein (ick), she finally got the IV in on my other arm. The IV was cold and despite the warm blankets I was shakey. I tried to calm myself because it was normal and at this point my blood pressure was fine. They gave me an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels around the baby (confirmed as a bouncey boy). I had plenty of fluid and the placenta was in good shape.
About a half hour into IV fluid, out of the blue, my hefty contractions exploded into a knock-down-explosion of pain that I've never felt before. I had a 4 minute long contractions that was literally off the charts. J ran out to get the nurse after it had subsided. She came in and described it as a "titantic" contraction - She said she hadn't seen anything like that in a long time. I wasn't able to speak during it and I couldn't believe how ridiculously out of control it felt and then suddenly I was back to plain old uncomfortable. The doctor called it "a preview of things to come" and started explaining how the epidural is a wonderful thing. There were four more distinct crazy pains throughout the night, but they weren't consistent....They were just absurd, and I can't get over how absurd the pain is...you have got to be kidding me, was the only thought I was having. The bottom line was that I was going home unless my cervix had changed. They checked me three times and I was still one and a half centimeters. They said that unless the contractions cause the cervix to change I'm not in real labor. Uh ok, great, that just plain stinks. What the heck should I expect now? Bottom line is that they have no idea... I could go weeks with a "soft, squishy, slightly dilated cervix" and a belly that contracts with pain periodically. Or I could have a big gush of water all over the place and I will have purchased my ticket to Absurd-ville... where pain is so out of control I can't believe we have an over population problem in this world.
Regardless, I know that is a really long story. I'm not going to edit it, because just writing it makes me feel less crazy and embarrassed. I took my baby's health seriously and I know more than I did before the almost 8 hour visit to triage. I know that I'm dilated. I know that I'm not leaking amniotic fluid. I know that my baby's heart beats like a champ. I know that I don't have any sort of infection. I know that I don't have high blood pressure. I know that the pains are normal. I know that I can handle the pain, because... I know that what I want most in the world right now is to hold my healthy baby boy and give him a big smooch.
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