Labor and Delivery- Take 2

If you recall from this post, Dr. P ordered to me stop working and start modified bed rest after my appointment last Wednesday.  When you think about it, modified bed rest is the way to go- no work, ability to leave the house, plenty of time to prep for baby...who would complain?!?

Friday (aka day 2 of MBR) afternoon I started having contractions pretty regularly.  I tried to time them on my contraction timer app, but I had a hard time figuring out when they ended.  I decided to just lay down with my feet up and drink as much water as possible until Matt got home.

That helped for awhile, but by 8pm I was still having pretty regular and painful contractions.  Dr. P said to call if I was having more than 4 an hour, and I was having 6+.  The on-call doctor said we needed to come into L&D for more monitoring.

So back to L&D we went, and since it was after 9pm when we got there we had to check-in through the ER entrance.  Wouldn't you know that I would run into one of my students there!!!  Sheesh!  I'm sure he's back at school today telling everyone I had my baby!

So we got checked into our room and hooked up to the monitor pretty quickly (side note- if we end up back in L&D before this pregnancy is over I will go to Memorial Hermann, not Methodist.  The first trip we were at Methodist and they put me in triage with a bed surrounded by a curtain, and Memorial Hermann gave me a room.  Bravo, Memorial Hermann, bravo.)  After an hour or so of monitoring they assessed that my contractions were above some level they look at (on a scale from 0-12) and lasting longer than 50 seconds, so it was considered Early Labor.  They gave me a shot of Terbutaline to stop the labor and we waited to see how my body would react.  45 minutes later I was still having contractions so they had to give me another dose of Terbutaline and decided to keep me overnight to ensure my early labor didn't turn into real labor.

Terbutaline is a medication to help stop early labor, but it also makes you feel crazy!  It makes your heart race so you have to be hooked up to a heart monitor which would go off any time my resting heart rate went over 110.  Resting heart rate...that's hard to do, yet that dang monitor managed to go off every time we would start to fall asleep.  Terbutaline makes you feel like you just drank an entire store of Starbucks drinks- heart racing, hands shaking, mind all over the place...the works.  It's awful!

After two doses my contractions slowed down and the nurses pretty much left us alone except when one of the machines would go off.  They also had my blood pressure machine set to take my blood pressure every 20 minutes.  Needless to say, while Matt was comfy on the couch I didn't get much sleep.

By morning my contractions had slowed down enough that they felt good discharging me.  Dr. S gave me an Rx for Terbutaline that I have to take every 6 hours to manage the contractions; let me tell you how thrilled I am about taking this awful medicine every 6 hours- NOT!  She also gave me strict orders not to get out of bed except to shower and use the restroom.  Awesome. So much for that modified bed rest schedule I was so excited about.

So this week we will be figuring out our new normal.  Yesterday wasn't bad since Matt was at home but I'm honestly not looking forward to being in bed for the next 4+ months.  Mama Carter and Mom McDaniel are busy setting up a laundry/ dinner/ grocery store/ house cleaning routine for us.  I have Netflix and a stack of books on my nightstand ready to be read.  Somewhere in this house I have a few unfinished knit blankets I could finish.  The list goes on.

If you are bored feel free to stop by an keep me company!