Our Night in L&D

Well, my rather boring pregnancy had a tiny bit of excitement last night. (Warning, pregnancy TMI incoming.)

I woke up about 1:30 am and dozed on and off until about 3. Finally, I got up and went to the bathroom. Still wide awake, I went and walked about in the living room thinking maybe my tummy was upset or something. A few minutes later and I feel a little trickle run down my leg. Obviously this is a bit concerning...

So I go to the bathroom and clean up. I decide I'm going to wait and see if anything else happens. If it's really my water breaking, it should keep going, right? Well, long story short, over the next hour there are no more trickles but just a general wet feeling. During this time, Philip's also gotten up with me and we decide to call Labor and Delivery and see what they say.

The nurse is very nice and says we should probably come in to have the fluid tested. It's a quick test she says and will let us know if it's amniotic fluid or if it's just one of the glorious joys of pregnancy. We pack up for a stay, just in case, and head to the hospital. It only took us about 15 minutes to pack and get to the hospital! That's pretty good timing if you ask me.

The nurses in L&D were waiting for me and took me back to a triage room. I get a lovely backless gown and get strapped to the monitors. The nurse checks me and I'm not even at a one. She said there's a little opening up, but not much at all. (Good news at 35 weeks.) Then she does the swab test.

Ten minutes later, swab test says there's no rupture! Yay! We can go home now, right? False alarm, go get some sleep, yes? Nope...

When they first hooked me up to the monitors my blood pressure was 140 something over 80 or 90. A bit high, but it was four o'clock in the morning and we had just rushed to the hospital to see if my water broke two weeks before term.

Anywho, the on-call doctor decided that I needed to stay on the monitor, have my blood pressure checked more, and have some labs run. The lab tech bruised me like crazy and was awfully cranky.  Blood and urine both come back normal and my blood pressure came back down to it's regular just below normal levels. We end up being there an awfully long time though... From 4 am to about 10 am that morning. The last two or three hours were just waiting on the doc for "discharge" orders (I was never technically admitted).

During our six hours on the monitor we saw several little contraction hills. They were never consistent and I just barely felt one of them. Eventually we are so tired, that Philip crashes with his head on my thigh and I doze in between blood pressure checks (the machine was set to check every 15 minutes which kind of limits napping abilities). At one point, the blood pressure cuff woke me up right at the end of a contraction. The nurse was never concerned and the irregularity of them means it's wasn't "true" labor.

Finally, we get the go ahead to go home (after never actually seeing the on call doc). I'm put on "modified" bed rest and told to rest as much as possible but no real restrictions. I also have to collect my urine for twenty-four hours. That's been a blast! Put this little plastic thingy on the toilet and then pour your urine into a jug that you keep in the fridge. Yep, the joys of pregnancy.

The on call doc was worried about pre-eclampsia, but I think she's just being overly cautious. Alex and I are fine and he's just got to wait another two weeks to get the all clear to come!