Minor Panic

Well yesterday was an interesting day, to say the least. 

What was meant to be a 15 minute routine OB check up, landed me walking out of the "Labor & Delivery" part of Maple Grove Hospital five hours later...

It was a routine 32 week checkup that got pretty intense, pretty fast.

You see, up until the past week, my gestational diabetes had been no biggie, easy to manage and control with diet. 

But suddenly diet wasn't enough.

I was still counting carbs, but my sugar levels were all over the place.

So I called my diabetes doctor (different from my OB), to figure out what was going on and if there was something I should be doing.

They started me on a medication.

That was Thursday morning; Thursday afternoon, I had my regular OB apt.

While talking with my OB, she informed me that now that my diabetes has gone up a level, this means my pregnancy is a higher risk pregnancy, so additional monitoring and tests are going to be required from here on out.

She wanted to start those tests today.

So I got all hooked up to some monitors that were recording Benjamin's heartbeat, his movement, and checking for any contractions.

Now, up to this point, I knew I was having contractions.
Thomas knew it too, I told him about them as they were happening earlier in the week. 

I didn't think anything of them, I just assumed they were Braxton-Hicks contractions: the practice ones your body does to prepare for birth.

I'm only 32 weeks, and they weren't painful at all, so I just went on with daily life.

So I hadn't been paying attention to when they were happening, I could barely feel them!

Well, as we're sitting listening to Benjamin's heartbeat (Thomas & I are left alone in a room with this machine for twenty minutes until the nurse would come and check us again), I would tell Thomas when a contraction was starting, and he could read it on the monitor.

It didn't take long for his face to change from amused, to deep in concerned thought...

"Do you think each line on that paper represents one minute?" he asked..."No idea." I said. I wasn't paying any attention, just loving the fact that I had a twenty solid minutes of listening to my Benjamin's heartbeat and watching him wiggle and roll around my belly.

"Why?"

"I'm pretty sure your contractions are coming every five minutes, sometimes sooner."

"No way..."

Awkward silence...
Nurse comes in a few minutes later: "Let's see...*checks paper*...Hm. I'm going to go get Dr. Johnson." Kaisa enters: "Hmm...yeah, you're having contractions at a pretty regular pace. This is not what we want to see. Let's keep you hooked up a little while longer."

So we listen another twenty minutes. 

This time Thomas turns it into a game: "You should be having a contraction any second now..."

Sure enough, within seconds my belly would start to tighten...

Kaisa, my OB, returns: "Yup. Definitely every 3-5 you're having solid contractions..." and then proceeds to explain the various additional exams and tests she is now going to run on me.

First I have a "fetal fibronectin" test, which is something used to determine the likelihood of preterm labor. Then she checks to see how far I'm dilated: I'm not at all, 0 cm.

OOFDA! Big sigh of relief...or so I thought.

She makes a call over to the hospital to talk to the delivery doctor on call: he wants me to come in and be monitored and check out my contractions.

So I'm wheeled over to the hospital, hooked up to the machines again, and wait and listen.

They decide they want to give me an IV and a special medication to relax my uterus while we wait for my test results. 

He tells me I'll probably be here a few hours to be monitored.

We order room service for dinner, watch a couple episodes of Pawn Stars, and make some phone calls to our mothers. 

After a couple hours, the doctor says that since the medication has stopped the contractions (for now) he's going to send me home but with orders of very minimal physical activity over activity, bed rest, and plenty of extra fluids to try and keep my contractions at bay until we find out my test results.

What a day!

Well, I got my test results back about an hour ago, and they were negative! Which means I am pretty much in the clear, no risk of going into labor, at least for the next two weeks. 

So in the meantime, I now have two OB appointments every week and an ultrasound every week to make sure our little Benjamin is doing okay.

Oh, add that to my biweekly diabetes appointments as well. 

I'm going to be one familiar face at the doctor's office!

So, I was ordered no work today, as my job is extremely physical.

So what did I do with my time off and this fear that Benjamin was coming any minute??

Well, I had Thomas install the car seat finally and packed my hospital bag and got that sucker into the car as well.

Little paranoid? Just a little.

But now that I finally got my results, I can breathe a little easier.

For now.

For the next two weeks.

Is it bad that one of the biggest things on my mind from all of this is worrying that I won't get a day at the State Fair? And that I'll miss my Tim McGraw concert (from the SECOND row?).

Well, if that's the case, I'll never let Benjamin forget it. 

;)