In Which My Uterus Is Irritated

I now have the time to tell you about my Wednesday evening. Last Wednesday (10/12) to be exact. It started about 3:30 p.m. with stronger contractions than I am accustomed to having at this point in my pregnancies. These were not oooh-my-belly's-hard-maybe-I-should slow-down contractions. These were oh-my-goodness-how-can-I-make-it-stop contractions. They were coming about every 3-4 minutes and some of them were lasting about one minute. I tried laying down on the couch to see if that would make them stop. I could hardly get into a lying down position. But I did. So, I'm laying down on my left side. The kids were watching Fiddler on the Roof. I'm not able to be quiet about these contractions. I'm groaning HEE-HEE-HOOOOOO. The kids are turning up the volume for the movie. BonusBoy (22 months) is CLIMBING on me saying, "huuts?". I'm saying (in a strangled voice), "Yes, it hurts. PonyGirl, get him off me!
Hee hee whoooooooooooooooooo." Oh, and Jim is up in the mountains, hunting and isn't due back until Friday evening.

It's Wednesday night. The big kids have chimes practice at 5 o'clock (at the church) and then their Wed. night class at 6:30. In between there is 45 minutes to get them fed.

Now it's 4:15. These evil contractions have been going on for about 45 minutes. I call my doctor's office. The nurse asks how many contractions I've had in the last 45 minutes. I tell her 10-12. She says that's too many and I'm to go to Labor & Delivery at the hospital so they can monitor me. I say o.k.

I don't know what to do with the kids. I have a church friend who lives one street over from me who occasionally watches my kids so I call her to see if she can help me. I almost burst into
tears. She says sure and I change BonusBoy's diapers (somehow!) and drive to her house. She has three kids of her own and I'm not sure if she can juggle it all, getting my big kids to the church,
feeding them in that 45 minute window and cart her own kids around. Is the van big enough? What about car seats? Do I have cash to give her to get hamburgers at Wendy's? Why is her cat
trying to get in my car? Scoot! Hee, Hee, Whoooooo. My brain is so muddled. Lisa is asking me if I want her to drive me to the hospital and her husband can take the kids. I can't think straight. I end up driving myself. I'm hoping that the traffic won't be too bad because now I'm driving on the freeway and it's almost 5 o'clock.

I have a stopwatch dangling from my neck that I'm using to time the contractions. Every 3-4 minutes I'm starting it over for the next stupid contraction. Now, I"m on the freeway. I'm driving. I check the stopwatch. It's been about 2:45 since the last contraction and I brace for the next one. Hmmmmm. I check the watch again. now it's been 5 minutes. 8 minutes. 16 minutes. Dang! Now what do I do? I'm almost to the hospital. Should I go home or should I go ahead and go in? While I DO want the contractions to stop, why couldn't they stop AFTER they have been witnessed by the doctor?!?!? Now I'm just going to look foolish. Crazy lady, you'd think she'd know what's up with the FOURTH pregnancy! I could hear them now. I decide to go ahead and go into the hospital.

Inside I have to sign a paper saying that it's o.k. for them to let any family and friends now my condition if they were to call or show up. I realize that except for Lisa, no one knows I'm here. My husband doesn't know, my sisters don't know, my mom doesn't know. It was a weird feeling. I'm feeling uncomfortable but I still haven't had a contraction in about 20-25 minutes.

It's 5:15 p.m. or so. I go in, I pee in a cup, I get undressed and gowned up and lay on the exam bed. The very nice nurse, Melynda, comes in and straps the fetal monitor to my belly and asks all kinds of questions. She says to tell her if I feel a contraction. I feel none. She gets me all propped up in the bed with strategically placed pillows and asks if I'd like anything to drink. I request water. She leaves me to rest and be monitored for about 20 minutes at which point she will call my doctor with a report. Then a different nurse brings me ice water. She said she wasn't doing anything and told Melynda to go ahead and do her charting and she'd bring the water to me. She hung around for a few minutes and chatted with me. I'm remembering why I like to deliver in the hospital. I feel very well taken care of there. St. Luke's is an awesome hospital! At 6 o'clock Melynda comes back and asks if I'd felt any of the tiny little contractions that she was seeing on the monitor at the nurses station. I hadn't really noticed them. I have those kinds of contractions all the time. She said I have an irritable uterus. I'll say! She goes to call my doctor and then comes back. Dr. Schroeder want her to check my cervix to see if the earlier contractions I was experiencing made me dilate at all. She checked. My cervix was still closed. That is a good thing. She said that I had done the right thing by coming in even though the contractions had stopped. With that many contractions, and painful ones at that, it's better that I come in. She said that then they feel better and so do I.

She also cautioned me not to wait too long if this happens again pre-term. Meaning that if I am before 36 weeks and I have contractions that cause dilation, if I wait too long I can get to the point that they cannot stop labor. "They" also worry about that because I tend to have faster and faster labors. So, in the end, I didn't have anymore contractions until later that night (that was because of the exam that was done). I went back home, to the church actually. I worked in the nursery a little and waited for the kids to get done with their class. Lisa had managed to get all the kids there and got them all fed. Class got over and then we all went home. Rather an anti-climactic end to a crazy, overwhelming evening for me.

Jim ended up coming home Thursday afternoon rather than Friday evening because he had shot his doe and there was no point in staying up there any longer. I was SO happy about his early
return! He called me on his cell phone to tell me he was on his way.

ME: "You're coming home?!?! Awesome! Oh, honey, you
don't know what I've been through."

HIM: "No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?"

Of Course!