For those of you that have missed it, check out the first blog I posted on finding out my water broke and being admitted to the hospital for 48 hours here.
I’ve never spent the night in the hospital before. I’ve taken Jeremy to the hospital a few times since being together and have been seen in the emergency room but I’ve always been able to go home and sleep in my own bed. This was a completely different story. After I was hooked up to the IV for a bit, I realized going to the bathroom was going to be a bit of a process. I had to unplug myself from the monitors, unplug the IV machine, and waddle into the bathroom. Y’all. I was a sight to see. This continued all night long.
Thursday was a pretty easy day. The doctor told me that they were going to scan me again on Friday, so Thursday was for making sure I didn’t go into active labor, I continued with my fluids, antibiotics and getting my second round of the steroid shot. About midway through the day the doctor that I had been going to consistently since being in the emergency room last year during my miscarriage came into my room. She walked in and our conversation went a bit like this:
Dr: “What are you doing here? We made it through the first trimester so well.. this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Sara: “I mean, what do you want me to say? I guess the chick wanted to come early and meet me or something.”
Dr: “Well, here’s the deal. You’re staying here until you either deliver or make it to 34 weeks.”
Sara: “What?!”
Dr: “Because your water broke so early, we can’t send you home for fear of infection, distress, and a number of other things. So, you’ll be transferred upstairs sometime soon to a room where you will live until she is born.”
Sara: “Um, okay then.”
I can’t even begin to tell you how shocked I was when this conversation took place. I was stopped in my tracks. I was supposed to have twelve more weeks with little miss cooking, safely in my tummy. I was supposed to have twelve weeks of mommy daughter bonding time after I delivered and now I could only have six weeks before having to return to work. My mind was overwhelmed with the logistics of things and I just kept thinking in my head ‘this wasn’t supposed to happen. I need more time. I didn’t get to meet with the pediatrician, I never got to go home, I never got my nails done, the nursery isn’t put together, I wasn’t able to have a hospital tour or birth class.’ But then it was like this sweet gentle voice spoke to me and gently said ‘those things don’t matter in the end. You are where you’re supposed to be. Don’t miss out.’ Well, okay then. I understand.
I had a few visitors come visit me on Thursday evening and by the time mom and I were getting ready to go to bed, and sleeping medicine’s have been taken, the nurse came in and told us that they had a room available for us upstairs and it was time to move. I was excited, although at this point I am only able to go from bed to bathroom and that is it, so I was now relying on my mother who has now taken her night night medicine and was slowly fading into the abyss that is sleep. We, again I’m not much help, pack up a cart and pile things on top of my lap and I’m wheeled upstairs to a room with a shower, a couch, a fridge and the best part? A window! I got to see sunlight. It felt as though I was in a cell downstairs and being unable to see light for 48 hours doesn’t do well for the body.
Side note: The first Friday I was there I had a staff member come into my room asking me if I wanted to be visited by a dog later in the afternoon… I was so surprised and so excited. Every Friday they have a program called Happy Tails and dogs come in and visit with patients who are there long term. It made my day, let me just tell you that. I’ve had a Happy Tails visit ever since!
The next few days were spent in ultrasounds (one of the times my vein blew and my arm starting swelling up into the size of a golf ball because the medicine couldn’t go anywhere), monitoring baby and my contractions every six to eight hours, finishing up my IV’s and getting settled into life here in the high risk wing of the hospital. I had one of my best friends in the entire world plan on coming that weekend and instead of spending it doing nothing at my house, we hung out in the hospital for hours and hours watching movies, talking, and remembering the past and how crazy our lives have been the last few years. During one of the days she was here they decided to switch me over to another room, as the room I had was on the lagoon side instead of the beach side of the floor. Ha, these nurses have jokes. So, we packed up the room and headed over to where I’ve been the last twenty-five days.
I quickly made this place my home and printed off pictures of my family and friends and put them all over the walls. I have some drawings from my sweet niece, some glove art from my brother and sister-in-law and then cards from those that have been so wonderful in thinking of us and showing us how much they care. Most people when they walk into my room are so surprised with how much stuff I have here and if you know me and have ever seen my office, or a room I’ve lived in, you know how much I love to decorate and how happy it makes me to have good things to look at, and so I told them it helps me get through the days, knowing I have community and family and those who care so deeply for Maizie, Jeremy and I.
After being in the hospital for a few days I started to get a routine down, and knowing when I was going to be doing my ultrasounds definitely helped me push through each day. Every Tuesday and Friday I would be going down to get measured and see how Maizie was doing. They look for very specific things when doing the ultrasounds and for some reason, the first Tuesday that I was there, getting my ultrasound done, I ended up in an immense amount of pain. My fluid levels were still very, very low and because of that, the doctors told me that with her every move it could make me more and more uncomfortable as I could feel everything going on. Those with lots of fluid have a big cushion between them and the baby, and I did not. It made complete sense to me, but because of how I was feeling I decided that I wouldn’t have any visitors for the next few days, as they said the first one to two weeks were when patients normally go into labor and they wanted to watch me even closer, as they had no idea what was going to happen…
What do you think?