the waiting game...and events leading up to it

the past week has been a pretty turbulent one to say the least. it all started on Wednesday, August 27th. it was our 2nd professional development day for CRLS, which means we had a variety of teacher meetings to attend and our first meeting was for all special educators, social workers, psychologists, etc at an elementary school about 1.7 miles away from the high school. it was a beautiful day, really breezy and very nice so i decided i'd take the walk with the rest of the teachers to the school. usually i would have driven, but since i have been feeling so good, i thought i'd walk, get some exercise and spare myself the inevitable parking ticket I would have gotten had i driven (parking is very limited in Cambridge). toward the end though my pelvis started to become sore, which is typical of any large amount of walking...so...i didn't think much of it and just headed into the auditorium for our meeting.

i felt warm so i started drinking tons of water to make sure i was hydrated, which i certainly was and then my lower back began to throb and my stomach became rock hard. i started to really be in some pain. so...I took two tylenol (which is FINE in pregnancy) and drank a lot more water...at that point i was visibly in pain and one of my co-workers suggested i call the doctor.

she's had 2 kids and said to her, it looked like i was having contractions. so...i called. the nurse at my doctor's office suggested i come in ASAP so they could hook me up to a monitor and see what was going on...i clearly agreed even though i felt so foolish going in, i mean, maybe i was just dehydrated or something, who knows! but as everyone tells me with pregnancy, better to be safe than sorry so I headed back into the auditorium and talked to my boss...who immediately told me to go...so i left. now, my mom offered to come get me, but me...being the stubborn gal that i am decided that i could get back to my car on my own and ended up taking the city bus back to CRLS...so i did...and let me say, i was contracting every 6 to 8 minutes...it was obvious, even to the other city bus riders who looked at me and asked if i was in labor...awesome.

i got off the bus and got to the car then drove to Quincy to my doc's office...once there they did some testing, put me on a monitor and baby g was fine, though the contractions were now 2 to 3 minutes apart. they did a bunch of tests on me including a Group B Strep test (which i still don't know the results of) and a FFN (fetal fibronectin test) which came back positive, meaning i could in fact deliver in the next two weeks or i could not...nothing like accurate medical testing right - lol. and on top of that they did an exam to see if i was actually dialating and yea, i was...at that point i was 1 cm dialated (0ut of 10) and 50% effaced (meaning my cervix was thining out)...so i called Dave and he came to meet me...in the meantime the staff at HVMA in Quincy called over to Brigham and Women's and arranged for me to be admitted!!

Dave and I left the HVMA office around 2:30 and headed to the hospital...we got there and they tried to get the pre-term labor to stop with an oral medication that didn't work, then they moved on to Magnesium Sulfate to stop the contractions so that I could get steroid shots to help prepare the babies lungs in the event that he or she decides to be born a bit early! So...once I was on the Magnesium drip I got the first steroid shot and was then told I'd be on the drip for 48 hours. This meant that I'd get the second steroid shot 24 hours later and then 24 hours after that I'd be what is known as Beta Complete so that if he or she was born their lungs had recieved steroid therapy to help breathing.

So at that point I was told I'd be there at least until Saturday or Sunday morning...so Dave and I got settled and accepted that we were there for the rest of the week. I called my family members and dave went home to get some clothes and supplies for the remainder of the week.

Now, from Wednesday night thru Friday night the Magnesium made me hot, flushed and really just tired. I felt ok otherwise and my vitals were great. The baby was not as active but still had a strong heart rate and was moving. Finally by Thursday afternoon (about 24 hours after being on the Mag) my contractions began to subside meaning the labor had been halted. I just sat there and rested as much as I could though truthfully I wasn't really sleeping all that much and was definitely overtired.

Friday evening around 5pm I came off of the Mag and was tired, cranky and just ready to be free of the IV. Once off of it I didn't feel anything for about 4 hours. Then around 9:30pm I started having awful pains in my back and stomach...turns out I wasn't in labor, but was now told I have something known as Irritable Uterus and this condition can lead to pre-term labor. They checked my cervix again and though it's not dialated anymore (still 1 cm) it's now effaced to 75% and it could stay that way for weeks. To stop the pain, I was given a shot of morphine and passed out...I woke up on Saturday AM and the pain was gone, but I was a mess...my entire body was sore and irritable, my brain felt foggy and I was just done. I was discharged Saturday with the instructions to be on bedrest through 37 weeks minimum.

At that point I just wanted to go home, so Dave took me home and i slept nearly 24 hours through to Sunday morning. I spent yesterday sitting here with my cousin Danielle who was awesome. I felt ok for the day...having a few Braxton Hicks conractions during the day, but nothing too much to report, then finally last night at about 12:45am I woke up with the Irritable Uterus problem again. It HURT. I was up until about 3:30am waiting for the pain to subside. It's different than contractions because it doesn't come and go...it just stays painful for hours. I was in a bad spot, but luckily it finally subsided and I went back to sleep unitl about 10:00am today.

So now I'm on bedrest and I can totally understand why. If I was to have that type of pain out and about I'd probably fall on the floor. It's way to uncomfortable to be out and about and I know that it's best for me to just follow the doctor's orders and wait it out.

I think the little Garcia is going to come when he or she is ready and all I can do is sit still and just wait. My personal guess..baby G will join the world sometime in Early September. I think perhaps in the next two or three weeks to be honest. Which will be ok with me!