My evening in L & D - ugh!

For the past 4-5 days, I had been having a lot of contractions. I knew that they had been fairly regular, but they were better when I rested so I decided not to go to the hospital. Well, yesterday I had had enough. I loosely timed them and I was contracting every 3-6 minutes and they lasted about a minute, so I headed to Mountain West Medical Center at about 6:15 p.m.

After having done my preceptorship there, I know all of the nurses - it was nice to be in a familiar place. My nurse that took care of me last night is awesome and it happened that Marlee (the CNM that will deliver the baby) was there as well.

Anyway, they hooked me up to the monitors and I was contracting just like I thought I was - every 3-6 minutes. The also did a UA. The results from that came back from the lab indicating that I was dehydrated and also possibly have a UTI. They gave me the first dose of an antibiotic and gave me two bags of IV fluids. I was still contracting regularly after that so they also gave me a shot of terbutaline. YUCK!!! I had heard that terb wasn't very fun but I didn't really know why until last night. It made my heart race and made me feel really anxious and shaky inside. I did stop contracting about 20 minutes later. After a cervical check that came back normal, they decided to send me home with antibiotics and orders to rest and drink LOTS of fluid.

I left the hospital at about 9:15 p.m. I'm relieved that the baby looked really good and that it doesn't look like the contractions were doing much to my body. However, the thought of bedrest and pre-term labor is SCARY. Thank heavens for modern medicine and great healthcare practitioners.