Well, I now know all the procedures for getting admitted to the hospital labor and delivery department. My contractions were still going strong and painful mid-afternoon, so after talking to a friend with the same OB (who’d had preterm labor herself), I decided to call my doctor and ask him to just take a look at me to see if anything worthwhile was happening. Derek came home early, my friend Sarah came over to watch the kids, we brought the suitcase just in case, and I headed in to the doctor’s office. Sure enough, I was contracting, but the wrong way (bottom to top, not top to bottom, so totally unproductive). Since he thinks I’m not quite 37 weeks yet, he didn’t want to give me pitocin to get them going harder. Instead, I was admitted to the hospital for observation, sat in labor and delivery (where it was determined that I was indeed having steady contractions and that the baby is just as active as I’ve been complaining!), got a shot of terbutaline to slow the contractions, and sat around for another hour to make sure they had really stopped. It’s a huge relief not to be constantly contracting, but it is so demoralizing to realize that all the pain I’ve been under for the past few days of increasingly hard contractions has been totally worthless. My stomach muscles are literally aching–I guess I must not have noticed that after real labor in the past because I was so drugged up immediately afterwards. I’m still not dilated or effaced, and all I’ve accomplished is giving Sarah a dry run on making dinner while four children run around wildly.
And the nurse told me to “take it easy” and try to just hang out on my left side all day tomorrow. HA! How does one do that with three rambunctious children? All in all, a bummer of a day…
Rest with other children is kind of a joke, isn’t it? Sorry you went through all that pain for nothing. I have been having terrible back/arm pain at which point my doctor looked at me wrestling Bryce and trying to get Chrissy to behave and said ice and tylonol. He said he would suggest rest and exercise, but realizes that isn’t really practical. I really appreciated him at that moment. I hope you start getting some productive contractions soon!