Oh Baby Baby.....Please Stop That

NOTICE:  I started this blog on Monday but it took me forever to finish it so I attached a little update from today at the end.  So read this like it was written on Tuesday...... :)  

I'd planned for my next blog to be about the cruise that my sister and I went on a couple weeks ago.  However, since it now seems like old news (and I have something else to write about), I will sum up what would have been my post with this picture (worth a thousand words, right?)

This is basically how my sister and I spent our 4 days.  This picture shows several orders of room service that, since we so rarely left our room had yet to be picked up yet.  We got so sunburned after 3 hours in the sun on our first day that we were still in pain after the cruise was over.  Hence the 3 seasons of Downton Abbey that we watched....in our room.  We left the boat for 1 1/2 hours at one of the ports.  We didn't have a lot of exciting news to report at our group dinners but..... it was wonderful. So THANK YOU to my mom and my hubby for watching Marie and for my special friend that paid my airfare so I could go!! Great memories with my sis!

Yesterday was not quite as relaxing as those days on the cruise.  Over the weekend I'd been noticing some slight tightening in my abdomen.  Yesterday morning some kind of pain woke me up at about six am.  I hung out in bed for the next hour or so and noticed that the "tightening" kept happening.  It wasn't painful, didn't feel crampy.  It just came in a wave, and I noticed I could feel the outline of my uterus really well.  What the heck was going on?  

II didn't want to be that neurotic patient who calls with silly things and overreacts.  Did NOT want to be that patient!!  However, I also didn't want something to happen to the little one and to not have done anything so I bit the bullet and called my doc.  She told me that what I described sounded like contractions and sent me to the hospital to get checked. Well now I had a dilemma.  I'd started doing Marie's hair in extensions the night before but ran out of yarn and still had about 2-3 hours to finish up.  Shoot!!! She literally had the bottom half of her head with hair halfway down her back, and the top half of her head with three little puffs about 3 inches long.  Not cute.  And her friend was on the way to pick her up.  Darnit!!!!  I quickly did some little twists to try and make it presentable.  I don't have a picture for you, but just envision the 7 year old version of "business in the front, party in the back."  Sorry Marie!!

Marie was picked up and headed was out and about with her friend (and Mom).  Peter and I headed to the hospital.  I felt pretty sheepish as I walked in because I'd only felt this "squeezing" a couple times since standing up and moving around.  The nurse was very sweet and got me hooked up the the monitor.  Sure enough, I was contracting regularly every 2 min.  I immediately felt relief that I wasn't crazy and imagining things, but it was quickly followed fear that I really was contracting....and that it wasn't just a couple.  The nurse started an IV to give me some fluids and gave me a shot of medicine to stop the contractions.  As soon as she left the room.....of course I burst into tears.  Poor Peter had thought he'd missed something and was like "What?!!? What did she say??!!"

She hadn't said anything.  I'd just been laying there envisioning several different things.  One of the memories that haunts me a little about delivering babies in Sierra Leone was the time that I delivered a super small one...into a bedpan. I learned my lesson and since that time I have NEVER let a woman in labor try to use the bathroom, no matter how much she insisted.  It was just such an...undignified way for this little one to enter the world that I've always felt badly.  I scooped him out of the bedpan and held him while he took his first few and final breaths.  One time we had to do a c-section on a woman who's baby was too small but who was ecclamptic and wouldn't stop seizing.  We tried what we could with bagging and oxygen....but it didn't end well for the baby.  These faces, along with the babies from my NICU rotation in nursing school were swimming in my head......hence the tears.  Peter just took my hand and reminded me that God is in control.  

They did some tests, looking for possible causes but didn't really find anything.  The only possible cause they could see was a sinus infection that I'd been fighting for the last week and a half and had finally decided I needed to see a doc for some antibiotics.  Since the contractions became less intense and more irregular with the second medication they gave me to stop the contractions, they decided they could send me home.  I went home with some antibiotics, nifedipine (to stop the contractions) and instructions to take it easy for a couple days. 

This morning I woke up and the contractions were still there. I was super frustrated....and anxious!! I had so many things that were going through my mind that as I was having my time with Jesus this morning I just decided to write down everything that I was worried about, starting from the fact that Peter's supposed to go back to Sierra Leone in a few days to the potential of bed rest, the financial implications, etc.  I had a nice little list and was just writing anything coming into my head. I literally stopped and laughed when I wrote down that I was worried about how we're going to travel to Eugene and back every day for months if this little one ends up in the NICU for a long time, how I'd be able to work, how Marie would get to school, etc.  Seriously Emily?  Talk about borrowing trouble from tomorrow!!!!  I kept hearing the verses in Mathew that say " Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  Rest for my soul? Easy yoke and light burden? Yes please!!!!!  I just prayed and told Jesus that I was really tired of carrying this anxiety burden, so I was handing it over!  It's too heavy for me!!  Nothing in my circumstances changed, but being able to focus on that precious verse from Scripture radically changed my outlook and I felt at peace.  Peter's words that "God is in control" which I'll admit sounded a bit hollow in my ears at the time he said it, now hit me like a mack truck.  A mack truck bringing peace. :)  

UPDATE ON TUESDAY:  I was up pretty much all night last night with the same feelings that I had on Monday. This wave of tightness in my abdomen that would come every couple of minutes.  I took my nifedipine early and it did seem to slow things down a bit so I waited until the office opened and called for some advice.  They told me to come back in.  They hooked me up to the monitor to look for contractions but even though they felt the same to me, they didn't register as contractions like they had on Monday....more just like uterine irritations.  She checked my cervix again and it was still closed, although she said the little fella was in a low position, which could be irritating my cervix.  She also said that some women just have "colicky uteruses" which I took to mean....they're just a little testy and easily annoyed.  But you know what they say...."Colicky uterus = non colicky baby" right?  They say that don't they?!?!?!?  So here I am, back at home and feeling rested after a nice long nap. I didn't get put on any restrictions which was a huge blessing! My mind is at ease so I'm hoping my body takes that cue and knocks it off already. :)  Thank you so much for all your prayers and encouragement!!  We appreciate it so much!