Brief Hospital Stay

I woke up at 5:45am this morning and felt horrible.  Stomach ache, ribs hurting, light headed, sweating, freezing, hard time breathing, major heart burn and I could not get comfortable.  I drank ice water, got a cold wash cloth and nothing helped.  I woke Kevin up with all of my flopping around.  We chatted for a bit and he said he thought we needed to go to the hospital.  I'm a really rational person so I don't take hospital visits lightly.  He said that I've never felt like this so the highly unusual symptoms warranted a trip to the hospital.  

I was supposed to be at work in just a few hours, I'd have to find a sub at 6:00am and surely I'd feel better soon enough...  Kevin wouldn't hear of it.  I texted my super amazing sub friend at 6:15am and she said she would happily come in for me.  I put on some comfy clothes, splashed my face with water, called in my sub and left.  I called my sub and told her the plan for the day; she assured me that she had everything under control which is hard for this self-proclaimed control freak.  I just had to let it go... and I texted a few people to ask them to pray for us.

We arrived at the dark hospital parking lot before 7:00am and headed inside.  I had a knot in my stomach because I was worried about Olive and I knew I wasn't feeling well.  Luckily she was moving around like crazy and I felt like she was letting me know she was okay.  I got a little more nervous as we headed to the Labor & Delivery floor of the hospital.  Too soon! is all I kept thinking.   We checked in, they saw me to my room and outfitted me in a snazzy gown.  

I was greeted by a nurse who asked a million questions... my favorites:

-Are you doing any illegal drugs?

-Are you an organ donor?

Kevin followed this with,

"That's not really why we're here.  Just hoping to have a baby"

-Who's here with you today?

My husband, Kevin.

Ok, Heaven, do you have anything else to add?

I started dying laughing because called him Heavin!

I'm sure she thought I was a weirdo but, come on, that's funny!

-Plus about a million other questions.

-Oh and she told me I looked puffy 

and I responded with "This puffy is my new normal these days."

Then she says, "You are having a contraction right now.  Can you feel it?"  I was shocked.  A. Because contractions often mean labor and B. I was honestly feeling nothing.  I had a few more during our interview so they just kept monitoring us.  Olive was doing great - moving and kicking like crazy.  We were there for a few hours and were both feeling anxious.  It was nice to hear Olive's heartbeat and know that she was doing well.  I had blood drawn as was greeted by a whole host of staff.

I had a moment or two of panic thinking: What if I have her today?  I have yet to pack my hospital bag!  What if today's the day and we don't have our camera?  What if there's an emergency with my health or hers?  What if they won't let me leave for weeks?  Oh and some other really important things like: I don't have any of her cute blankets or bows here for her and we still have some preparing to do at home for her arrival.   

I tried not to dwell on it and just relax because all of that was out of my control.  I was happy to be in the hospital where every single thing was being watched.  Kevin was nervous and tired so I felt bad for stressing him out.  Good thing he didn't give me an option about coming in :)  In our dating & married life, I've never had surgery, never been hospitalized, never gone to the hospital for being sick so I think it was a big of a shock for him to see me hooked up to so many machines and not feeling well.

My doctor was out of town so I met with the on-call doctor.  He said all of my vitals looked good and the baby looked good as well.  He thinks it was just some complications from high blood pressure.  No bed rest for now but I needed to take it easy and only do what I felt up for doing.  Lots of water, rest, no sleeping on my back and don't over do it.  I have a few appointments next week due to my high blood pressure so he said we'd follow up then unless I got to feeling bad again.  We went over what kinds of things I'd come in for and we were good to go. 

 A relieved mom:

Our nurse also had us preregister for our hospital stay while we were there, told us about the room & accommodations and we felt like we got a little sneak peak of where we'll be having our baby.  I'd never been in this portion of the hospital so it was comforting to familiarize myself with the place.  The nurses were really nice and helpful too.  I'm excited to see them again several weeks from now!  They also brought me an icy apple juice when I started feeling better.

So I'm home resting now and trying to take it easy.  Good thing I have two snuggly cats to make me sit down and relax.  That's the agenda for the next several days so I'm going to work hard to stick to the plan of taking good care of myself and Olive.  Thanks for all of your prayers.  We really appreciate them!!