Practice Makes Perfect

Thursday was an interesting day, and by "interesting," I mean, "A roller coaster day of emotions, ranging from 'Oh crap, what if this is really happening?' to 'Whew! I kinda knew everything would be OK.'"

I woke up to Leah complaining about some pain in her abdomen that had apparently been bothering her for a few hours. She said that it started in her mid-section and kinda radiated around to the sides. Just assuming that they were Braxton-Hicks contractions, I told her to go drink some water (which will usually make them subside). Concerned about the intensity and the fact that it wasn't getting any better, she called the after-hours nurse's line. The nurse who returned the call was apparently annoyed by having to call a paying patient while she was navigating her vehicle through traffic and talking to the cars in front of her. The response was basically, "Well, you're at 32 weeks, so just go to Labor and Delivery." Uh, thanks.

We decided to take a more rational route, and called the doctor's office after they had time to open. Leah got squeezed in, and they told her to show up at 11:00. Dr. Bannister checked her out, noted a slight change in her cervix, and said that the the pains sounded like contractions. Just to be on the safe side, she wanted us to go to, you guessed it, labor and delivery. Even though the end result was the same as Miss Multi-tasking Non-helpful Nurse, R.N., I still felt like we had done the right thing. Dr. B said that she wasn't freaking out or anything, but pre-term labor was the most important thing to rule out.

So after a brief stop by the house, and the bank (Leah had keys to drop off), we were headed for the hospital. At home, pessimism met optimism for the first time. Should we grab the suitcase? What about the camera? Nah, surely this isn't IT. Who knows, maybe it is. So, we bet on the "Everything's OK" line and hoped that we'd roll a 7. No suitcase, no camera.

We went through the motions, got checked in, and Leah got called back to do the intial super-private, even-your-spouse-can't-be-in-here question and answer session. Then I got called back, and for about a minute, I think my heart lodged in my throat somewhere.

First, let me explain how it works. Your first stop is Assessment, where you are, uh, assessed. The aforementioned interview occurs here, you're put on a fetal heart monitor, etc. Think triage for pregnant women. If it's false labor, or something like that, you don't need to ever go to the next step--an actual Labor and Delivery (L/D) room. These are on the same floor, but in a different area. Assessment area is a long hallway with 3-walled "rooms" on each side with a curtain separating each room from the hallway (kinda like an E.R.). L/D rooms, are, well, complete with TV, bathroom, couch, etc--cause you're obviously gonna be there for several hours--in addition to all the equipment (e.g., warming table, scales, blanket warmer). So anyway, they called me back, and I stopped to ask where she was. I was expecting, "Assessment--Room 3". Instead, I got, "Room 212--all the way at the end of the hall." Uh oh. Oh crap. Maybe we should've grabbed the camera. Oh crap. Is my son actually gonna be born today, 5-8 weeks early? Maybe we should've grabbed the camera. All this went through my head as I walked down the hall. I really hadn't expected to be caught so off guard. I opened the door, and there Leah was, just laying on the bed smiling. I said, "Why are we in this room??" The answer was simple--Assessment was full. We should've been in assessment, but instead got a private room with TV and bathroom. Cool.

So, after watching her for a bit, they actually moved us back to the Assessment area, where we departed from 30 minutes later. As it turned out, Leah's contractions were caused by a lack of sufficient fluids, which in turn acts on the body the same way pitossin does--the drug they use to induce labor. So with sufficient fluids, things would calm down and her "mini-contractions" should subside. Whew.

Of course, this day made us realize that we're not "ready" in a sense of "sitting on go" if something were to happen. Does the camera have batteries? What about film? Have we packed all the baby outfits we wanna take? I think it's safe to say that over the next week or so, we're gonna make sure we can answer "YES!!" to all of these questions.