January 26 - My Birthday!

As many or all of you are aware a lot has happened over the last week!  I have not had time to write down thoughts and updates on all of it in my blog.  I intend on writing a post for everyday and then trying to keep it up to date after that.  So let's go to when the chaos all start.... my birthday!

In my last post I mentioned how I had stopped teaching (and by my birthday I really was missing my students) and was thankful for the ability to get a little more rest in.  I was also looking forward to the extra time I had for exercise and getting the house ready for baby.  In fact last week I went walking at the ymca every day for at least a half hour.  It felt great!

So on the day of my birthday I had no big plans.  I told Ben that I just wanted to stay home and take it easy and so he said he would make me supper that evening after work.  That morning I walked at the ymca, then I came home to take a shower before getting some work done around the house.  During my shower I had some pain that I hadn't experienced before, so I finished up quick and then laid down trying to get the baby to move off the nerve s/he seemed to be on.  Eventually the pain stopped and I went back to work on other things.

Only now I started having a new cramping sensation.  So I researched Braxton Hicks contractions versus real labor contractions and decided they were probably Braxton Hicks, as they came at very irregular intervals and by changing my activity they would stop.  Then they stopped for several hours.  I resolved to myself to keep an eye on it and call my doctor if they started again.

During that afternoon I got a lot of laundry done, cleaned the kitchen up nicer and made cookies.  It sure felt great to bake!  Then I had a student over for an hour that I was tutoring.  About then is when the contractions started again, so I did my best to ignore them while I was with my student.  After tutoring I had a Bible study to go to and as I didn't seem to be feeling too bad I went (only to find out it must have been canceled...).  While at Church I told my husband he had to go home because he hadn't been feeling well.

We got in our cars and drove home.  Ben clearly wasn't feeling well because when we got home he threw up twice!  Yet he was determined to make me supper on my birthday.  I made him lay down instead, after all we don't have to celebrate on my birthday, he could always make me supper the next day.

While he was laying down I started paying closer and closer attention to the cramping sensation.  In my mind I wanted Ben to sleep as much as he could, as I was starting to get the idea that it could be a very long night.  We were just at 27 weeks (3 months to go to the due date) and the contractions were coming every 10 minutes and lasting about the same amount of time.  Around 10:30 I woke him up and said something like, "we need to go to the hospital, I think the baby is trying to come and the baby doesn't need to be coming yet."  And off we went.  Ben grabbed a few things to work on as he figured they would observe me for a few hours and send us home...

By 11:30 they were admitting me to the hospital as I was definitely in labor with contractions now 3-4 minutes apart.  The goal when the admitted me was to stop the contractions, give me a steroid for the baby's lungs and put me on bed rest...