The Hospital

As of today, I have officially been out of the hospital for as many days as my last extended stay.  Whew!!!  What a relief!!  I know there are more days (and nights) in there once the baby arrives, but for now I'm glad to have gotten a bit of a break.  I've still been there each day for monitoring, but that only lasts for about an hour, so it's a breeze by comparison.

I had Chris bring me my little point and shoot camera after I had been in for a few days to record my constant views.  There was a lot of this, water water water, just like at home, except in bigger jugs.  I also started craving apple juice, so there were always a few containers of that around as well.

On the morning of my 4th day, the doctor came in and informed me that they would be keeping me for yet another 24 hours, but the good news was that they were transferring me to a bigger room.  I know she was trying to cushion the blow a bit, and I appreciated the gesture and the bigger room, but as soon as she left I burst into tears.  I didn't want a better room, I just wanted to go home with my family!  Chris eventually had to leave for work, and I was feeling so grumpy that I ordered some root beer with my lunch as a means of consolation.  It helped a little.

One benefit of being at the hospital so much is that I met lots of the nurses, and OBs...and check in people, lab people, the CT scan lady, the ER people, the cleaner, etc.  On one of my visits the first week, when I walked up to the desk where you get registered before you're admitted, instead of saying, "Name?  Birthday? Doctor?" the lady said, "Erin, what is your birthday again?"  A few days later a different lady said, as I was still several feet away, "Hi Erin.  Going up to OB I assume?  Sorry, I can't remember your birthday, when is it again?"  I was surprised the first time, "Aww man, they know my name?!"  But now I think it's kind of sweet when the nurse brings me a granola bar, and says, "I know you had blueberry last time, but we're out of those, so how about..."

One morning when one of the nurses was hooking me up to the monitors I asked Chris to get me my chap stick from my purse.  The nurse said, "Oh you left one of those here last week.  Yeah, so and so grabbed it and was like, 'Oh, that's Erin's.'  So we just put it behind the counter and figured we'd give it to you the next time that you were in."

This was before I was in for daily monitoring.  I hate to be so predictable like that. :)  But I did think it was funny, and they put one of my little stickers on it too, which I thought was funny too.

We have spent a lot of time staring at this thing.  First for contractions, and most recently for the baby's heart rate.  I mentioned before how my contractions are much worse in the evenings, including when I'm sleeping, so initially the nurse would come in and give me shots to make them calm down.  But since they aren't doing those anymore the nurse would come in and wake me up to go to the bathroom.  Isn't that strange?  I'm already going a million times on my own, but someone would come in and say, "Erin, you've had 7 contractions in the last 30 minutes, so why don't you empty your bladder and see if that helps?"  I appreciated it, but this also meant that I was literally up at least once an hour every hour.  Never reaching REM sleep for a few nights in a row kept me from being rested, even if I did nothing but "rest" all day long.

And do you see that thing in the corner that was daunting me as well?

The cervical dilation chart.  Even though I know this stage is coming, it's still stressful to have this chart sitting across the room staring at me.  I spent lots of time frowning at it.  I was glad to leave it behind.

Luckily, we've had some wonderful friends help us out over the last few weeks and I don't know what we would have done without them!!  Several people kept Jayce during the mornings so that Chris could be at the hospital with me and talk with the doctor when she came in.  Other people stayed at the house with Jayce at night so that Chris could be at the hospital with me overnight.  Others have kept us in their thoughts and prayers and encouraged me throughout the day with their calls, texts, emails and facebook messages.  Both of our moms were able to come to town for a few days and played with Jayce, cleaned the house, cooked us meals, and helped me get some of the 'baby things' ready.  It has been so helpful!

Some of our friends even brought an ice cream cake to the hospital for us and I was discharged the next morning.  Apparently the baby just needed a little Dairy Queen!  I wish we had thought of that sooner.