Hospitals, Sucky Beds and New Friends (and still a healthy baby boy!)

It's been a long 3 or so weeks since I've blogged, sorry about that.  My goal is to get better and blog more often, maybe once or twice a week if possible....hope that doesn't get too annoying.   This past week I was hospitalized briefly.  I hadn't felt the baby move significantly in a couple of days so I called my Dr.'s office to see if I should go in.  The nurse told me to report to Labor & Delivery right away for a bio physical profile.  So a-scrambling I went trying to get dressed, on the phone with family to make arrangements for Ava, all while trying to get her ready & packed and trying not have a breakdown from fear.  I get to the hospital where my sister & mom met me and they took care of Ava in the waiting room while I went into an exam room and got hooked up to these things:

After being monitored for 30 minutes and drinking ginger ale & cranberry, baby boy was doing the riverdance!   They then wheeled me to another floor and performed an ultrasound.  Back in the exam room a while later my dr came in and told me he was going to keep me overnight for observation, and that he saw something on the ultrasound that he wanted to keep an eye on.  Great.  More panic.  More tears.  He said with what he saw coupled with my report of decreased movement, that he wanted to be cautious with everything.  What he said he saw was a placental infarct or small patch of fluid that could mean a couple things including abruption.  Yea I think I made a good choice to call the office that morning.

So after tearfully saying goodbye to my little girl and my mom and sister (mom took her home for lunch and a nap), I was settled in a pretty nice room on the L & D floor.  I was to be continuously hooked up to the belly monitors you see above, blood drawn, BP taken and a repeat ultrasound to be performed the following morning.  My husband finally arrived (after scrambling out of work in a small panic I'm sure) and I was sooooo relieved to see him.  Dr.'s Williams and Goldman then both came into my room to check up on me and to say hello to Bobby.  (He works with them pretty regularly.)  I have to admit it was pretty cool to have two OB's come in, hug me, reassure me and crack jokes with my husband :-)  Oh I had a pretty darn cool nurse too, Kaley :-)  She recognized me, Bobby and Ava from the knot/nest message boards.  It was too funny and also not the first time it has happened.  Kaley was such a joy to have taking care of me, and now I also can call her a friend outside of the hospital :-)

Ok so onto my evening, it was adventuresome to say the least.  The bed I was on was nothing short of a layer of plastic thrown over a bed of bricks making it officially the most uncomfortable "bed" in the history of man.  Every time I would shift positions, the baby's heartbeat would fall off the radar and my nurses would have to come in and readjust it usually adding more "goop" which got all over the sheets and starch cloth blanket.  Let me add that plastic pillows with a thin pillowcase are not ideal either.  I went on to attempt to get comfortable and MAYBE drift off into a light sleep but alas that was not written in my stars for the night.  My hips were in so much pain that if I turned over to my other side, heartbeat monitor goes quiet, in walks nurse shimmying, shifting, gooping, pressing, waiting, repeat all of the above until the heart beat is heard again.  Each time this happened lasted no less than 9 minutes and by that time whatever side I was laying on would be aching again so I'd be ready to flip over.  So I'd flip and try to still listen for the heartbeat and then wait for nurse to come back.  I got zero sleep.  Zero.  I am now dreading my stay in the hospital when I have him purely due to the horrendous beds.  I will be bringing my own pillows, blankets, and maybe even one of those egg crate thingys or something.

I gave up trying to sleep around 4:30 and turned the tv on and grabbed my laptop.  The tv actually lulled me a little bit so I think I may have drifted into a light slumber with the bed upright, still on my side with the heartbeat still in place and not DARING to move a muscle.  I was awakened around 6 to be stuck with a needle to have more blood taken.  I then ordered up some coffee & pancakes.

Around 8:30 or so they retrieved me in a wheelchair to go for the repeat ultrasound.  After all was said & done, the radiologist said the "spot" was stable and hadn't gotten bigger, also he scored an 8/8 on his bio physical profile, I had zero contractions and his heart rate was fine so I was going to be discharged.  Woo hoo I get to crawl into my own wonderful bed very shortly (this is all I was thinking at this point).  Bobby and Ava showed up, and Ava was soooo happy to see me.  She climbed up in bed with me, hugged me and said "I miss you mommy".  Oh my goodness, cue the tears again :-)

So I was discharged around 11am, got home and slept until 3:00.  I am now trying to figure out a way to sneak my bed into my hospital room when it comes time for baby boy to be born.  Anyone wanna help me?  I think we can pull it off :-)

I am now 27 weeks, 3 days.