It was a very crazy weekend! Friday I spent the day getting everything ready for the baby shower I co-hosted with Courtney on Saturday morning for Casey. Even though the shower itself was at Courtney’s, yall know me and my party ways…I still had a TON to get ready! Then that night I went to Courtney’s so we could set everything up. Saturday morning I got up and started getting ready for the shower when Mrs. Charlotte called and told me that Casey was in the emergency room. During the night she had gotten a high fever and wasn’t feeling Carter move like he should have been so she went in. We weren’t sure if she’d get out in time for the shower or not so we went ahead with the shower plans…but we did end up getting the call that she was going to be admitted.
Throwing a baby shower when the person you are throwing it for is in the hospital is a little insane haha. But it made more sense to go ahead and have the shower because we had all the food and because we knew Casey would enjoy seeing pictures of everything! It was SO sweet of everyone who came to put up with our frazzled state 😉 We wrapped it up pretty quick and then took everything we could up to the hospital for Casey to see.
They admitted her because her amniotic fluid levels looked low. Long story (that isn’t really my story to tell so I don’t feel it’s appropriate to include a bunch of details) very, very short…Casey is fine. Baby is fine. She’s 38 weeks now so he could come at any time but so far she doesn’t seem to be making a whole lot of progress. All her levels of fluid are great and her fever went down! She got to go home Sunday 🙂 So my guess of her delivery date being after her due date may still be right 😉 I do have to say though that I am BLOWN AWAY impressed with Casey and Jordan and how they handled everything involved with their hospital stay. I see now why so many women end up inducing. It’s a LOT of pressure! From hospital staff to family and if you aren’t really informed and sure about what you want, it’d be mega, mega easy to cave in. But they did amazing and I am super proud of them both. They are gonna be such confident parents!!! I’m so glad they stood their ground and that Carter will arrive on his timeline and no one elses 🙂
Anyways…Casey being in the hospital was obviously an emotional experience for us all. I know everyone handles things like that differently but one of my big pet peeves is when people find a way to turn every situation into something about them. When someone else is struggling I try very hard to put myself completely on the back burner and to really put that person’s needs at the forefront of my mind. This weekend wasn’t about Emily, it was about Casey. I do think I handle tough situations well and it’s one of my stronger areas and is something I take pride in. BUT the downfall of that is that I am also pregnant. And I totally neglected taking care of myself. The shower prep already had put me in a state of overdoing it but then being at the hospital (and not wanting to be a diva saying “I need water, I need food, I need to sit, etc”) and being super emotional (yall I just LOVE Casey and Jordan SO much and it tore me UP that she was going through all that! Like I legit just couldn’t stop crying!) put me over that edge.
Saturday night I was completely wore out. I needed to get to bed early because I wanted to be back up at the hospital first thing Sunday morning to be there when she got another ultrasound to decide if she’d get to go home or need to induce. I was worried and my body was exhausted but I couldn’t sleep. I started cramping and hurting and felt very nauseous. I think I was dehydrated because at the hospital I def didn’t drink enough water and when I got home I went into “mom mode” and didn’t drink enough then either. I ended up getting out of the bed and going to the living room for awhile and drinking water to try to help and finally was able to sleep.
All day Sunday I had non-stop constant cramps. I felt a lot of pressure, had a big increase in the amount of discharge, and had a lot of tightening feeling in my stomach. I also felt like I couldn’t catch my breath and like I had to consciously breathe? I didn’t have any spotting and I still felt the baby move a lot. I know I probably should have stopped and rested but I knew the week ahead was busy and I didn’t want to get really behind on everything I needed to do. I did take a nap when the kids napped and even after napping I still felt the cramping and all same symptoms. When I got in the bed that night I couldn’t sleep again and was worried. I think staying busy during the day makes me worry less about things because I couldn’t stop and think about what was going on and really process it. But once I got in the bed I was more able to just focus on the baby and realize that it wasn’t okay to be having so many cramps. Several during the day stopped me in my tracks and were painful! Not good!
I’m a member of a group on FB of all women who are due in August so I posted on there what was going on and everyone said to go to the hospital. Um. I did not want to do that! I finally broke down and called the ER at 11:15 pm. Of course the nurse that answered was one of the ones I met over the weekend so I was pretty embarrassed! She put me through to the midwife on call (which is good to know they have!) and she told me that the cramping wasn’t as concerning as the tightening feeling I was having along with the cramping (hello…contractions!). She told me to come in but I asked if there was anything I could try at home first. She told me to get in the bathtub for an hour and chug a lot of water and then see how I felt.
After my hour was up it was midnight. I had already told Zach that if I did go up to the ER that I would go alone. There was no way I was going to call and wake up Mrs. Charlotte. Yall have no clue how much stress is already on her right now! NINE of our immediate family members have stuff going on (Char has a tests this week, Mema has tests this week, Rusty had some last week, Courtney has some issues, Casey was in hospital, Zach is getting MRI on his back, Colt is having his tonsils out, Brad has to have his out next month, and now you add me into that mix!). I spent a lot of time with her over the weekend and I just couldn’t possibly add more worry and stress on her. So when my hour was up I decided not to go in. I honestly didn’t want to go by myself up to the dang er (I HATE hospitals as it is!) and I felt like going up there would only be causing more stress on my body and my baby. Plus, not to knock our hospital, they are known to screw up so I didn’t want to risk getting admitted when it wasn’t needed either!
I decided to sleep and call the OB office the next morning. I figured it’d all already been going on for over 24 hours and another night of sleeping wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. I had another dr appointment yesterday morning so I called the OB on my way and they got me an appointment at 2. I was kinda stuck because I still didn’t want to tell any of the family what was going on. Mrs. Charlotte and Courtney both had their own appointments yesterday. Casey had to go back up to the dr later that afternoon to recheck her levels. No one needed to be worrying about me! I usually tell Casey everything but I did NOT want to tell her about this either because I didn’t want her to feel bad that it was going on surrounding the stress from all her stuff AND I didn’t want her to be concerned when she had enough on her plate already too. So I ended up telling a tad bit of a lie to Mema and got Jolee to come to my house to stay with the kids. I told Jolee everything and told her that if someone did happen to call and find out what was going on to just tell them b/c I didn’t want her to lie for me!
I headed up to the dr. and I about DIED when I pulled up to a red light and realized I was behind…Mrs. Charlotte. I mean SERIOUSLY?!?! I had done so well hiding it all from her and then she’s in front of me at a red light!?!?! Small town problems right? I was praying “please don’t see me” but then I saw that hand come up and wave and immediately my phone rang haha. I tried to take the attention away from me and asked a bunch of questions about Courtney but that didn’t help. I knew she knows my kids nap times and that 2:00 made no sense to ever run into me around town…so I told her a brief, light hearted version of what was going on. And thankfully she didn’t find out until right before the appointment so it’s not like she had very long to worry about it!
And really me being lighthearted with her wasn’t a lie…I did (and still do) feel very, very calm. Which is how I get in bad situations. And that’s kinda tricky b/c I couldn’t tell if I was calm and relaxed b/c everything was FINE and nothing was wrong OR if I was calm and relaxed b/c something was seriously wrong and that’s just how my body handles those kinds of things.
I did feel very silly about it all and that was a big reason I didn’t want to go to ER b/c it would have been super embarrassing to be in there RIGHT after Casey had just left!!! But when I looked up my symptoms on Baby Center (which is a legit source I feel like?) I did have several of the symptoms of preterm labor and did feel like I needed to take it seriously. I’m so thankful I’m far enough along where I knew if I DID go into labor that the baby would live, but picturing my baby being only 3 lbs was not something I wanted to experience for sure!
They had told me on the phone to expect a very long wait but it was mega fast which I appreciated! My appointment was at 2 and by 2:07 I was already seeing the midwife on call. I’d seen Marie a couple of times before but this time she was SO AWESOME. I know Robyn loves her and now I see why! She was seriously amazing. The nurse asked me what was going on prior to Marie coming in and I told her “basically I’m experience stuff that if I was at 38 weeks I’d be CRUNK about…but since I’m only 31 weeks I’m not excited about it…” When Marie came in we listened to the heartbeat and it was great! In the 140s and strong. Which I knew would be the case, because I can still feel SO MUCH movement! A big reason I felt okay waiting and not going to the ER was bc Leo has been so, so active through all of this 🙂
After the heartbeat she checked me and said I was not leaking any amniotic fluid. She said I did have a lot of discharge so she got it tested (which happens to me all the time and they did call today and say it was negative). She felt my cervix and said it’s still very thick and closed, not dilated at all. Also the baby is still nice and high! I was a little nervous about her checking me because I know by checking you they often push you to be more dilated and I def don’t want to be dilated at this point. She told me she’s known to be very gently and that unless we have a crystal ball there isn’t any other way for her to know what’s going on so we went for it and she was right, she was very gentle!
When she was done checking I said “okay great! So I just over did it and should go home and rest!” And she kinda laughed and said that she wasn’t done yet 😉 She told me I’d be hooked up to a monitor for 20 min to monitor the baby and the contractions. She said they’d also give me a shot of progesterone and that it should make a huge difference in how I’m feeling. She told me with summer babies this kind of thing is more common and is probably dehydration because even if I am constantly chugging water it’s just impossible to be as hydrated as I need to be in this heat. Rest and water are the best things to help me and she said it’s SO good I came in. I def am thankful I called and went up there but also I’m thankful I didn’t go to the ER about it 🙂
She also told me no intimacy for 48 hours and if we are intimate and I have contractions then I may need to stop for a week then try again. Which I went ahead and talked to her about that a little more in depth because I wasn’t embarrassed since I don’t know her haha. But this WHOLE pregnancy I’ve noticed I get cramping if intimate and lately it’s been more like a contraction so I asked if it’s dangerous. She said it’s very common with it being my third baby because my body just knows the process and that intimacy releases Pitocin which does cause contractions. So it is something to be aware of and careful about.
They moved me into another room and hooked me up to the monitor. Which I’ve never had before other than when I’ve delivered my babies. It was funny because I had just told Casey how much I hated those monitors on my stomach since she had them on over the weekend at the hospital and then here I was having to wear them!
Heartbeat stayed in the 130s-140s most of the time I was monitored!
The top one monitors the heart and the bottom monitors the contractions…you can see the contraction because the line goes up like a hill shape.
She came back in and said she had to go deliver a baby but told me they were going to give me the shot and that I needed to be on bed rest for 48 hours. She said if I still felt the same way I have been feeling to come back up there right away. She also said that the baby looks great but that I did have two contractions in my first ten minutes on the monitor. She said they were okay and she felt fine about them (I think b/c they are “hill shape” it means they aren’t intense ones?).
The girl came in and gave me the shot in my butt and I so jumped when she gave it to me haha. I have a regular appointment (our last ultrasound!) scheduled for this Friday so I obviously kept that appointment. They also sent me home with a letter about the bed rest. I told them my boss is my husband but that I’d gladly show it to him 😉
Jolee ended up staying for awhile when I got back. I got back so fast that Kye had just gotten up from nap and he’d been really excited to hang out with her so she was sweet to stay! Zach took care of them for me during the evening and the three of us cuddled up in my bed and watched Snow White! I think they like the perks of a bed rest Mommy 😉
I slept really well last night and this morning Zach had to take the van in to get the dvd players fixed so he and Mrs. Charlotte worked out the details about vehicles. The kids and I took it easy this morning and Mrs. Charlotte came and got them around lunch. They are going to stay with her tonight because Zach won’t be home until late and then someone will bring them back to me tomorrow night after church since he is working late tomorrow night too. I am off bed rest Thursday so it’s perfect timing to allow me the maximum amount of rest!
So far today I’m still feeling the cramping and pressure and contracting type feelings. I debated calling the office but then they called me which NEVER happens! Turns out they forgot to have me sign a consent form for the shot so I have to sign it Friday so I went ahead and asked her about my symptoms. She said the shot takes around 24 hours to work so if I still feel bad after that point to call them because I’d need to go back up there.
I just now got home from my foot doctor appointment (yes…I’ve been on bed rest for 24 hours now and today all I’ve gotten is about an hour worth of rest…) and am from now on staying in the bed! No kids here. No husband here. No distractions! So rest time begins now and I will better be able to monitor how I’m feeling and see where to go from here.
I really, really do think I just have had too much going on and need the rest and that everything will be fine. It’s such a blessing to know that if the worst case scenario occurred and that Leo came now, he or she would survive. It’s not a life or death thing at least…although obviously I want him or her to stay in there for another 8 weeks or so!!! I also know they can stop preterm labor pretty easily now a days, although it would be a mega inconvenience (I don’t want to be stuck in a hospital or even have to get weekly progesterone shots obviously!). I feel pretty optimistic that everything will be fine and I just know from here on out I need to take it easier than I have been. It’s hard when it’s your third baby. I think the pregnancy is harder but life is also harder. Two kids ain’t no joke and they keep me very, very busy!
I’m so thankful for all the help I’ve had and that I am able to have TRUE bed rest and really relax right now. I think Mrs. Charlotte is a little mad at me for not telling her about everything (Casey is in the mad at me club too about it haha) but I don’t regret not saying anything because it’s all worked out great and everything is fine 🙂 I think what is REALLY going on is that Leo knows all the attention Carter got this past weekend and he or she wanted a chance to be in the spotlight 😉
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Glad you and Baby Leo are both okay. Try to enjoy the bed rest! Praying for an uneventful remaining few weeks of your pregnancy.
Hills mean legit contractions and not fake ones 😉