L&D Day 4

We are having a better day today. Last night I had a nasty attack of contractions around 10 pm but after taking my medication things settled down and I slept for nearly 7 hours! I got my last dose of this temporary medication at noon today (it can only be taken for 48 hours) so I am crossing my fingers and toes that things continue to stay quite as I go back on the old "nasty" medication. The "nasty" pills have awful side effects. The give me headaches, dizziness, hot flashes and cause my hands and feet to get red, swollen and tender....bleh. Supposedly these side effects get better the longer you take it and I am more than willing to tolerate this discomfort to keep from going into labor!

I sent Greg home to sleep last night. He looked exhausted. Greg had to go back to work today after spending the last 3 days/nights camped out on the sofa bed next to me. He has been amazing, watching endless episodes of How I Met Your Mother (thank you Liese), rubbing my puffy marshmallow feet, and bringing me delicious food when I just can't stomach anything on the hospital menu. He has also had the huge task of taking care of our farm (the house and dogs) which is really not so easy to do while also spending time with your bed bound wife. He is a fabulous husband and I feel extremely lucky.

I had ordered some continuing education a few weeks ago in preparation for our original hospital admission to pass the time and keep busy. I have to complete 50 hours every year to keep up my Nurse Practitioner license/ certification. So I got this HUGE book with test questions worth 61 hours of credit and figured it would keep me occupied for a while. Not so much. When I got here I started working on the pretest questions and this morning I completed and passed the post test in about 30 minutes...now what. I really thought it was going to be more time consuming. Need more activities!

Today and tomorrow are going to be important days in determining if I have to continue to stay in the hospital. My contractions have to behave for a full 24 hours since stopping the temporary medication (the clock started at noon today). If things still look calm tomorrow they will let me go home on the nasty pills and I'll just continue the bed rest there until our original admission date of March 17. If the contractions get crazy again then I will have to stay in the hospital and find some new activities to try and keep my sanity (I plan to take up knitting). Either way, the majority of March is going to be spent here so I might as well get use to the idea. I'm really not missing much, it is still "winter" in Chicago and by the time we go home in April it will be Spring and beautiful again :)

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L&D Day 3

I got shower privlages yesterday! Hospital bedrest only allows you to get up for potty breaks but now I get an entire 15 minutes in the shower, although I have to remain seated...in a chair...oh well, I'll take it!

I am still having regular contractions but the new medicine has helped decrease the intensity. I'm happier because it is a little less painful but I'm still holding out hope that they decrease the number I'm having per hour. Baby girl has been a perfect little patient showing great activity and accelerations during her monitoring. They say she is acting very grown up for her age and I couldn't be prouder!

Yesterday we had some nice visitors, a massage therapist came in and gave me some much needed back relief. With some of the contractions just 3 to 5 minutes apart I can get very sore as the day progresses! Another lady brought an Akita to visit me which made me miss my puppies but Greg is still able to go home and visit them twice each day because our house is just minutes from the hospital.

My OBs are not exactly sure why I am still contracting so much. Tomorrow our specialists will be visiting to review what has been done this weekend and hopefully give us a better game plan. I'm a big fan of our perinatology group and definitely looking forward to seeing them.

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Weekend getaway...to L&D

Greetings from the hospital! We've unexpectedly been admitted a little earlier than we had planned. For weeks my contractions have been getting more frequent and stronger. I have mentioned this to ALL my doctors several times. On Thurday I had my weekly apt with the perinatologist and sure enough my cervix had shortened. This combined with the contractions puts me at risk for preterm labor which is just not an option when you have a Vasa Previa.

So we were checked straight into L&D and I was given steroids to help baby's lungs mature. I also started meds for the contractions that gave me terrible/crazy side effects and did not help at all! I'm on a new med today so hopefully it will do the trick. They good news is we had a test done called a fetal fibronectin. If the test is negative, the likelihood of going into labor is very low. I am so pleased to announce our test was negative!!

Hopefully we can get these contractions under control and they will let me go home for a couple weeks. We weren't supposed to check into the hospital for 2 more weeks anyway and we still have so much to do to get ready! I don't even have preemie clothes for this child yet! I will have to stay on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy (33 days until c section) so poor Greg is going to busy with all the last minute preparations.

I do feel better being here in the hospital where they can keep a close eye on us. I am optomistic that our doctors can get us over this hurdle and keep us on track for the 34 week delivery. Goodness knows I am determined to keep our baby cooking until March 31st!

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Feeling Crafty

I've been working on some baby projects over the past couple of weeks that I want to share. When I first found out we were expecting I came across a "bird mobile" on Etsy that inspired the entire theme for our nursery...birds. After several google searches I actually found a free pattern for the fabric birds used in the mobile. Check it out here.

The image on the left is the original mobile I found online and the one on the right is my pink version.

To continue with the bird theme I found this adorable pattern for a bird pillow on Etsy. It was only $6, an amazing deal considering I got to customize the fabircs to match the room exactly. I definitely couldn't have found anything like this in a store!

I am currently working on refinishing a bookcase but my energy seems to be gone today (it is only 10am) and posting on the blog might just be all I can handle! We've been really busy with appointments lately and still have a pediatrician interview, neonatology consult, non stress test, and 1st baby care class to get through before the week is done...I'm pooped.

Winter Weather Activites

Not so much. The ice skating, sledding, and snow boarding are obviously off limits this year. So what is a prego to do when it is barely above zero outside....swim!

According to all my baby books swimming is a great option for activity/exercise. I've been dealing with sciatica on and off for weeks so I figured the weightlessness of a pool might be a nice change. It was! But, trying to actually swim with a big belly is very awkward. I don't know if I'll go again.

Overall, it was very entertaining for Greg if nothing else.

So this is snow.

We've been living in Chicago for 2 full years now. This is our 3rd winter and I have never seen snow like this before. On the news last night they told us to prepare for "Thunder Snow." I would have happily prepared for Thunder Snow if I knew what the heck that was!!! Greg and I were both sent home from work early to prepare. Thankfully I had just been to the grocery store over the weekend and we had plenty of food in the house.The blizzard started yesterday evening around 5pm. The snow did not fall like it normally does...instead it was more like a tornado of snow that just kept blowing on top of us. I didn't actually think we were getting much accumulation on the ground until I looked out the window this morning....19 inches! How does that even happen? Mother Nature is so powerful and we certainly felt very helpless this morning when we were unable to open our front, side, or back doors.
Thank goodness for Greg, he has been working on clearing the driveway for the last three hours. Even with our snow blower it is still a terrible job because the snow has piled so high that some of it has to be shoveled. I just went outside and my awesome hubby has moved on to helping our neighbor across the street who lives alone. Have a mentioned what a great guy Greg is lately??? He is the best.
Chicago is a hard core city, this is the first snow day that has been granted by Chicago public schools in the past 15 years. I think those poor kids deserve it! We were also given a snow day from work today. Unlike the kids in school that will have to make up this snow day at the end of the year, our snow day from work is a complete freebie...woohoo! It also happened to be my last day before maternity leave and I'm happy to spend it by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate!