Back from the Hospital & Almost at Our 2nd Goal

Hello world.  Today is my first full day home from the hospital after being there for a week.

Last Monday, I went in for a regular appointment with a sonogram scheduled first.  We got to see the baby, saw that he has hair (how cool!), and then was sent downstairs to the doctor's office where the ultrasound tech said they'd have a room for me right away so that I could lay down.  We asked her what the measurements were, and she wouldn't tell us, so we knew that they we're shorter.  After waiting in the room for a few minutes, the nurses had called over to the hospital (where Sheela was), told her I was measuring 1.2 cm and was more funneled than before, and they came back and told us to go over to the hospital.  Once I got there, I was seen by the doctor---who is super abrasive, ehhhh---and also found out I was a fingertip dilated.

And so begins the journey.  I was admitted, and started on Magnesium Sulfate which makes you feel like you're almost dead.  You get soooooo tired that you don't even want to breathe because it takes way too much energy to expand your lungs--and when you look around, it takes a few minutes for your eyes to catch up.  You get insanely hot, too.  Like REALLY hot.  For days I had the thermostat set as low as it would go and it made no difference.  Taking the stuff is pretty intense I guess, so they have to take all these precautions.  You have to measure your "output" by peeing in a thing called a "hat" (ugh), they come to suck your blood every 6 hours (I totally look like a drug addict...they poked my one vein so many times it stopped giving out blood), listen to you breathe to make sure your respiratory system is good, and they have to come to check your reflexes by wackin your knee with one of those rubber hammers.  Now I have a bruised right knee haha.  They tried lowering the mag on my third day there, but I had a stressful event happen (unrelated to the baby) and my contractions went crazy again so back up it went.  After a few days they began to decrease the dosage and it made a humongous difference.

I had a bunch of visitors:

Monday and Tuesday were kind of a blur because that's when I started my medicine.  Tim came on Monday and it was very thoughtful of him to drive all the way there.

On Tuesday, Michele came and brought some goodies from the store from different people (aromatherapy roller, chocolate lip balm, snacks, little notes, supplements, etc) and Val brought a bunch of things to make me feel more at home to decorate my room.  She brought me a tempurpedic pillow with a pretty pillow case, a nice down comforter, my favorite shawl thing that I used as a drap on my bed to bring in extra color--it's soooooo pretty and she brought pictures and some art to decorate the board in my room and give me something nice to look at.  I couldn't believe how much of a difference that made, it made me SO much more comfortable and relaxed.She brought stuff that would coordinate with the colors of the room, too.  She's awesome. The nurses got such a kick out of it and they LOVED it, too. 

They dropped the mag down on Wednesday so I started to feel really good and we listened to music in the room and played dominoes when Valerie came so we just laughed and...had fun.  Weird to say in a hospital, right?  Then my contractions started to get a little nuts so after Val left that day, the doctor put my medicine back up and I became a zombie again. Andrea came, as did Ali, and they brought tons and tons and tons of food.  Like ridiculous amounts of food.  We took over pretty much the whole refrigerator in the "nourishment room" and people had literally brought me at least 8 boxes of different Kashi products, so Jared created a display on top of the armour in the room.  The nurses loved that too...some of them did some trick-or-treating in the room, and they thought that was fun, too.

Thursday was zombie day until they started lowering my meds. Ali brought me some coconut water which was swell cuz I was sooo sick of drinking the crap juice from the hospital.  They give you soda, too.  What the heck!  And caffeinated stuff.  Don't they know they shouldn't do that??  They also gave me a trans-fat laden artificially flavored hot chocolate  mix the one day, but that's besides the point.

I just rested all day without any visitors on Friday, Kevin surprised me on Saturday and brought me a crystal to hang in my window (sooo very nice) and that matched the rest of my decor, too haha, & Dad came bearing Philly Cheesesteaks again lol.

Jared's dad came on Sunday to chat.

And finally after having everyone try to get in touch with the doctor, I got released Monday afternoon.

Jared stayed overnight with me every night except for Saturday night so that was comforting to me and I got to know all of the nurses so well that they made me feel good, too.  The night Jared couldn't stay, one of the 3rd shift nurses came in and sat in the rocking chair and just talked with me for like a half an hour.  She even tucked me in :). So nice.  I think the nurses enjoyed us and they would often come in to see what was happening and to hang out and chat.  I got to know almost all the nurses really well and it was such a blessing because now they know me, we know eachother's personalities, my wishes for birth, etc, and I got to ask 52,985,985 questions about what to expect from them, them hospital, and myself when I'm in labor and right after teh baby comes.  It was an amazing crash course and a lot of good things came out of being in the hospital for that long.  I was able to eventually start to relax and it was nice to not have to think about doing anything...because I couldn't.  My job there was to do nothing and even if I wanted to, I couldn't.

Today, depending who you talk to, I am 33 weeks and 3 days pregnant so we only have a half a week to get to our goal of being able to deliver at our hospital.  Praise God that we got this far!  Our next goal is 36 weeks, because there's an awesome likelihood of Judah being really healthy and developed, and at 37 weeks I will be able to labor and deliver in the tub.  37 weeks is the ultimate goal as he was able to bake away long enough and being in the water is so important in my birth plan.  Either way though, it all boils down to having a safe and healthy child and God knows.

Fun Fact:  At our ultrasound yesterday, we found out that Judah is 5 pounds, 3 oz  (54th percentile). WOWWWWWW! and that the severe pain that I feel on my one side sometimes is his big boney knee.  Ow!  One of the nurses was feeling my belly and told me the baby must have two butts.  Haha, nope, just a butt and some knees haha.

Well, I'm sure there is more to say, but my goal is to continue to sleep and relax so I'm off to do that now.  I woke up for breakfast, went back to sleep til after 1:00, ate to feed the babe, and I'm going to sleep again now so I can get up and shower later.

See you along the journey---