the first 24 hours

My first overnight stay in a hospital ever. Whew. Talk about sleep deprivation with all the tests throughout the night. Good thing Jack went home to get some sleep!

But, I am awake now! Well sort of. Enough to type some stuff to update folks. I have been put on a dose of magnesium sulfate since yesterday to slow down the contractions. It appears to be working - but has some serious side effects on the mother - aka dizziness, nausea, fatigue, etc. They've lowered the dosage so my head is clearing somewhat. So, I blame the drugs for the typos and any incoherence in this posting.

When we arrived yesterday, my contractions were about 3 min apart and I was 1 cm dilated. Now, the contractions are about 20 min apart or something like that. They are hoping to wean me off the mag sulfate and see how we continue to progress today. I also received two shots of steroids in the last 24 hours which will help the pigglet's lungs and such develop if we do end up having an early delivery.

The doctors in the NIC unit also paid us a visit to talk about what would happen if the pigglet were delivered now. Optimistic, but still not what you want to hear as first time parents to be. Obviously, the preference is to keep the pigglet in utero for as long as possible, unless the environment is no longer safe.

So, in the meantime, we wait. I have progressed to clear liquids! Those darn ice chips...they should allow at least flavored ice chips or Rita's Water Ice! (latter will be known well to Philly folks... it's like a slush cone, but better).

I am hooked up to so many gadgets - it's crazy. Fetal monitor for the pigglet's heart beat and contractions, IV for various drugs and fluids, athrombic pumps for my legs to stimulate circulation and prevent clots (like giant blood pressure cuffs that go off ever few minutes - try sleeping through that!), and other stuff which I won't go into detaill for fear of too much information!

The care has been excellent - although there are some funny incidents with inexperience residents which leave much to be desired. The first one was pure textbook - rattling off way too many facts/complications/etc. I knew she was inexperienced...and Jack eventually told her that what she was going on about was information overload. Probably.

The second one came into my room at 4 am to repeat tests (e.g., reflexes and such), which the nurse had just done 10 min ago. Then he must have panicked about something, and they both came back in only to realize that the guy was misreading the monitor and thought my vitals were all over the place. You should have heard the nurse - it sounded like she was ready to kill him. I was half asleep at the time but could tell what was happening, and when the resident left the room, I mentioned something about how some peeple just need more training. It was pretty funny, especially from the perspective of someone who has studied doctor-patient communication.