Getting There

Getting There

The arrival of this baby has not at all gone how we expected.

His due date is July 24th, but on  June 22nd, I found myself having lots of what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions. By night time the contractions had formed a pattern and were getting stronger. When they started lasting 2 minutes a piece at 4 minutes apart I thought " Oh boy, I think this is it", and went into the hospital at 10 pm. 

At the hospital they gave me several shots to help stop the contractions. This only worked for 40 minutes, so they gave me an oral medicine that seemed to work, and then sent me home. The meds were supposed to last six hours, but I only made it 2 1/2 hours before I was contracting again. This time I packed a bag of clothes and headed back to the hospital with the mindset that I may be there a while. 

When I got back to the hospital they monitored me for a few hours, then decided to admit me since the labor was progressing. They started me on a 24 hour drip of magnesium sulfate to try and stop labor (which made me feel funky) so that they could put me back on the oral medication and send me home. By mid morning the next day, however, it was apparent that this plan was not going to be effective, so they called UCSF to get their opinion. 

Per recommendation of the doctor in San Francisco, they ordered a Life Flight for me, and by 2 pm they had me on a gurney in the back of an ambulance headed for the airport.

I can't say that it was the most comfortable 2 hours of my life being strapped down in a sardine can on wings (and may I say that turbulence/take off & landing is a whole different beast when you are lying down on your back!), and then riding along the 101 through San Francisco in the back of an ambulance, but the EMTs were great, and I was certainly glad to not be making the drive in a car while being in active labor. (I know Mary did it on the back of a donkey, but I have no illusions of being that kind of a rock star).

I arrived at UCSF in the late afternoon and Aaron (who drove down) did shortly afterwards. After some diliberating, the doctor decided to take me off of the magnesium drip and let me go into labor if that is what my body wanted to do since baby will be considered full term on Thursday. 

I slept all night without many contractions, and when I woke up this morning they started happening, but not very regularly. So now we are just waiting in our room with a view for the little guy to come, and I am so glad to not have anything stopping the process this time!