So as you all know, I was due with Sara on Dec. 8, 2009. Minding my own beeswax, I woke up at 4:30 am on the morning of August 25 because I thought I had peed my pants. The day went on and it just wouldn't stop. I called the doc and they told me to go to the hospital to get it checked out. I was bummed because Danny & I were going to keep looking at houses that day. I went to the hospital and there were a couple of us getting checked out for the same thing. They were hoping that mine was just a weak bladder because I was the earliest along. Of course, nope. My water was leaking. They immediately put me on an IV and said they had to send me to a different hospital because they didn't have a high level NICU like UMC did. I got to go for a cool ride in the ambulance (no lights :( ) to UMC. I was all over the place at the time. I felt calm, scared, and confused. Danny and I thought the chance of a baby surviving at 25 weeks was only 5-10%. I went to UMC at night and since we were still fairly new to Tucson, I had no clue where I was. I didn't know until I left in October. Weird feeling.
This is me at 24 weeks, exactly one week before I went into the hospital.
We got to UMC at around 9 pm. Danny didn't get there until later because they kept giving him bad directions and wouldn't let him in because I wasn't in the system yet. Man was he annoyed. They immediately put me on steroids to help the baby's lungs and two meds to stop my labor. They would only stop my labor for 48 hours and then it was just up in the air. They fully expected me to have the baby within those first two days. I was so scared when I came off of the meds. I was convinced I was going to have her within a couple of hours. We were relieved to find out that she had a pretty good chance of surviving (80-90%) but her chance of complications were about as high. They gave us a tour of the NICU and that was so overwhelming. It was just a blur but I felt so sad knowing that was going to be our life. Both my sister and I were preemies. I was 6 weeks early and she was 8 weeks early. I turned out ok but my sister had a lot of problems early on including bleeding in her brain. Imagine my fear thinking my baby was going to be 15 weeks early!!
From the night of August 25, I was on complete bed rest except for the bathroom. My life was completely halted. I went from chasing my active toddler to sitting with NOTHING to do. I don't mean I didn't have anything to occupy my mind. Many people brought things to do, including the nice nurses. I had no purpose. Everyone kept saying "you're growing and protecting your baby". Yes that's true but all I had to do was sit. Luckily, both Danny's mom and my mom alternated every 2 weeks watching Noah. Lifesavers!! I was only able to see Noah and Danny for a few hours a day. A hospital room is no place for an active toddler. Danny would work until around 4 and it would take at least 45 minutes to get to the hospital and he also wanted to see Noah at night at home. It was very lonely.
I was so nervous about going into labor. With Noah I was induced, so I didn't know if my labor would be so different coming naturally. I'd heard that induction contractions can be more painful but I had no idea either way. The doctors were more surprised each day that i stayed pregnant. They said unless something went wrong with the baby or with me they would let me stay pregnant until I was 34 weeks along. That would have meant 9 weeks of bed rest! Imagine to yourself 9 weeks of just sitting there. I miss the easiness of it now, but to stay that long.... I hated it!!
This is me at 27 weeks after barely being in the hospital for 2 weeks. You can tell I'm already bored out of my mind. At least the nurses were very nice, and eventually gave me a private room with a view. For most of my stay, I stayed on the post-partum level (7th floor). L&D was on the 8th floor along with the NICU. This hospital was older. Post-partum women usually had to share a room. Yuck!! There were a few private rooms which I stayed in most of the time since I was long-term. During my stay, I moved 8 different times!!! At least it gave me something to do. I was on the 7th floor so I could see the city fairly well.
Every so often, people from church would come visit but again, we were fairly new and barely knew anyone. Most everyone at church was probably thinking "Who the heck is Lindsey?" or "I didn't know she was pregnant." That's because I was still so early and didn't show. Eventually, all the things I love to do to relax, such as reading or painting, became not so interesting because they became my work. It's hard to explain, but you enjoy them partly because you can't do them all of the time. There, that was all I had. Surprisingly, the days went really fast. That is partly because I just learned how to zone out. I became an insomniac (still am) because I had no reason or need to fall asleep at night. I could just sleep during the day. It was just wait, wait wait.....
This is way too long, so I will post the actual birth story next. Maybe after that I will be able to post Halloween 2009 by October of this year. :)
