Darek + Stacie

Well, I spoke too soon. We ended up at the hospital late last night.

Everything is fine and they sent us home after a few hours, but it was a little scary.

I’ve been having the very occasional Braxton Hicks contraction for the past month or so, but only rarely and very sporadically. Then last night, I was suddenly having them every 7-10 minutes. After two hours I called my doctor, because we figured it was better safe than sorry, and she told us to go up to the hospital.

So at 11:00pm, we headed to the hospital, checked in at the emergency entrance (because the main entrance was closed by that time), and took a wheelchair ride to L&D on the other end of the hospital. They put me in a room, gave me a gown, and hooked me up to three monitors – one for each baby’s heartbeat and one for my contractions. Except it took nearly an hour to get Baby A on the monitor – she decided it was more fun to not cooperate. Eventually we were all hooked up and spent the next three hours being monitored. They also checked my cervix and did some kind of a test that can tell you if you’re likely to go into labor within two weeks (I had no idea such a thing existed).

In the end, my cervix was great, the 2-week test came back negative, and both babies were doing great. Even though I was having regular contractions, they weren’t affecting my cervix in any way and I wasn’t showing any other signs of labor. So they sent me home with an Ambien and instructions to spend most of my time laying on my left side, drink a ton of water, and pee a lot (dehydration and a full bladder can both cause contractions). We left the hospital at 3am.

Early on, the nurse told us that they’d like the babies to stay in a few more weeks, but if they were born last night it’d be ok. And I just thought “noooooo! I’m not ready!” I’m glad they’re staying put for now.