Labor and Delivery

We had our first experience with the Anne Arundel Labor and Delivery unit last night, sooner than we would have liked.  I started having pretty consistent contractions yesterday afternoon and my Dr. recommended a trip to the hospital so she could check me out.  By the time they got me hooked up to the monitors I was having contractions about every 5 minutes.  They wanted to give me a medicine called Tributeline (sp?) but decided against that because I have a history of tachycardia.  They ended up giving me Procardia, which has WONDERFUL side effects!  It makes your heart pound, it makes you really dizzy, and it give you a killer headache!  But it also stopped the contractions.  At least the headache only bother me and not the baby.  

I was not showing signs of cervical dilation,  but the Dr. did say my cervix was very short.  I will stay on the medicine and on bedrest until at least Monday.  I see the Dr. again on Monday and hopefully at that point I will not be having any more contractions and my cervix will have grown another couple of centimeters!

Also, they performed another test on my that measures Fetal Fibronectin, something that is secreted prior to delivery.  If you have a positive test you have a 15% chance of delivering in the next 2 weeks.  If it's negative you have a 99% chance of NOT delivering in the next 2 weeks.  Mine was thankfully negative.  

That has not been an easy road for us.  Getting pregnant was a struggle and being pregnant has also been tough, but it will be so worth it in the end!