Spotting, contractions, back pain

yesterday at 2am in the morning i woke up to take my procardia and go pee and noticed some spotting. great. the last thing i wanted to do was go to the hospital at 2am in the morning. it feels like every 2 to 3 days we have to go to the hospital for some reason or another and i'm so over it!! but, it's not about me, it's about this little baby inside me so off to the hospital we went. by the time we got there i was having pretty strong contractions and lower back pain. was it back labor? i think so. once they got the contractions to stop (another dose of procardia) the back pain went away. apparently i'm taking a hefty dose of procardia for my size. the nurses on duty always want to give me 10mg every 6 hrs so i have to make sure they know to give it to me correctly. 20mg every 4 hrs. they are always shocked. but i don't seem to be having any major side effects from it so if the doc wants to give me 40mg every 2hrs i'll do it if it keeps baby from coming. they monitored me for several hours and checked my cervix (no change - whew!) so once it was safe to go they sent us home.
yesterday was a rough day. i think the bedrest is really starting to take its toll on me. i hate to be like this, but i'm having a hard time not being bitter. i think of all the people in the world that get pregnant without trying, have easy pregnancies and healthy babies. why can't i be one of them?? i would love to be able to enjoy this time in my life. i've wanted it for so long. we've been through so much to get here..... but this is my life and i'm thankful for it. enough of this pity party. i hope today is better and that yesterday was just a bad day. besides, looking at the big picture, it's really not that bad. it could be worse. i'd do it all 100 times over if it means that baby will be ok. please God, let my baby be ok.

No change is a good thing...

we met w/ dr. connelly today and she checked my cervix and everything is still the same. no change is a good thing. i don't need any more changes right now unless it's something like my cervix growing back which is not gonna happen. i seem to have had fewer contractions since i started taking the procardia every 4 hrs instead of every 6 hrs. i'm scheduled to see dr. connelly every week for the next 4 weeks so hopefully i will be able to make all of those appts with baby still safely inside of me! i'm also supposed to see dr. montgomery (the perinatologist) some time soon so i'm looking forward to that. he is an awesome doctor. john and i both feel like we are in very capable hands and that's a good feeling. :)

Happy New Year continued...

forgot to mention that they did another FFN test tonight and it was negative! yay! so we should have at least another week before baby arrives but hopefully many more than that!

Happy New Year!

well, sort of. i had some spotting so we went back to the hospital. they kept me on the monitor for a few hours and checked my cervix. it's still at 1cm but when i have a contraction, it goes to zero and starts to dilate. not good. so the dr now has me taking 20mg of procardia every 4 hrs instead of every 6 hrs. i just have to keep an eye on my blood pressure to make sure it doesn't get too low. we watched my cervix for a while as i contracted to see it change and saw the baby basically poking at my cervix like he was TRYING to get it to open! he literally had his finger poking my cervix like he was thinking, "hmmm... i think this is the way out". knock it off, baby!! the dr pushed on my stomach a little to get him to move away from my cervix and he finally moved. :)
i have an appt to see dr. connelly on wed. i'm hoping i don't have to make any trips to the hospital before then! Happy New Year!!

belly pic 28 weeks

don't worry... i was only out of bed long enough to go pee and take a quick belly pic. yay for 28 weeks! man, i need some mascara PRONTO!

see? back in bed with the little lo...

so far so good....

ahh.... it's nice not to have anything alarming happen for a couple days. no spotting, no contractions. not to say that i don't worry about it all the time still but at least things have seemed to calm down for now. today i feel very weak. i think it's because of the procardia and my level of total inactivity. maybe my blood pressure is running low again. at least i don't have the nurses coming in every 5 minutes to check my blood pressure and temperature anymore. i mean, i appreciate it and all, but it gets annoying. john is the best nurse anyway. he takes care of me better than any of the nurses ever did. i love him so much. i'm the luckiest girl in the world to have someone like him. he woke up this morning and went to del taco to get me a breakfast burrito. yummy. he went to church this morning and i'm sad that i couldn't go with him. we go to the best church in the world (sandalschurch.com) and i haven't been there for a long time. i miss it and everyone there. i miss fresh air and the outside world. i miss being able to sit up. i have to lay on my side at all times (except to eat and shower) to keep extra pressure off of my cervix. but all of this will be worth it if it means that the baby will stay put for a while longer. please baby, stay put!! at least i have lilo, my mini weiner dog, to keep me company. she's constantly by my side and doesn't mind at all that i'm stuck in bed. she'll bring me her ball sometimes and we'll play fetch for a while but mostly she's right here, snoring in my ear. i missed her when i was in the hospital. i think she missed me too. :) hopefully i'll be stuck in bed with her for many more weeks to come.

What a rollercoaster!

so.... we spent 10 days in the hospital after the dr saw that my cervix had shortened even more than before. they put me on 20mg of procardia (a smooth muscle relaxer) every 6 hrs to prevent my uterus from contracting and gave me steroids to help the baby's lungs develop in case they couldn't stop labor. luckily, they stopped labor and seemed to have things under control. they moved me from labor & delivery to the post partum area and that was "home" for the next several days. they finally dicharged me on sunday, 12/23. we got to spend christmas eve in OUR OWN BED!! it's so much better than a hospital bed or the recliner/"bed" that john had to sleep on. christmas morning was nice. our families came over to celebrate with us and i was very careful not to get up except to use the restroom. but... it didn't last long. around 3:30 on christmas day i noticed a tiny spot of blood when i used the restroom. so off to the hospital we went. we were hoping that it would be a quick trip and that they would send me back home but in the back of my mind i knew that wasn't going to happen. they hooked me up to the monitor and it showed that i was having pretty big contractions. i wasn't even feeling them!! then they checked my cervix and said that i was dialated 2cm!! WHAT!?!? they put me on magnesium and loaded me into an ambulance to go to kaiser in baldwin park (fontana was too full to take me -- kaiser riverside doesn't have the licensing to take care of a baby less than 32 wks gestation so that's why they had to transfer me). i was really scared. john followed me in the ambulance and met me in baldwin park. there we were, back in labor & delivery. i had an IV with magnesium (pretty nasty stuff), antibiotics and a catheter (didn't like that AT ALL!). after the contractions stopped they moved me to their post partum area and we stayed there for the next couple of days. we thought that since i was dialated they would keep me for a while but they sent me home yesterday. neither of us were happy with that decision since the last time we were sent home i ended up being dialted to 2cm after only 2 days. but, we had no choice so back home we went. then the drama continued this morning when i started spotting again. this time we went straight to fontana to avoid the whole ambulance ride thing. they hooked me back up to the monitor and the contractions were pretty small. after taking another dose of procardia the contractions went away. whew! they checked my cervix and it hadn't changed so they ended up sending me home again. i'm really hoping this weekend is uneventful! i'm using john's laptop right now and i'll try to keep my updates more frequent. but i'm really hoping that i don't have anything new to report for a while. my next dr appt is on wed, jan 2nd. i'm finally at 28 weeks and the next milestone that they want me to get to is 32 weeks. i'll be 32 weeks on jan 22nd and i'm going to try my best to get to that point. :) wish me luck!