My New Home?

(If this post is horribly formatted, I apologize. I'm typing on an iPad.)

Labor and Delivery.  I get to hear a little nursery rhyme chime each time another couple has a healthy baby.  I've counted at least seven today.

I went to meet my friend for dinner last nig since our husbands were out of town.  I peed before I left...like normal.  Then I peed when I got to the restaurant because it had been 20 minutes and of course I needed to go again.  But this time I was bleeding.  Really bleeding.  It was basically like my period.

On the way to the hospital I forced myself not to think about the worst possibilities.  But it was so hard not to.  I had a really tough week - some pink spotting Monday - brown the rest of the week - and a huge dose of tear-inducing anxiety mid-week.  But I felt better yesterday.

I haven't taken any classes or tours (I'm only 23 weeks!) so I had no idea where to go when I got to the hospital.  At this point I could feel wetness between my legs.  A nice random pregnant lady eventually lead me to where I needed to be.

As soon as I heard baby's heartbeat, I felt immediately better.  I was still bleeding, but there was no distress either in baby or me.  All vitals were good.  But I was also having contractions.  My doc said that bleeding can cause contractions and contractions can cause bleeding, so that combined with the ultrasound mean that there is no identifiable cause for my bleeding or contractions.

But contractions are bad because they lead to labor and my baby cannot be born right now! (You can intervene at 23 weeks to try to save the baby but the prognosis is very poor. We need to get to 25 to see a much greater improvement.). I don't know what we'll do if I do go into active labor, buti sure hope it doesn't happen for a long time.

I initially took an oral drug to stop the contractions but it didn't work.  Now I'm on IV Magensium which does seem to be working.

Last night I really thought I'd be out of there in an hour or two.  Now I'm looking at a best case scenario of 3-7 days and a worst case of now through 32 weeks.  I'm most likely done teaching (after only 3 weeks of school!) I won't even get into how stressful that is right now.

My cervix is closed and a decent length.  Bleeding has stopped.  Contractions much less frequent and intense. And baby's heartbeat is perfect (and so nice to hear).

Neither Mr. GG and I are surprised to be where we are even though we never considered it.  This pregnancy is just going to be one extremely difficult thing after another and then at the end, we will have a strong, healthy baby boy that we will cherish.

I'm staying positive.  Please think some positive thoughts for us.