Six Weeks Early

For those of you who are curious how Mollie came to be born six weeks early, here is the story. Saturday afternoon, I took a nap while Ben was napping. I woke up around 4 p.m. with really bad pain in my back and legs. I got out What to Expect While You're Expecting and read about how a baby can be on a nerve and cause back and leg pains. I decided this must be the problem. John hung curtains in the nursery, grilled sausages for supper, and we put Ben to bed. Sometime during the evening, I started having pains in my abdomen as well. More self-diagnosing: Braxton Hicks, perhaps? Since I'm only 34 weeks, these must be false contractions. A warm bath always makes me feel better no matter what the problem is, but even after a bath the pain continued. And they were coming frequently. Every five minutes, in fact.

It was around 10:30 p.m. and I decided to call the doctor's office and get advice from the on-call nurse. She was less than helpful telling me that the only way to determine what was going on was to go to the hospital and be examined. Well, the hospital is an hour and a half away, a long drive to be told that I am having false contractions. I didn't know what to do. But then I discovered that I was bleeding. John was on the phone with Jim. I went and told him that we needed to talk. He knew I was hurting, but didn't know how serious it was. We discussed it together, called Mama for her opinion, and decided that we did need to go to the hospital. Mama said to pack our bags, they may keep me for observation for a few days. Thankfully, I listened (perhaps for the first time). We packed clothes for ourselves and Ben. ALL of Ben's clothes were wet in the washer. I just threw some in a laundry basket still wet and then packed a box of diapers, shoes, and toiletries. We got Ben out of bed, loaded up in the car, and headed to the hospital. We called John's parents along the way so that they could meet us to get Ben. Ben was funny saying "Mama and Daddy got me out of bed" and "Big Bird went to the doctor. He hurt his arm roller skating." John sped, but did not fly.

We arrived at the hospital around 1:20 a.m. A security guard escorted us up to labor and delivery. The nurses hooked me to monitors and determined that the contractions were real. They put in an IV and started pouring fluids into me. They also gave me three shots, one every 20 minutes and a couple of pills with the last round of shots. The contractions subsided about 4:30 a.m. I was discharged from the hospital at 6 a.m. We decided to take a nap at the Elders before driving home. I started having contractions again around 9:30 a.m. This time I had instructions from the hospital to lay on my left side, drink 3-4 large glasses of water, and count the number of contractions in an hour. If it was six or more I needed to call the doctor's office. An hour later, I had had six contractions. I called the doctor's office and was told to return to the hospital. This time the doctor on call, Dr. Nichol, was on the floor and checked me (She had been at home when I was there earlier and the nurses were getting instructions by telephone). She said, "This is real. We're having a baby. You're 5 centimeters dialated." John and I were shocked. I don't know if either of us had really considered that the baby could come early. Instead, we were thinking I would be put on bedrest.

After putting in another IV and a flurry of paperwork, I finally got some pain medicine followed soon after by an epidural. Remembering how wonderful the epidural was when Ben was born, I was braver this time and sat very still. (I had been so nervous with Ben that I shook the whole time and the epidural only worked on one side for quite a while, but was fixed by delivery.) John had not had lunch so the doctor told him to go eat, he had time. But then things started happening quickly. The baby's heart rate started dropping, the nurse threw an oxygen mask on me, the doctor hurried in to check on the baby, and said to call my husband and tell him to come now. She didn't know if he would even make it back up to the fourth floor before she had to deliver. However, once Mollie got into position, her heart rate stabilized and we were able to wait on John. At 3:48 p.m. Mollie came out screaming, a welcome sound since we were worried about her lungs being delivered six weeks early.