How not to spend your Friday Night

Yesterday was a big day. Paul's basketball team was playing their cross town rival. It had been a couple of years since they played against each other. The "other team" is about a block from my school so I figured I'd stay at work until about 5 then head over for the game. Don't tell Paul but I was also thinking the game wasn't going to be close so I'd just stay until half time. Well... I was wrong. It was a VERY close game and unfortunately Paul's team lost by one. Well I figured I'd stay for part of the varsity game too. I didn't want to miss out on the action.

About halfway into the first quarter of the varsity game I started to get uncomfortable. I figured it was a combination of sitting on the bleachers for too long, it being Friday, and of course being pregnant with twins. I kind of just sucked it up and decided to leave at half time. Well as it got close to half time I became more and more uncomfortable and I started to hurt. Now I had already been into the doctor once this week with what I thought were contractions and I was thinking I was having them again. They didn't seem to worried so I thought once I got home, ate dinner, drank some water and laid down they'd go away.

Well.... they just got worse. I couldn't get comfortable. Sitting, standing, laying down it didn't matter. It was the kind of pain that if I wasn't pregnant would have me taking an Aleve and laying on my fists for the pain. So I called Paul thinking that the varsity game must be just about over. Then I waited... Then I texted him and he called back. He was hoping to go out with a friend who was at the game but I convinced him to come home.

So after a call to the doctors office which connected us with a triage nurse, we think from the hospital, we headed up to PVH. We were instructed to call and let them know that we were on our way and to head up to Labor and Delivery. We were very surprised how fast we were able to get into the hospital and put into a room. I'm not sure if it was because we called ahead or because it was approaching 10 on a Friday night and not much was going on. (Must be like call ahead seating at a restaurant, ha!)

We got into the room and they hooked up monitors for the babies' heart rates and one to see if they could detect any contractions. Well, the babies were doing fine, except they weren't cooperating and it was a little hard to keep them monitored. They tend to be fairly active at night and were moving around a lot. They were able to see some contractions, which by this time weren't as bad as they had been at home. They also checked my urine, heart rate and blood pressure which all looked normal. (The nurse did mention that I definitely was not dehydrated which can sometimes cause contractions. I have been told by some doctors that I follow directions well.) So the doctor came in to check my cervix (which is looking fine) and do a test called FFN. I can't remember what it stands for but it is looking for some sort of fetal protein. If the test is negative they are 90% sure you won't deliver in the next 2 weeks. (Mine was negative.) Then they did an ultrasound to measure the length of my cervix, which is the same as it has been for the last couple of months, also good. But I was still having contractions so I was given a shot of some sort of medicine to calm down my uterus and also given a pill to do the same thing.

The contractions stopped.. thank goodness. We were sent home with a prescription for the pill which I need to take if I feel contractions again, instructions to move up my Friday appointment to the beginning of the week and with directions to take it easy this weekend. We were there almost 2 hours and were very happy it didn't take the several hours our nurse, Erin, thought it might take. We also hope to not return in the near future. I guess the good news is that we now don't need to go tour the hospital.

Lessons learned: Rest more and call when things don't seem right.