32 Wks, 6 Days: Again

Back to the hospital. It went like this:

I got them to change my orders on my monitor. Instead of 6 or more contractions in an hour, they changed it to 6 or more painful or overly strong contractions in an hour. In other words, unless I hit the little marker on the monitor 6 times, I should not have to go to the hospital.

Or so I thought.

All day yesterday, I was hurting pretty badly. I took some pain medication and slept most of the day, then woke up to do my required monitoring. The nurse called me back, very concerned, saying that I had 36 true contractions, and that while she realized my orders had been changed and I didn't mark any of the contractions, she felt like she had to call my doctor. The same doctor who told me only painful contractions would count, that we would wait until 37 weeks, that they didn't care was the same doctor on call yesterday. So I thought I was safe. I understood her concern and told her to go ahead and call if she had to, but that I expected him to dismiss it.

He didn't.

They had me go in. Gave me a liter of fluid, but this time, the nurses felt so bad for me that instead of treating me like a pin cushion, they called IV Therapy. Iv Therapy makes up the Kings and Queens of Vascular Access in our hospital, and she got my IV on the first stick. I actually got my hopes up when the nurse told her to put an 18-gauge in me "in case we end up sectioning her". They also had me stop my pump while there for heartrate again.

Of course the contractions didn't stop. They called the doctor back, and he said it was okay for me to go home. Per the request of the home monitoring nurse, I called her to let her know I was home. She tried to remain professional, but could not even try to hide the exasperation in her voice. She told me her day job is still to be a L&D nurse at a large high-risk OB hospital, and that she has never seen them send someone home who was contracting over 30 times an hour. The poor woman was so flabbergasted that she was literally stammering on the phone. I found myself feeling sorry for her--she knew I didn't want to go to the hospital and was so apologetic about sending me, but was honestly concerned, only to have her worries and professional opinion completely disregarded.

And now? Now I am in complete pain. The weight of my ever-growing uterus has done things to my body that are too embarrassing to mention, and this was exacerbated by the pelvic exam and laying in a hard stretcher for hours last night. I didn't sleep last night. Finally, at about 4 AM,I took 2 pain pills and dozed for about 2 hours, only to be awakened by more pain. That's it.

I've been taking the pain meds religiously every 6 hours today, and have not even been able to move until now. Still, I cannot cough, sneeze, strain, laugh, or switch positions without this pitiful whimper that escapes my lips no matter how hard I try to control it. Each time, J and E come running to check on me. The nurse who is on today called to check on me, and told me she could hear the misery in my voice without even laying eyes on me. All I could hear was pity in hers, which I hate. I told her I would not be monitoring today. All that would do would be to put her in the professional dilemma of calling when I didn't want her to, or of being completely complacent like my doctors, against her better judgement. I don't think I could tolerate that bed again, or another pelvic exam with this pain, so I want to avoid another trip to the hospital at almost any cost. I think the only thing that could get me there now would be if I honestly thought Zachary was in some sort of danger.