When Nature Calls

Here is a funny picture of my boys “taking care of business”.  Sometimes when nature calls, you just can’t wait!

Thankfully, this time we were able to push the “pause button” on the nature call and temporarily stave off the arrival of belly bean #2. 

Ultimately, I had to spend 2 nights in the hospital flat on my back with continuous monitoring and getting tocolytics (meds to make the uterus chill out) and steroid injections to stop this little episode of pre-term labor.  That seems to have done the trick, and the contractions have calmed down a good bit.  Hopefully that will be the last bit of drama we will have until it is closer to the time for him/her to get here!

Now are are home, and even if I am “grounded” to my bedroom, at least it’s my home!  I am set up in jail, ahem bed, with my lap top, cell-phone and huge surgery textbook (for some light reading).  I should have no excuse for not being productive!  It’s a lot harder to stay in bed than I thought it would be though.  Bryson is just dying for my attention and wants me to come see everything that he is doing.  Plus there is so much to do around the house to get ready.  There is nothing like a bout of pre-term labor to kick you into high gear for the impending arrival.  Yep- I wasn’t just getting fat these past 8 months…we really are having a baby- soon!

Of course, the goal right now is NO BABY for another 2 weeks (until I am at least 36 weeks).  So the discharge rules were for bed-rest for a week, then “light duty” for a week…   <long pause>  yeah right, light duty for a surgery resident.  Talk about an oxymoron.  It will be interesting to see how my co-residents interpret this!  But I am going to do my best.  And really, everyone in the Department of Surgery has been phenomenal so far!

After these next two weeks, according to my midwife, I can go back to my “normal activities” and I can have the baby whenever I want to.  HA.  It’s funny.  I feel like we are back to square one where we were with Bryson (remember this post?).   Well, hopefully we will maintain control a little while longer, and there will be no baby news until after July 11, when I hit the magic 36 week mark! 

Here We Go Again

I am determined to not have this baby now.

But here we are, in the hospital, for the second night, because my body is ridiculous and decided to start having contractions last night.  Of course, I am not supposed to be having a baby right now…so I was somewhat in denial that this was actually happening now.  By the time  we made it to the hospital, I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes.  As in “the real deal” labor contractions.  You may remember that, Bryson came early (not quite 36 weeks), but in the world of babies, that is not the same thing as not quite 34 weeks. which is where we are right now with belly bean #2. 

Yesterday really wasn’t a stressful day or anything, so I am not sure what I did to start all of this.  But somehow, I landed myself in the hospital on the antepartum unit, for what seems like an indefinite period of time.  They started treating me with terbutaline to stop the contractions.  And that seems to be working- until about 30 minutes before my next dose is due.  Our midwife has said that if things are totally quiet overnight, maybe we will be released tomorrow, on the stipulation that I will be on bedrest until we get close the the magic 36 week mark. 

Give me strength.  I have been sitting here for less than 24 hours and I am already stir crazy.  I cannot imagine 2 weeks of this. 

More to come…

Persistence

I am quite amused when people ask me how the “baby” is doing.  I assume they are talking about Bryson…although really, he has turned into a little boy, basically overnight.  Like most nearly- 3 year olds, he is incredibly opinionated about everything.  From his clothes/underwear of the day, to what he eats, to what washcloth he will use- everything has become a “discussion”.  I know that this is all part of being 2…but it is hard to slow down and chit-chat about which cup we are going to take when Dave and I are trying our best to rush out the door for activity X, Y, or Z. 

Most importantly, Bryson seems much happier since we pulled him out of “school”.  Our current arrangement is for Bryson to stay at home with a nanny. We hired my cousin, Emily, who is home from college for the summer and another college student to be his nanny for the summer…until I am off for maternity leave.  So far it is working pretty well.  It was a little confusing at first, since Dave works from home and Bryson really just wanted to play with his dad.  But the kinks are working out and now Bryson enjoys playing with his nanny and going on countless jaunts to the various museums/parks around Atlanta.  I think he is going to be really bored when the nanny stops and I take over.  But that won’t happen until the baby is born…so for now, he is just enjoying the summer.

Speaking of the baby…things are going well with the belly baby.  I am 33 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good.  My feet are swollen by the end of the day, but that’s not that big of a deal.  I am a little nervous though, when I think about the fact that Bryson was born when I was 35 weeks.  Needless to say, we are not ready for the big debut!  We don’t even have the crib set up. The future baby room is still acting as our guest room right now, and while the attic renovation is coming along, we aren’t to the point where we can move that room upstairs yet.  Of course, the baby will stay in our bedroom for the first few weeks- but it’s slightly unsettling to not have things more “together”.

ANYWAY…Here are some of pictures of Bryson from our vacation a few weeks ago.  This took about 5 minutes from start to finish- with several re-starts along the way…but he made it and was very proud at the end.  Talk about persistence…

I Wanna Get Over There!

Mamma- I Stuck!!!

Just keep Trying

So close!

I Did It!!