First Trip to L&D

Well, this week ended up being more eventful than planned.

I worked all day Wednesday, and had a fantastic day.  One technician brought me doughnuts, another brought me an oatmeal cream pie, and another brought me a caramel apple pop.  I was a very happy pharmacist.

On the way home, as I was approaching an intersection, a car up ahead turned right on red.  The car took the turn a little slow, so I had to slow down too.  Nothing too drastic, just a gradual deceleration.  In true Gallahair fashion, I reprimanded the vehicle in front of me ("if the car behind you has to slow down, then you did it wrong!"), and next thing I know my car has been hit from behind.  A passing vehicle stopped to call 911, and the driver and passenger of the car who hit me looked up to see me exit my vehicle, belly first.  The other driver admitted fault at the scene, and then apologized approximately 50 times.

After calling Keith to come get me and speaking with the officers, I called my OB's office to see what I needed to do from there.  Since I was 34 weeks, 3 days at the time of the accident, the on-call OB asked that I come in to L&D to be monitored for four hours.  In the triage room, I got hooked up to a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor, and we discovered that I was contracting every 2 to 4 minutes.  I had no idea, since the vast majority of the contractions were ones I couldn't feel.  Gideon was as wiggly and active as ever, and looked great on the monitors, however, the OB was not happy with my contractions being so close together.  After reviewing my monitors, the OB decided that I needed to be admitted for extended monitoring- 24 hours from the time of the collision.

After IV placement and a lengthy ultrasound to rule out damage to the placenta, I finally got to go to "sleep."  (Fact- no one sleeps in hospitals.  If you get a good night's sleep, then someone isn't doing their job).  I got a few hours rest off and on, then got to see the Doctor around 5:30.  She confirmed that Gideon looked wonderful, but that my contractions were still too close together.  They slowed a little as the day went on, but stayed pretty consistent, even with IV fluids and time on my left side.  However, since I felt fine, Gideon looked great, I'm not dilated, and my contractions were not painful, I got sent home 24 hours after the accident with no activity restrictions.

We'll get a rental car tomorrow and will start the insurance headache this coming week.

Lessons I learned from the L&D trip...
1) I need to pack my hospital bag ASAP.  Sleeping in contacts was no good.
2) I've never been so worried about someone as I was for Gideon.  I suppose this is a good initiation to motherhood.
3) L&D has an amazing nursing staff, and I'm so glad they'll be taking care of me and Gideon in a few weeks.

A few weeks, Gideon.  Mind your mommy and stay put! :)